Reference · 08
Visual Basic Timeline: 1988–2026
Every release, codename, support deadline and deprecation in the life of the BASIC family (one page), no scrolling battles required (some scrolling required).
Thirty-eight years, one idea, four dialects. The timeline below is the depot's canonical chronology: the prehistory at Cooper's studio, the six classic versions, the .NET rupture, and the long maintenance era that continues today. Each era has its own longread: the early years in the complete history, the people in the Cooper profile, the dialects in their respective deep dives, and the afterlife throughout the depot.
Tripod
Alan Cooper demonstrates his visual shell builder to Bill Gates: "a shell construction set". Microsoft acquires the technology; the internal project is code-named Thunder.
Visual Basic 1.0
May 1991. The Toolbox, form designer, Properties window and event-driven code window arrive in one box. Rapid application development gets its product.
Visual Basic 2.0
November 1992. Performance, ODBC support, professional editions. The tool starts its corporate ascent.
Visual Basic 3.0 (and VBA is born)
VB3 bundles the Jet engine and DAO, marrying the language to databases. The same year, Excel 5.0 ships with Visual Basic for Applications, the dialect that will outlive them all.
Visual Basic 4.0
Windows 95 year. Sixteen and 32-bit editions in one box, class modules, OLE Automation servers. BASIC becomes a component platform.
VBScript
Ships in Internet Explorer 3.0, then in IIS as the language of Active Server Pages. Its future is in server rooms, not browsers.
Visual Basic 5.0
Native-code compilation by default and user-created ActiveX controls. The last objections to "toy language" are retired.
Visual Basic 6.0
Mid-1998, the centrepiece of Visual Studio 6.0. ADO, mature tooling, the runtime that Windows will carry for decades. Peak classic.
Visual Basic .NET
February 2002. Same keywords, new machine: the CLR, real object orientation, garbage collection. The community splits: see the Great Split.
Mainstream support ends for the VB6 IDE
A public "save classic VB" petition gathers thousands of signatures. Microsoft holds the line: new development on VB.NET, old EXEs on the runtime.
Extended support ends
The VB6 IDE reaches end of life. The runtime's "It Just Works" commitment keeps every compiled EXE running on future Windows, Vista through 11 and counting.
twinBASIC announced
An independent project begins building a modern, VB6/VBA-compatible compiler: the community's most serious attempt to take the classic dialect forward.
"The future of Visual Basic"
Microsoft states the new equilibrium: VB remains supported and stable, but language innovation concentrates on C#. The maintenance era is official.
VBScript deprecated
October 2023. After 27 years, the scripting dialect begins a staged retirement, available, then disabled by default, then removed. PowerShell inherits the server room.
The state of the family
VBA still ships in Microsoft 365. The VB6 runtime still ships in Windows 11. VB.NET still ships in Visual Studio. The classic dialect lives on through twinBASIC and a community mapped in our ecosystem guide.
Corrections are welcome, this is a reference page and we hold it to reference standards: contact the depot. For the stories behind the dates, start with the complete history; for the systems still running the era, see Migrating VB6 Applications Today.