microsoft visual studio not to be confused with visual studio code microsoft visual studio is an integrated development environment ide from microsoft it is used to develop computer programs as well as websites web apps web services and mobile apps visual studio uses microsoft software development platforms such as windows api windows forms windows presentation foundation windows store and microsoft silverlight it can produce both native code and managed code visual studio includes a code editor supporting intellisense the code completion component as well as code refactoring the integrated debugger works both as a sourcelevel debugger and a machinelevel debugger other builtin tools include a code profiler forms designer for building gui applications web designer class designer and database schema designer it accepts plugins that enhance the functionality at almost every levelincluding adding support for source control systems like subversion and git and adding new toolsets like editors and visual designers for domainspecific languages or toolsets for other aspects of the software development lifecycle like the team foundation server client team explorer visual studio supports 36 different programming languages and allows the code editor and debugger to support to varying degrees nearly any programming language provided a languagespecific service exists builtin languages include c ruby nodejs and m among others is available via plugins java and j were supported in the past the most basic edition of visual studio the community edition is available free of charge the currently supported visual studio version is 2017 microsoft announced 2019 on june 6 2018 with its release timing to be shared in the coming months promising to deliver quickly and iteratively architecture visual studio does not support any programming language solution or tool intrinsically instead it allows the plugging of functionality coded as a vspackage when installed the functionality is available as a service the ide provides three services svssolution which provides the ability to enumerate projects and solutions svsuishell which provides windowing and ui functionality including tabs toolbars and tool windows and svsshell which deals with registration of vspackages in addition the ide is also responsible for coordinating and enabling communication between services the services can then be consumed for creation of other packages which add functionality to the visual studio ide support for programming languages is added by using a specific vspackage called a language service a language service defines various interfaces which the vspackage implementation can implement to add support for various functionalities visual studio does not include any source control support built in but it defines two alternative ways for source control systems to integrate with the ide visual studio supports running multiple instances of the environment each with its own set of vspackages the instances use different registry hives see msdns definition of the term registry hive in the sense used here to store their configuration state and are differentiated by their appid application id the instances are launched by an appidspecific exe that selects the appid sets the root hive and launches the ide vspackages registered for one appid are integrated with other vspackages for that appid the various product editions of visual studio are created using the different appids the visual studio express edition products are installed with their own appids but the standard professional and team suite products share the same appid consequently one can install the express editions sidebyside with other editions unlike the other editions which update the same installation the professional edition includes a superset of the vspackages in the standard edition and the team suite includes a superset of the vspackages in both other editions the appid system is leveraged by the visual studio shell in visual studio 2008 features code editor like any other ide it includes a code editor that supports syntax highlighting and code completion using intellisense for variables functions methods loops and linq queries the code editor is used for all supported languages the visual studio code editor also supports setting bookmarks in code for quick navigation other navigational aids include collapsing code blocks and incremental search in addition to normal text search and regex search the code editor supports code snippets which are saved templates for repetitive code and can be inserted into code and customized for the project being worked on a management tool for code snippets is built in as well these tools are surfaced as floating windows which can be set to automatically hide when unused or docked to the side of the screen the visual studio code editor also supports code refactoring including parameter reordering variable and method renaming interface extraction and encapsulation of class members inside properties among others visual studio features background compilation also called incremental compilation debugger microsoft visual studio debugger visual studio includes a debugger that works both as a sourcelevel debugger and as a machinelevel debugger it works with both managed code as well as native code and can be used for debugging applications written in any language supported by visual studio in addition it can also attach to running processes monitor and debug those processes multithreaded programs are also supported the debugger can be configured to be launched when an application running outside the visual studio environment crashes the debugger allows setting breakpoints which allow execution to be stopped temporarily at a certain position and watches which monitor the values of variables as the execution progresses designer visual studio includes a host of visual designers to aid in the development of applications these tools include windows forms