First of all you have to answer what kind of application you would like to create, then you may select the proper tool.
1) Visual FoxPro discontinuation does not mean you have to switch somewhere else just now and immediatelly. VFP applications will work correctly in at least one future operating system and they will work with no restrictions in current operating systems forever... VFP is the most efficient language to process local data.
2) Visual Studio is rather different world than FoxPro. Yes, you should start learnig it step by step as soon as possible and you'll find its data access is not as easy and simple as VFP data access but it works and many applications is running in production stage already.
Visual Studio can even access free DBF tables via ODBC or ADO or several more ways, these data tables can be in any directory but you have to realize this data access becomes obsolete. Visual Studio is oriented to remote data accessed on-line, obviously placed in some WAN data storage and handled by SQL engine. To switch data storage obviously means just connection string update.
And be ready to do everything differently. SQL SELECT is the only connection between different development environments.
