A Brief History of MFC

MFC Faq V5.6

2025-11-18

Written by: xiaobin

Basic

MFC 2.0 was a 16-bit release that shipped with Visual C++ 1.0. It added the Document/View framework on top of MFC 1.0 and also added OLE 1.0 classes, message maps and common dialog classes. This was a 16-bit release released on 02/93.

Document Architecture

• CCmdTarget
• CWinApp

Moved in hierarchy, use to be derived from CObject

• CDocTemplate
• CSingleDocTemplate
• CMultiDocTemplate
• CDocument
• COleDocument
• COleClientDoc
• COleServerDoc

Views

• CView
• CScrollView
• CFormView
• CEditView

Improved

• MFC 3.1
• MFC 9.0

MFC 3.1

MFC 3.1 shipped with Visual C++ 2.1 in 1/95. It introduced MAPI, WinSock and Windows Common Controls. The MFC toolbar, status bar, etc.. still live in MFC.

• Windows Common Controls: Classes All of these are CWnd derived

Ref

• MFC 1.0
• MFC 2.5
• MFC 3.0
• MFC 4.0