designer the windows forms designer is used to build gui applications using windows forms layout can be controlled by housing the controls inside other containers or locking them to the side of the form controls that display data like textbox list box and grid view can be bound to data sources like databases or queries databound controls can be created by dragging items from the data sources window onto a design surface the ui is linked with code using an eventdriven programming model the designer generates either c or vbnet code for the application wpf designer the wpf designer codenamed cider was introduced with visual studio 2008 like the windows forms designer it supports the drag and drop metaphor it is used to author user interfaces targeting windows presentation foundation it supports all wpf functionality including data binding and automatic layout management it generates xaml code for the ui the generated xaml file is compatible with microsoft expression design the designeroriented product the xaml code is linked with code using a codebehind model web designerdevelopment visual studio also includes a website editor and designer that allows web pages to be authored by dragging and dropping widgets it is used for developing aspnet applications and supports html css and javascript it uses a codebehind model to link with aspnet code from visual studio 2008 onwards the layout engine used by the web designer is shared with microsoft expression web there is also aspnet mvc support for mvc technology as a separate download class designer the class designer is used to author and edit the classes including its members and their access using uml modeling the class designer can generate c and vbnet code outlines for the classes and methods it can also generate class diagrams from handwritten classes data designer the data designer can be used to graphically edit database schemas including typed tables primary and foreign keys and constraints it can also be used to design queries from the graphical view mapping designer from visual studio 2008 onwards the mapping designer is used by linq to sql to design the mapping between database schemas and the classes that encapsulate the data the new solution from orm approach adonet entity framework replaces and improves the old technology other tools open tabs browser the open tabs browser is used to list all open tabs and to switch between them it is invoked using ctrltab properties editor the properties editor tool is used to edit properties in a gui pane inside visual studio it lists all available properties both readonly and those which can be set for all objects including classes forms web pages and other items object browser the object browser is a namespace and class library browser for microsoft net it can be used to browse the namespaces which are arranged hierarchically in managed assemblies the hierarchy may or may not reflect the organization in the file system solution explorer in visual studio parlance a solution is a set of code files and other resources that are used to build an application the files in a solution are arranged hierarchically which might or might not reflect the organization in the file system the solution explorer is used to manage and browse the files in a solution team explorer team explorer is used to integrate the capabilities of team foundation server the revision control system into the ide and the basis for microsofts codeplex hosting environment for open source projects in addition to source control it provides the ability to view and manage individual work items including bugs tasks and other documents and to browse tfs statistics it is included as part of a tfs install and is also available as a download for visual studio separately team explorer is also available as a standalone environment solely to access tfs services data explorer data explorer is used to manage databases on microsoft sql server instances it allows creation and alteration of database tables either by issuing tsql commands or by using the data designer it can also be used to create queries and stored procedures with the latter in either tsql or in managed code via sql clr debugging and intellisense support is available as well server explorer the server explorer tool is used to manage database connections on an accessible computer it is also used to browse running windows services performance counters windows event log and message queues and use them as a datasource preemptive protectiondotfuscator community edition visual studio includes a free light version of dotfuscator by preemptive solutions which obfuscates and hardens applications to help secure trade secrets ip reduce piracycounterfeiting protect against tampering and unauthorized debugging dotfuscator works with all flavors of net including aspnet xamarin unity and uwp text generation framework visual studio includes a full text generation framework called t4 which enables visual studio to generate text files from templates either in the ide or via code aspnet web site administration tool the aspnet web site administration tool allows for the configuration of aspnet websites visual studio tools for office visual studio tools for office is a sdk and an addin for visual studio that includes tools for developing for the microsoft office suite previously for visual studio net 2003 and visual studio 2005 it was a separate sku that supported only visual c and visual basic languages or was included in the team suite with visual studio 2008 it is no longer a separate sku but is included with professional and higher editions a separate runtime is required when deploying vsto solutions extensibility see also list of microsoft visual studio addins and visual studio extensibility visual studio allows developers to write extensions for visual studio to extend its capabilities these extensions plug into visual studio and extend its functionality extensions come in the form of macros