What would be the futureproof upgrade for Visual Basic 6?

[Anchundan]

The company I work for have used Visual Basic 6 for years, but they are thinking about upgrading to something more up to date, so we can program some in-house software (not web-related) for Windows Vista.

Does Visual Studio 2008 contain the latest version of Visual Basic?

And is there going to be a whole new learning curve to get myself up to speed with the differences between the two?

The in-house software often involves writing software to communicate with PLC's, controller cards and measurement cards.

 

[Anchundan]

Oh god - not liking the sound if this! (But thanks for the advice!)

We currently have a variety of software. Some uses the MSComms control to talk to devices directly attached to a serial port.
Some use VB6 compatible controls supplied with the controller cards
Some use controls written for us by 3rd parties, written in C++, which we use to communicate to certain PLC's.

I've never learned C as VB6 was so easy to learn. I've a feeling this will become a big headache - maybe better to just stick with VB6 and try to get things to work in Windows Vista?

Or spend the time teaching myself C# - is this included in the VS2008 package?