Download #VisualStudio 2013 Update 2 RTM - Web, Offline Installer

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RTM, which will now allow you to develop applications for Windows Phone 8.1 and Universal Windows platforms. Using Universal Windows Apps templates, you will be able to build apps that targets both the platform from a single solution.

In this blog post, I am going to share you the links to download Visual Studio 2013 Update 2. This includes both the web installer and the offline/standalone installer (ISO image).

Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is a cumulated update package that installs on top of the existing product. In this first release of the update, Microsoft focused giving out fixes and improvements to the product. Also, it includes SDK for Windows Phone 8.1. That means, you will be able to build applications for Windows Phone 8.1 and Universal Windows Platform.

Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 also includes support of Microsoft Azure 2.3 SDK, which adds even more new capabilities to Visual Studio developers working with Azure. For web developers, Update 2 includes TypeScript 1.0 RTM, a powerful new language and tooling experience for developers building application-scale JavaScript projects.

How to download Visual Studio 2013 Update 2?

If you are looking to get the installer for the Visual Studio 2013 Update 2, you can download it from one of the below mentioned Microsoft Server links. Microsoft already scanned the setup files for viruses and claims to be virus free.

• Download web installer of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 (~1.7 MB)
• Download offline installer/ISO image of Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 (~3.5 GB)

In case you downloaded the web installer of the update, you can create an offline installer from it too. Once the download is complete, open a command prompt, navigate to the download location and run VS2013.2.exe /layout. Then specify where to download the files and click the Download button. This will start the installer and download the entire package for you.

What’s new in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2?

Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 comes with the following new features for developers, which includes new SDKs part of this release. If you are a WPDev, Win8Dev, AzureDev, JavaScriptDev and/or WebDev, you must install this update on top of the Visual Studio 2013 installation.

Here is a list of new features/tools in VS2013 Update 2, shared by Microsoft:

• Windows Phone 8.1 and Universal Windows Apps
• Create apps targeting the new Windows Phone 8.1 release either by upgrading existing Windows Phone 8.0 Silverlight apps or by creating new Windows Phone 8.1 apps that run on Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight or Windows Runtime built with .NET and XAML or WinJS.
• You can now build apps that target both Windows and Windows Phone platforms from a single solution using Universal Windows Apps templates.
• For Windows Store and Windows Phone 8.1 apps that target the Windows Runtime platform, you can now run more than one tool at a time in the Performance and Diagnostics hub.
• Improved Debugging – Cached Resources
• Test Notifications – Azure Notification Hub
  
  
• Azure Development
• IDE Enhancements
• .NET Mobile Services
• Support for Windows Azure SDK 2.3 (You have to separately download it)
  
  
• Web Development
• TypeScript 1.0 for web developers
• Web Code Editor Enhancements (SASS, LESS & JSON)
• Browser Link enables developers to connect multiple browsers right to Visual Studio
• Updated ASP.NET default project templates
  
  
• General Debugging and Analyzers
• JSON Debugger Visualizer in Visual Studio 2013 for debugging JSON-encoded strings right from Visual Studio.
• Enhanced version of the .NET Managed Memory Analyzer to inspect the values of objects and instances in captured memory dumps.
• A new CPU Usage analyzer is now available in the Performance and Diagnostics hub that can be used with WPF, Console, Windows Store 8.1, or Windows Phone 8.1 apps.
  
  
• IntelliTrace
• IntelliTrace just got smarter when working with performance events collected by the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA).
• When reviewing an IntelliTrace file with Exceptions data that was collected by MMA, it is now easier to view parameters and to see where exceptions were thrown by visualizing the call stack on a Code Map.
  
  
• DirectX Profiling and Debugging
• New Graphics Profiler tool for optimizing the rendering performance of your Direct3D game or app with Graphics Frame Analysis.
• Enhancements to the Graphics Debugger include the ability to capture up to 30 consecutive frames with one capture.
  
  
• Release Management
• You can now tag servers so that you author the deployment sequence once for a group of servers with the same tag.