addins and packages macros represent repeatable tasks and actions that developers can record programmatically for saving replaying and distributing macros however cannot implement new commands or create tool windows they are written using visual basic and are not compiled extensions are supported in the standard and higher versions of visual studio 2005 express editions do not support hosting extensions visual studio 2008 introduced the visual studio shell that allows for development of a customized version of the ide the visual studio shell defines a set of vspackages that provide the functionality required in any ide on top of that other packages can be added to customize the installation the isolated mode of the shell creates a new appid where the packages are installed these are to be started with a different executable it is aimed for development of custom development environments either for a specific language or a specific scenario the integrated mode installs the packages into the appid of the professionalstandardteam system editions so that the tools integrate into these editions the visual studio shell is available as a free download after the release of visual studio 2008 microsoft created the visual studio gallery it serves as the central location for posting information about extensions to visual studio community developers as well as commercial developers can upload information about their extensions to visual studio net 2002 through visual studio 2010 users of the site can rate and review the extensions to help assess the quality of extensions being posted an extension is stored in a vsix file internally a vsix file is a zip file that contains some xml files and possibly one or more dlls one of the main advantages of these extensions is that they do not require administrator rights to be installed rss feeds to notify users on updates to the site and tagging features are also planned supported products microsoft visual c microsoft visual c is microsofts implementation of the c and c compiler and associated languagesservices and specific tools for integration with the visual studio ide it can compile either in c mode or c mode for c as of version 157 it conforms to c17 the c implementation of visual studio 2015 is still not supporting the full standard in particular the complex number header complexh introduced in c99 is unsupported visual c supports the ccli specification to write managed code as well as mixedmode code a mix of native and managed code microsoft positions visual c for development in native code or in code that contains both native as well as managed components visual c supports com as well as the mfc library for mfc development it provides a set of wizards for creating and customizing mfc boilerplate code and creating gui applications using mfc visual c can also use the visual studio forms designer to design ui graphically visual c can also be used with the windows api it also supports the use of intrinsic functions microsoft visual c microsoft visual c microsofts implementation of the c language targets the net framework along with the language services that lets the visual studio ide support c projects while the language services are a part of visual studio the compiler is available separately as a part of the net framework the visual c 2008 2010 and 2012 compilers support versions 30 40 and 50 of the c language specifications respectively visual c supports the visual studio class designer forms designer and data designer among others microsoft visual basic microsoft visual basic is microsofts implementation of the vbnet language and associated tools and language services it was introduced with visual studio net 2002 microsoft has positioned visual basic for rapid application development visual basic can be used to author both console applications as well as gui applications like visual c visual basic also supports the visual studio class designer forms designer and data designer among others like c the vbnet compiler is also available as a part of net framework but the language services that let vbnet projects be developed with visual studio are available as a part of the latter microsoft visual web developer microsoft visual web developer is used to create web sites web applications and web services using aspnet either c or vbnet languages can be used visual web developer can use the visual studio web designer to graphically design web page layouts team foundation server team foundation server is intended for collaborative software development projects and acts as the serverside backend providing source control data collection reporting and projecttracking functionality it also includes the team explorer the client tool for tfs services which is integrated inside visual studio team system previous products visual foxpro visual foxpro is a datacentric objectoriented and procedural programming language produced by microsoft it derives from foxpro originally known as foxbase which was developed by fox software beginning in 1984 visual foxpro is tightly integrated with its own relational database engine which extends foxpros xbase capabilities to support sql queries and data manipulation visual foxpro is a fullfeatured visual sourcesafe microsoft visual sourcesafe is a source control software package oriented towards small softwaredevelopment projects the sourcesafe database is a multiuser multiprocess filesystem database using the windows file system database primitives to provide locking and sharing support all versions are multiuser using smb file server networking and was included with visual studio 60 and other products such as office developer edition visual sourcesafe 2005 was available as a standalone product and included with the 2005 team suite team foundation server has superseded vss as microsofts recommended platform for source control microsoft visual jmicrosoft visual j microsoft visual j was microsofts implementation of the java language