Microsoft released Visual Basic version 5.0 (February 1997) exclusively for 32-bit versions of Windows.
Visual Basic is a third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft for its COM programming model first released in 1991. VB 5 was initially released in 1997.
Programmers who preferred to write 16-bit programs were able to import programs written in Visual Basic 4.0 to Visual Basic 5.0, and Visual Basic 5.0 programs can easily be converted with Visual Basic 4.0. Visual Basic 5.0 also introduced the ability to create custom user controls, as well as the ability to compile to native Windows executable code, speeding up calculation-intensive code execution. A free, downloadable Control Creation Edition was also released for creation of ActiveX controls. It was also used as an introductory form of Visual Basic: a regular .exe project could be created and run in the IDE, but not compiled.
