Release History for Visual Basic
May 20, 1991: Introducing Visual Basic 1.0 for Windows
Microsoft announces Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows® at Windows World 1991 in
Atlanta.
September 1, 1992: Visual Basic for MS-DOS Scheduled for
Release
Microsoft announces Microsoft Visual Basic for MS-DOS® in
Standard and Professional editions. Like Visual Basic for Windows, this
version combines the ease of graphical design with the power and versatility
of traditional programming. Developers simply draw the user interface
and attach code that responds to events.
November 2, 1992: Visual Basic 2.0 for Windows Is Made
Available
Microsoft announces the availability of Visual Basic for Windows
2.0 (Professional and Standard editions). It includes more than 300 new
features and enhancements for building faster applications, access to
advanced features of Windows, and greater developer productivity.
May 14, 1993: Visual Basic 3.0 Standard and Professional Editions Are Available
Microsoft announces worldwide availability of Visual Basic for Windows 3.0 (both Standard
and Professional editions). Version 3.0 provides easy access to a wide variety of data sources by
integrating the Microsoft Access Database for Windows 1.1 database engine and the ability to
leverage investments in commercial applications through Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
2.0. Also added are new tools, new controls, greater ease of use, and an enhanced customer control
standard.
June 29, 1993: Visual Basic Will Be Integrated in Excel 5.0 and Microsoft Project
4.0, Scheduled to Ship in the Fall
In his keynote address at PC Expo, Bill Gates announces
that Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) will be
integrated in Microsoft Excel 5.0 and Microsoft Project 4.0. Both
are scheduled to ship in the fall. Visual Basic will serve as the
common macro language in future versions of applications for
Windows and the Macintosh. A common macro language for
applications and OLE 2.0 are both important elements in Microsoft’s vision and strategies for
application programmability—which will give customers the ability to integrate applications,
automate tasks, and create custom solutions. VBA has the same flexible and powerful development
engine that has made Visual Basic a popular, award-winning programming technology. The
development community using Visual Basic includes a worldwide infrastructure of hundreds of
thousands of value-added resellers and third-party developers. These developers can now
immediately leverage their knowledge of Visual Basic and use Microsoft Office as a solutions
development platform.
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November 14, 1994: Visual Basic 4.0 Appears at COMDEX
Visual Basic version 4.0 for Windows is demonstrated at Fall/COMDEX ’94 in Las Vegas.
The demonstration focuses on its role as the first 32-bit Windows-based application to host OLE
custom controls (OCXs)—reusable software components defined by the OLE specification.
September 12, 1995: Three Versions of Visual Basic 4.0 Will Be Available
Visual Basic 4.0 for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows NT®, and
Windows 95 is announced. In addition to enhanced Standard and
Professional editions, a new Enterprise Edition is introduced to meet the
needs of corporate and team developers. All versions include enhanced
OLE technology support, improved data access, an open visual-
development environment, and seamless migration to Windows 95 and
Windows NT for existing applications.
December 7, 1995: Visual Basic Scripting Edition Is Announced
Microsoft announces Microsoft Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript), an Internet
scripting language based on Visual Basic. VBScript is a high-performance scripting language
designed to create active online content on the Web. VBScript allows developers to link and automate
a wide variety of objects in Web pages, including OLE objects. VBScript becomes a freely licensed
proposed specification available to the entire Internet community.
February 3, 1997: Visual Basic Programming System Version 5.0, Professional
Edition Is Unveiled
Microsoft unveils the Visual Basic programming system version 5.0,
Professional Edition—the latest version of the world’s most popular rapid
application development (RAD) tool. Visual Basic 5.0 features a number
of significant performance and productivity enhancements that will help
make developers more efficient and end-user solutions faster and more
flexible. Advanced features—such as native code compilation, high-speed
database access, and an improved development environment—make Visual
Basic 5.0 the most powerful version to date. In addition, the component
creation capabilities of the Microsoft ActiveX® technologies in Visual Basic
5.0 will allow the more than 3 million developers using Visual Basic to
quickly create component-based applications targeting the Internet, intranets, and traditional client/
server environments.
March 10, 1997: Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition Is Available
The final released version of Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition is available. The
Control Creation Edition is the easy way to create ActiveX Controls for the Internet, intranets, and
client/server applications.
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June 15, 1998: Visual Basic 6.0 Is Announced
Microsoft announces version 6.0 of Visual Basic, the popular RAD
tool and member of the Microsoft Visual Studio® version 6.0 development
tools suite. Visual Basic 6.0 features provide graphical, integrated data
access to any ODBC or OLE DB data source, and additional database-
design tools for Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server™–based databases.
New Web development features bring the easy-to-use, component-based
programming model of Visual Basic to the creation of HTML– and
Dynamic HTML (DHTML)–based applications. These new features—
combined with performance optimizations, simplified application
deployment and debugging, and support for Microsoft server
technologies—make Visual Basic 6.0 an ideal choice for building scalable enterprise applications.
September 2, 1998: Visual Studio 6.0 for Windows 95 and Windows NT Is
Available
Visual Studio 6.0, the complete suite of tools for building scalable enterprise solutions, is
available. The Visual Studio 6.0 suite includes version 6.0 of Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C++®,
Microsoft Visual FoxPro®, Microsoft Visual InterDev® Web, and Microsoft Visual J++®.
Coinciding with the launch at Developer Days ’98, more than 115 top companies announce support
for Visual Studio 6.0.
April 28, 1999: VBA 6.0 and the VBA SDK 6.0 Are Available
The VBA version 6.0 development environment and VBA software development kit (SDK)
version 6.0 are available to third-party software vendors through the VBA licensing program. VBA
6.0 is a powerful development technology for rapidly customizing packaged applications and is a
core component of Office 2000.
February 15, 2000: Microsoft Primes Millions of Developers for the Next
Generation of Visual Basic
Steve Ballmer, newly appointed president and CEO of Microsoft Corporation, speaks to
more than 2,000 developers in his keynote address at the Visual Basic Insiders Technical Summit
(VBITS), delivering on the Microsoft vision of the programmable Web and reinforcing the company’s
deep commitment to Visual Basic developers.
July 11, 2000: Microsoft Delivers First .NET Platform Tools for Building XML
Web Services
In his keynote address at the eighth Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC)
2000, Paul Maritz, group vice president of the Platforms Group at
Microsoft, discloses the initial developer availability to PDC attendees
of the Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
The latest version of the world’s most widely used development tools,
Visual Studio .NET provides native support for drag-and-drop
development of XML Web services. Together, these two products
provide developers with a high-productivity, multiple-language environment for rapidly building,
delivering, and integrating XML Web services on the Microsoft .NET platform.
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November 13, 2000: Microsoft Announces the Availability of Visual Studio .NET
Beta 1
In his COMDEX/Fall 2000 kickoff keynote address, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software
Architect Bill Gates announces the public availability of the first beta version of Visual Studio
.NET and the .NET Framework, two key
technologies for enabling developers to build
XML Web services on the .NET platform.
XML Web services are applications and
components made available over the Web
using XML and the Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP), and are the key programmable building blocks of the next-generation Internet.
Microsoft makes Visual Studio .NET Beta 1 and the .NET Framework broadly available to millions
of customers and industry partners.
February 13, 2002: Microsoft Announces the Availability of Visual Studio .NET
Final Released
Note: All the information is derived from Microsoft WebSite
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