with microsoftspecific extensions and associated language services it was discontinued as a result of litigation from sun microsystems and the technology was recycled into visual j microsofts java compiler for net framework j was available with visual studio 2005 supported until 2015 but was discontinued in visual studio 2008 visual interdev visual interdev was used to create web applications using microsoft active server pages asp technologies it supports code completion and includes database server management tools it has been replaced with microsoft visual web developer editions microsoft visual studio is available in the following editions or skus community the community edition was announced on 12 november 2014 as a new free version with similar functionality to visual studio professional prior to this date the only free editions of visual studio were the featurelimited express variants unlike the express variants visual studio community supports multiple languages and provides support for extensions individual developers have no restrictions on their use of the community edition the following uses also allow unlimited usage contributing to open source projects academic research in a classroom learning environment and for developing and testing device drivers for the windows operating system all other use by an organization depends on whether you are classified as an enterprise more than 250 employees 1 million in revenue per microsoft nonenterprises may use up to 5 copies without restriction user number 6 and higher require a commercial license enterprise organizations require a commercial license for use outside of the noted exceptions professional as of visual studio 2010 the professional edition is the entry level commercial edition of visual studio previously a more feature restricted standard edition was available it provides an ide for all supported development languages msdn support is available as msdn essentials or the full msdn library depending on licensing it supports xml and xslt editing and can create deployment packages that only use clickonce and msi it includes tools like server explorer and integration with microsoft sql server also windows mobile development support was included in visual studio 2005 standard however with visual studio 2008 it is only available in professional and higher editions windows phone 7 development support was added to all editions in visual studio 2010 development for windows mobile is no longer supported in visual studio 2010 it is superseded by windows phone 7 enterprise in addition to the features provided by the professional edition the enterprise edition provides a new set of software development database development collaboration metrics architecture testing and reporting tools test professional the test professional edition was introduced with visual studio 2010 its focus is the dedicated tester role it includes support for the management of test environments the ability to start and report on tests and to connect to team foundation server it does not include support for development or authoring of tests express microsoft visual studio express visual studio express is a strippeddown version of visual studio for students and hobbyists first introduced with visual studio 2005 and discontinued with visual studio 2015 originally it consisted of several editions each of which targeted a single programming language visual studio express 2005 2008 and 2010 consisted of the following editions that could have been installed sidebyside visual basic express visual c express visual c express visual j express 2005 only visual web developer express visual studio express for windows phone 2010 only visual studio 2012 2013 and 2015 consist of editions geared towards different platforms instead express for web focuses on developing web apps express for windows focuses on developing universal windows platform apps express for desktop focuses on developing traditional apps for windows using windows api team foundation server express provides source control and application lifecycle management express for windows phone 2012 only focuses on software development for windows phone 75 and 80 versions prior to 2013 update 2 do not include support for plugins x64 compilers are not included in the visual studio express edition ides but are available as part of a windows software development kit that can be installed separately history the first version of visual studio was visual studio 97 before that visual basic visual c visual foxpro and visual sourcesafe were sold as separate products product name codename versionnumber supported netframework versions supported netcore versions release date visual studio 2019 unknown 160 to be announced to be announced to be announced visual studio 2017 dev15 150 35 47 1011 march 7 2017 visual studio 2015 dev14 140 20 46 10 july 20 2015 visual studio 2013 dev12 120 20 452 na october 17 2013 visual studio 2012 dev11 110 20 452 na september 12 2012 visual studio 2010 dev10 100 20 40 na april 12 2010 visual studio 2008 orcas 90 20 30 35 na november 19 2007 visual studio 2005 whidbey 80 20 30 na november 7 2005 visual studio net 2003 everett 71 11 na april 24 2003 visual studio net 2002 rainier 70 10 na february 13 2002 visual studio 60 aspen 60 na na june 1998 visual studio 97 boston 50 na na february 1997 97 microsoft first released visual studio codenamed boston there was a single companion cd that contained the microsoft developer network library visual studio 97 was microsofts first attempt at using the same development environment for multiple languages visual j interdev and the msdn library had all been using the same environment called developer studio visual studio was also sold as a bundle with the separate ides used for visual c visual basic and visual foxpro 60 1998 the next version version 60 codenamed aspen after the ski resort in colorado each version of each language in part also settled to v60 