To what extent do you think you'll update the site? I recently went through a similar process updating a 2003 website to current standards and also developed an API version, all with VB. I started with a hosted VM then went to a dedicated server, keeping the VM for development. I bought books on VB in ASP.Net 4.5 but found that they weren't as basic as I needed them to be - it was easier to use my old books on v2.0 and v3.5 to get started and then move on as I developed new features, finally swapping to an API basis for the most advanced versions of the site. I would recommend you get VS2019 as a start - is there any reason why you can't move from VS2015?