Non .Net Programming

This is going to sound like a stupid question and i feel a little stupid for asking it. But here goes.

I have a request for a program that will directly follow an unattended xp install, it will look at the computer name and find a corresponding entry in an xml document (or a just plain text file) and then send out an email based on that info. At any rate i developed a solution in vb.net 2.0 only to find out that the 2.0 framework wouldn't be included in the install. Up until now i've used either .net or vb6 to develop an application. Not counting my college c++ days. So i'm kind of at loss for how to handle this.

I'm about to go back and rewrite this app in vb6 but besides that, how would you guys go about solving this problem? Vb6 will work but its old and clunky :). I guess what i'm really after is trying to see if there is a hole in my skill set and if so what to fill it with.

Are you sure the VB6 runtimes are included on a Windows XP machine? Anyway, the best wya to deal with this is to drop down and use C++ to do it. It's not that difficult and it's what it's meant for: few dependencies.

I would keep away from VB6 in case the runtimes are not installed by default but also because you may need to run it on a system that does not include the runtimes and then you're up the creek without a paddle again.

Agreed, you need something that compiles with no dependencies; and if you know even a little C++ I'd also go with that.

ok another stupid question, the only c++ experience i have is on an old unix machine. Would you use visual studios to develop a c++ app with or is there another way?

Unmanaged C++ can be written in VS, and that's what you want. Of course, if your experience is old enough, you will find that C++ has changed, though only slightly. It wasn't all that long ago that MS C++ wasn't all that compliant with the ANSI C++ standard, but the last time I heard anything about the topic, MS is pretty compliant with the standard.