including visual j which was prior v11 and visual interdev at the 1st release the v6 edition of microsoft was the core environment for the next four releases to provide programmers with an integrated lookalike platform this led microsoft to transition the development on the platform independent net framework visual studio 60 was the last version to include visual j which microsoft removed as part of a settlement with sun microsystems that required microsoft internet explorer not to provide support for the java virtual machine visual studio 60 came in two editions professional and enterprise the enterprise edition contained extra features not found in professional edition including application performance explorer automation manager microsoft visual modeler remauto connection manager visual studio analyzer visual studio was also sold as a bundle with the separate ides used for visual c visual basic and visual foxpro net 2002 microsoft released visual studio net vsnet codenamed rainier for washingtons mount rainier in february 2002 the beta version was released via microsoft developer network in 2001 the biggest change was the introduction of a managed code development environment using the net framework programs developed using net are not compiled to machine language like c is for example but instead to a format called microsoft intermediate language msil or common intermediate language cil when a cil application executes it is compiled while being executed into the appropriate machine language for the platform it is being executed on thereby making code portable across several platforms programs compiled into cil can be executed only on platforms which have an implementation of common language infrastructure it is possible to run cil programs in linux or mac os x using nonmicrosoft net implementations like mono and dotgnu this was the first version of visual studio to require an ntbased windows platform the installer enforces this requirement visual studio net 2002 shipped in four editions academic professional enterprise developer and enterprise architect microsoft introduced c csharp a new programming language that targets net it also introduced the successor to visual j called visual j visual j programs use javas languagesyntax however unlike visual j programs visual j programs can only target the net framework not the java virtual machine that all other java tools target visual basic changed drastically to fit the new framework and the new version was called visual basic net microsoft also added extensions to c called managed extensions for c so net programs could be created in c visual studio net can produce applications targeting windows using the windows forms part of the net framework the web using aspnet and web services and with an addin portable devices using the net compact framework the visual studio net environment was rewritten to partially use net all languages are versions of visual studio it has a cleaner interface and greater cohesiveness the internal version number of visual studio net 2002 is version 70 microsoft released service pack 1 for visual studio net 2002 in march 2005 net 2003 in april 2003 microsoft introduced a minor upgrade to visual studio net called visual studio net 2003 codenamed everett for the city of the same name visual studio net 2003 shipped in five editions academic standard professional enterprise developer and enterprise architect the visual studio net 2003 enterprise architect edition includes an implementation of microsoft visio 2002s modeling technologies including tools for creating unified modeling languagebased visual representations of an applications architecture and an objectrole modeling orm and logical databasemodeling solution enterprise templates were also introduced to help larger development teams standardize coding styles and enforce policies around component usage and property settings service pack 1 was released 13 september 2006 2005 visual studio 2005 codenamed whidbey a reference to whidbey island in puget sound region visual studio 2005s internal version number is 80 while the file format version is 90 visual studio 2005 was upgraded to support all the new features introduced in net framework 20 including generics and aspnet 20 the intellisense feature in visual studio was upgraded for generics and new project types were added to support aspnet web services visual studio 2005 additionally introduces support for a new taskbased build platform called microsoft build engine msbuild which employs a new xmlbased project file format the platform sdk included 64bit compilers and 64bit versions of the libraries microsoft also announced visual studio tools for applications as the successor to visual basic for applications vba and vsa visual studio for applications vsta 10 was released to manufacturing along with office 2007 it is included with office 2007 and is also part of the visual studio 2005 sdk vsta consists of a customized ide based on the visual studio 2005 ide and a runtime that can be embedded in applications to expose its features via the net object model office 2007 applications continue to integrate with vba except for infopath 2007 which integrates with vsta version 20 of vsta based on visual studio 2008 was released in april 2008 it is significantly different from the first version including features such as dynamic programming and support for wpf wcf wf linq and net 35 framework 2008 visual studio 2008 visual studio 2008 is focused on development of windows vista 2007 office system and web applications for visual design a new windows presentation foundation visual designer and a new htmlcss editor influenced by microsoft expression web are included j is not included visual studio 2008 requires net 35 framework and by default configures compiled assemblies to run on net framework 35 but it also supports multitargeting which lets the developers choose which version of the net framework out of 20 30 35 