What you will be able to accomplish here will largely depend on the version of Visual Basic you have.  Some will let you create a DLL, others won't.

The Professional and Enterprise Editions will let you create and compile a DLL.

The VB5 Control Creation Edition and the VB6 Working Model Edition (comes on the CD-ROM with the text you purchased for your Visual Basic course) will not let you create a DLL.  You can create a Standard EXE, but cannot compile it.

The Student (available at your college bookstore) and Learning (available at your local bookstore) Editions I don't know about.  If anyone has information on the capabilites of these products, please comment in the Bulletin Board.

If you have none of these, you can download the VB5 Control Creation Edition for free.

The quickest way to find out is to start Visual Basic.  Usually, the "New Project" window will appear automatically at start-up.  If it does not, then click "File" then "New Project" to get the window.  Check the window for the types of projects you can create.  What you are looking for is "ActiveX DLL."  If you do not have that, then you should at least see "Standard EXE."

This lecture will focus on creating the code specific for the DLL, which can be done regardless of the version of Visual Basic you have.  Testing your code will be require a different process, depending on your version.  If you cannot create an ActiveX DLL, there is a lecture at the end of this module that explains how to do that.

To get started:  
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If you have "ActiveX DLL" as a choice, select it and click on OK.

If you do not have "ActiveX DLL" as a choice, select "Standard EXE" and click OK.  Then, click on "Project" and "Add Class Module."

In both cases, a code window should open.  Your "Project Explorer" window should have a grouping for "Class Modules" and should have "Class1" in it.  Make sure to set the Name properties of both the Project and the Class file appropriately, then save your project.  Class modules are saved with a "cls" extension.

Finally, you need to add the ADO library:

Click on "Project"
Click on "References"
Scroll through the list until you find "ActiveX Data Objects 2.x Library," where the x is a 0, 1, or 5.
Place a checkmark in the box on the left.
Click on "OK."

The ADO library is actually a DLL.
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