---
title: "Use VB.NET functionality from within C#"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/2/18/use-vbnet-functionality-from-within-c.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/2/18/use-vbnet-functionality-from-within-c.html"
published: "2003-02-18T08:54:00"
updated: "2003-02-18T08:54:00"
tags: []
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "How: 1) Add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic Runtime frim the \".NET\" references menu 2) Add a Using directive : \"using Microsoft.VisualBasic;\" Voila! you have access to all of VB.NET's functionality, including…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Use VB.NET functionality from within C\#

By Roy Osherove February 18, 2003

**Historical article** · Originally published February 18, 2003; technical details may be outdated.

How:

1) Add a reference to Microsoft.VisualBasic Runtime frim the ".NET" references menu

2) Add a Using directive : "using Microsoft.VisualBasic;"

Voila! you have access to all of VB.NET's functionality, including 'Interaction.Inputbox()' and so on.

Being a VB programmer at heart, this is great news, although i suspect i will want to really get to know all of C# dialects for doing things before i use these shortcuts. however, it is nice to know that instead of creating a form that accepts user text as input and returns a dialogresult, i can just use good ol' "InputBox()" and save the trouble...

Another nice part is, that since you the VB.NET runtime is already a part of the Core Framework, there is no overhead in referencing this library. you get it for free!


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
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### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/