silverlight coreclr or net compact framework the assembly runs on visual studio 2008 also includes new code analysis tools including the new code metrics tool only in team edition and team suite edition visual studio 2008 features include an xamlbased designer codenamed cider workflow designer linq to sql designer for defining the type mappings and object encapsulation for sql server data xslt debugger javascript intellisense support javascript debugging support support for uac manifests a concurrent build system among others visual studio debugger includes features targeting easier debugging of multithreaded applications in debugging mode in the threads window which lists all the threads hovering over a thread displays the stack trace of that thread in tooltips a limited subset of the bcl source is available with more library support planned for later 2010 on 12 april 2010 microsoft released visual studio 2010 codenamed dev10 the visual studio 2010 ide was redesigned which according to microsoft clears the ui organization and reduces clutter and complexity the new multiparadigm mlvariant f forms part of visual studio 2010 visual studio 2010 comes with net framework 4 and supports developing applications targeting windows 7 and intel has launched parallelism support in parallel studio as an addon for visual studio the visual studio 2010 code editor now highlights references whenever a symbol is selected all other usages of the symbol are highlighted visual studio 2010 features a new help system replacing the msdn library viewer the help system is no longer based on microsoft help 2 and does not use microsoft document explorer dynamic help containing links to related help topics based on where the developer was in the ide has been removed in the shipping product visual studio 2010 no longer supports development for windows mobile prior to windows phone 7 visual studio 2010 service pack 1 was released in march 2011 ultimate 2010 visual studio ultimate 2010 replaces visual studio 2008 team suite it supports uml activity diagram component diagram logical class diagram sequence diagram and use case diagram this speeds up testing by avoiding running unnecessary test cases visual studio ultimate 2010 also includes a historical debugger for managed code called intellitrace unlike a traditional debugger that records only the currently active stack intellitrace records all events such as prior function calls method parameters events and exceptions this allows the code execution to be rewound in case a breakpoint was not set where the error occurred 2012 microsoft visual studio 2012 logo the final build of visual studio 2012 was announced on 1 august 2012 and the official launch event was held on 12 september 2012 unlike prior versions visual studio 2012 cannot record and play macros and the macro editor has been removed new features include support for winrt and ccx component extensions and c amp gpgpu programming semantic colorization on 16 september 2011 a complete developer preview of visual studio 11 was published on microsofts website visual studio 11 developer preview requires windows 7 windows server 2008 r2 windows 8 or later operating systems on 24 august 2011 a blog post by sumit kumar a program manager on the visual c team listed some of the features of the upcoming version of the visual studio c ide semantic colorization improved syntax coloring various userdefined or default colors for c syntax such as macros enumerations typenames and functions reference highlighting selection of a symbol highlights all of the references to that symbol within scope new solution explorer the new solution explorer allows for visualization of class and file hierarchies within a solutionproject it can search for calls to functions and uses of classes automatic display of intellisense list intellisense is automatically displayed whilst typing code as opposed to previous versions where it had to be explicitly invoked through use of certain operators ie the scope operator or shortcut keys ctrlspace or ctrlj member list filtering intellisense uses fuzzy logic to determine which functionsvariablestypes to display in the list code snippets code snippets are included in intellisense to automatically generate relevant code based on the users parameters custom code snippets can be created the source code of visual studio 2012 consists of approximately 50 million lines of code interface backlash during visual studio 11 beta microsoft eliminated the use of color within tools except in cases where color is used for notification or status change purposes however the use of color was returned after feedback demanding more contrast differentiation clarity and energy in the user interface in visual studio 2012 rc a major change to the interface is the use of allcaps menu bar as part of the campaign to keep visual studio consistent with the direction of other microsoft user interfaces and to provide added structure to the top menu bar area 2013 the preview for visual studio 2013 was announced at the build 2013 conference and made available on 26 june 2013 the final release of visual studio 2013 became available for download on 17 october 2013 along with net 451 visual studio 20131 is a targeted update that addresses some key areas of customer feedback visual studio 2013 update 2 visual studio 20132 was released on 12 may 2014 visual studio 2013 update 3 was released on 4 august 2014 with this update visual studio provides an option to disable the allcaps menus which was introduced in vs2012 visual studio 2013 update 4 visual studio 20134 was released on 12 november 2014 visual studio 2013 update 5 visual studio 20135 was released on 20 july 2015 2015 initially referred to as visual studio 14 the first community technology preview ctp was released on 3 june 2014 visual studio 2015 rtm was released on 20 july 2015 2017 microsoft visual studio 2017 logo initially referred to as visual studio 15 it was released on 7 march 