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Written by a Microsoft insider and well-respected Visual Basic expert, Matthew Curland's Advanced Visual Basic 6: Power Techniques for Everyday Programs is a unique guide to extending the reach of VB into COM and object design. This compendium of tips and strategies for doing more in VB is perfect for intermediate to advanced developers who seek to overcome bottlenecks in performance and functionality in their favorite programming tool. The underlying message is that VB lets you work more efficiently with Microsoft COM if you implement a few extra routines that look under its hood. The more notable techniques use memory more efficiently (including code that creates large numbers of objects faster). More advanced readers will appreciate the in-depth guide to building COM objects programmatically within VB. (The book shows you how to create lightweight COM objects by using custom routines.) For the real guru, there's even a section on how to use inline assembly language within VB. Later sections turn to a host of techniques for multithreading, doing more with windows, and how to manage and customize COM-type libraries for successful real-world deployment. Armed with these custom routines and an expert's-eye view of VB internals, you'll be able to get more out of VB with faster, more versatile programs. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: * Tips and strategies for extending Visual Basic by using COM * VB pointers and memory management * Extending VB arrays (accessing underlying SAFEARRAY COM objects and speeding up array performance) * Accessing the IUnknown COM interface from within VB * Binding names and COM vtables in VB * Improving code reuse by using aggregation in VB (overriding functions in child classes and simulating polymorphism) * Improving object cleanup in VB (circular, weak, and strong references and strategies for improving memory use in class hierarchies) * Using COM class factory APIs within VB * Loading DLLs and OCX controls directly * Lightweight COM objects in VB * Strategies for creating large numbers of objects efficiently * Accessing the VB Running Object Table (ROT) * Calling function pointers in VB * Simulating inline assembly instructions * Threads in VB (apartment models, worker and UI threads, and synchronization tips) * Improving VB performance with strings * Generating and customizing type libraries * Binary compatibility of COM objects * Tips for working with windows in VB (subclassing, custom window creation, and windowless controls) * VBoost (custom library of advanced VB routines)