Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Official

Before layout components in React or Angular, we had Master Pages. Define your site header and footer once, and every content page just inherited the layout. It felt revolutionary.

#RetroDev #ASP.NET #WebForms #VisualStudio2010 microsoft visual web developer 2010 express

Or better yet — tell me in the comments: what was the first web project you built with Visual Web Developer Express? — Mike, old-school .NET dev Before layout components in React or Angular, we

April 14, 2026

I was digging through an old external drive today and found a backup of a project I built over 15 years ago using . It hit me just how much web development has changed — and how much I actually miss that era. #RetroDev #ASP

Microsoft officially ended support for Visual Web Developer 2010 Express years ago, and ASP.NET Web Forms is in maintenance mode. But for many of us, VWD 2010 was our first real introduction to professional web dev without paying $1,000 for a license. If you’re a younger dev and you’ve never seen it, try spinning up a VM with Windows 7 and installing VWD 2010 Express (you can still find the ISO on archive.org). Build a simple GridView with paging and editing. You’ll understand where modern tools like Blazor got their inspiration.