2017 as of april2016 on 14 november 2016 for a brief period of time microsoft released a blog post revealing visual studio 2017 product name version alongside upcoming features on 16 november 2016 visual studio 2017 was announced as the final name on 7 march 2017 visual studio 2017 was released for general availability on 14 march 2017 first fix was released for visual studio 2017 due to failures during installation or opening solutions in the first release on 5 april 2017 visual studio 2017 151 was released and added support for targeting the net framework 47 on 10 may 2017 visual studio 2017 152 was released and added a new workload data science and analytical applications workload an update to fix the dark color theme was released on 12 may 2017 on 14 august 2017 visual studio 2017 153 was released and added support for targeting net core 20 an update 1531 was released four days later to address a git vulnerability with submodules cve 20171000117 on october 10 2017 visual studio 154 was released on december 4 2017 visual studio 155 was released this update contained major performance improvements new features as well as bug fixes on march 6 2018 visual studio 156 was released it includes updates to unit testing and performance on may 7 2018 visual studio 157 was released it included updates across the board including the installer editor debugger among others almost all point releases the latest of which is 1576 released august 2 2018 include security updates with the release of visual studio 2017 157 visual c now conforms to the c17 standard on 20 september 2018 visual studio 1585 was released it provides tools for xamarin now supports xcode 10 visual studio 2017 offers new features like support for editorconfig a coding style enforcement framework ngen support net core and docker toolset preview and xamarin 43 preview 2019 on june 6 2018 microsoft announced visual studio 2019 version 16 related products azure devops on 13 november 2013 microsoft announced the release of a software as a service offering of visual studio on microsoft azure platform at the time microsoft called it visual studio online previously announced as team foundation services it expands over team foundation server by making it available on the internet and implementing a rolling release model microsoft offers basic professional and advanced subscription plans for azure devops the basic plan is free of charge for up to five users users with an msdn subscription of visual studio can be added to a plan with no additional charge visual studio application lifecycle management visual studio application lifecycle management alm is a collection of integrated software development tools developed by microsoft these tools currently consist of the ide visual studio 2015 community and greater editions server team foundation server and cloud services visual studio team services in visual studio 2005 and visual studio 2008 the brand was known as microsoft visual studio team system vsts in october 2009 the team system brand was renamed visual studio team services debuted as visual studio online in 2013 and was renamed in 2015 visual studio lab management visual studio lab management is a software development tool developed by microsoft for software testers to create and manage virtual environments lab management extends the existing visual studio application lifecycle management platform to enable an integrated hyperv based test lab since visual studio 2012 it is already shipped as a part of it and can be set up after team foundation server and scvmm are integrated visual studio lightswitch microsoft visual studio lightswitch is an extension and framework specifically tailored for creating lineofbusiness applications built on existing net technologies and microsoft platforms the applications produced are architecturally 3tier the user interface runs on either microsoft silverlight or html 5 client in aspnet and the primary data storage supports microsoft sql server express microsoft sql server and microsoft sql azure lightswitch also supports other data sources including microsoft sharepoint odata and wcf ria services lightswitch includes graphical designers for designing entities and entity relationships entity queries and ui screens business logic may be written in either visual basic or visual c lightswitch is included with visual studio 2012 professional and higher visual studio 2015 is the last release of visual studio that includes the lightswitch tooling the user interface layer is now an optional component when deploying a lightswitch solution allowing a serviceonly deployment the first version of visual studio lightswitch released 26 july 2011 the second major difference was the middle tier was built and exposed using wcf ria services as of 14 october 2016 microsoft no longer recommends lightswitch for new application development visual studio code visual studio code visual studio code is a source code editor along with other features for linux macos and windows visual studio team system profiler vsts profiler visual studio team system profiler vsts profiler is a tool to analyze the performance of net projects that analyzes the space and time complexity of the program microsoft visual studio express comparison of integrated development environments microsoft small basic appveyor erich gamma julia liuson official website vtemicrosoft development toolsdevelopmentenvironmentsvisual studio code express lab management team system profiler test professional tools for applications tools for office others net compiler platform app studio blend expression web gwbasic microsoft pascal msbuild robotics developer studio sharepoint designer frontpage powershell ise quickbasic qbasic quickc small basic webmatrix windows sdk clr profiler ilasm native image generator xamlpad languages microsoft basic visual basic visual basic net visual c ccx ccli managed c c f j j visual foxpro ironpython ironruby jscript powershell typescript