Tech media outlet NeoWin published a blog post on September 10th, reporting that Microsoft has announced the gradual phase-out of the VB scripting language in Windows and urging users to prepare to migrate their legacy VBA projects as soon as possible.

VB, short for Visual Basic, is a scripting language released by Microsoft about 30 years ago. It was once widely used for Windows system automation, but in recent years, it has become a malware attack vector and is therefore targeted for phase-out.

The VB retirement process will be divided into three phases:

• The first phase has already been implemented and is likely to last until 2026 or 2027. During this period, VB will be enabled by default as a "Feature on Demand" feature, and existing projects will not be affected.
• The second phase will disable the feature, requiring users to manually enable it.
• The third phase will completely remove VB from all versions of Windows, directly impacting automation scripts and regular expression calls that rely on it.

For VBA developers who rely on VB to call external .vbs scripts or regular expression libraries, Microsoft recommends adjusting this approach as soon as possible.

Beginning with Office version 2508, the RegExp class is included by default, allowing you to continue using regular expression functionality even when VB is disabled, though a Microsoft 365 subscription is required. Developers can call it directly from the Visual Basic Editor without loading the vb.dll.

Microsoft has also provided a technical guide on its official blog detailing how to bind and implement the new RegExp class in VBA projects. The company specifically advises developers to review and update their project code as soon as possible to ensure continued functionality in an environment where VB is disabled or removed in the future.