vba vbscript xaml major apis andframeworkssee all windows api silverlight xna directx managed directx xbox development kit windows installer net framework aspnet core ajax dynamic data mvc razor web forms adonet entity framework cardspace communication foundation identity foundation linq presentation foundation workflow foundation device drivers wdk wdf kmdf umdf windows hlk wdm databasesql server express compact management studio business intelligence development studio msde sql services analysis reporting integration notification other visual foxpro microsoft access jet engine extensible storage engine azure cosmos db source control team foundation server visual sourcesafe delivery active setup clickonce nuget web platform windows installer wix microsoft store vteintegrated development environmentsc and copen source android studio anjuta codeblocks codelite devc eclipse geany gnat programming studio gnome builder kdevelop monodevelop netbeans qdevelop qt creator sharpdevelop ultimate openwatcom freeware oracle developer studio visual studio community xcode retail cbuilder eclipsebased codewarrior myeclipse visual studio by jetbrains intellij idea appcode clion labwindowscvi lccwin32 ibm rational software architect understand discontinued ibm visualage visual c express javaopen source bluej drjava eclipse geany greenfoot intellij idea community edition android studio netbeans servoy community edition freeware jgrasp jdeveloper xcode retail jbuilder jcreator myeclipse ibm rational application developer websphere integration developer jetbrains intellij idea servoy business application platform edition understand discontinued metrowerks codewarrior pro for java sun java studio creator superseded by netbeans visual age superseded by eclipse visual caf aka espresso superseded by jbuilder visual j xelfi became netbeans cliopen source monodevelop sharpdevelop visual studio code pascalabcnet freeware visual studio community retail visual studio rider understand discontinued xamarin studio visual basic express visual web developer express visual j express visual studio express for windows phone visual c express visual c express express for desktop express for web express for windows flash adobe flash builder flashdevelop powerflasher fdt php aptana netbeans phpstorm kdevelop python eric intellij idea light table ninjaide pycharm pydev spyder wing ide kdevelop pascal and object pascalopen source free pascal ide lazarus devpascal freeware delphi community retail delphi discontinued turbo pascal for windows virtual pascal r rstudio r tools for visual studio category comparison vtenet framework version history net strategy architecture common language runtime clr com interop framework class library fcl components adonet entity framework aspnet web forms ajax core dynamic data mvc razor clickonce dynamic language runtime extensible application markup language xaml language integrated query linq managed extensibility framework microsoft silverlight microsoft xna parallel extensions windows communication foundation wcf wcf data services windows forms winforms windows identity foundation wif windows presentation foundation wpf windows workflow foundation wf net remoting toolsdecompilers net reflector dotpeek obfuscators dotfuscator smartassembly codearmor turbo misc clr profiler ilasm net compiler platform native image generator ngen xamlpad ides visual studio blend express monodevelop sharpdevelop xamarin studio organizations net foundation microsoft xamarin category list portal vtehtml editors web design opensource aptana arachnophilia atom bluefish cudatext eclipse emacs komodo edit netbeans textmate visual studio code codemirrorbased brackets light table mozilla composerbased bluegriffon scintillabased flashdevelop geany notepad notepad2 scite webbased ace aloha editor ckeditor codemirror contenttools tinymce visualeditor wymeditor yui rich text editor freeware firstpage google web designer htmlkit visual studio community visual studio express mobirise openelement pspad rj texted ted notepad textwrangler commercial softwarecrossplatform adobe dreamweaver adobe muse froala editor komodo ide macaw oxygen xml editor phpstorm sublime text ultraedit macos only bbedit coda freeway pagespinner sandvox smultron windows only codelobster coffeecup html editor ezgenerator editplus emeditor visual studio multiedit netobjects fusion notetab phpedit textpad topstyle xara web designer discontinued aolpress adobe contribute adobe golive adobe pagemill alleycode html editor amaya arena home page context frameit gphpedit gwrite hotmetal hotdog iweb kompozer homesite microsoft expression web microsoft frontpage microsoft sharepoint designer microsoft webmatrix mozilla composer netscape composer nvu quanta plus seamonkey composer tkwww nexus worldwideweb maqetta helper tools cse html validator csstidy framegang html tidy pandoc category comparison list vtejavascriptcode analysis jshint jslint transcompilers babeljs coffeescript dart emscripten google closure compiler google web toolkit morfik typescript atscript opa nim haxe clojurescript websharper concepts ajax clientside dynamic html javascript library javascript syntax unobtrusive javascript debuggers firebug komodo ide microsoft script debugger microsoft script editor opera dragonfly venkman web inspector doc generators jsdoc editors comparison ace cloud9 ide atom codemirror light table brackets koding orion visual studio visual studio express visual studio code visual studio team services engines comparison of engines dom support list of ecmascript engines list of javascript engines frameworks comparison of javascript frameworks list of javascript libraries related technologies cascading style sheets document object model html json webassembly package managers npm nuget serverside active server pages commonjs jsgi nodejs wakanda unit testing jasmine mocha qunit list of javascript unit testing frameworks people douglas crockford brendan eich john resig 