Visual Studio 2022 was first announced by Microsoft in April, and two months later the company released the first preview build of Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0. Being the first preview release of the next version of Visual Studio IDE, it came as a 64-bit app.
A month later after the release of the first preview build, Microsoft now releases Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0 Preview 2 with a bunch of new features, improvements, and fixes. Here's the list of new features and the links to download Visual Studio 2022 Preview builds.
Highlights of Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2
Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2 now supports several languages including English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. It now comes with the latest version (v143) of the C++ build tools.
With this build, Microsoft has added new CMake integration and seamless targeting for WSL2 offers new Live Preview experiences for both XAML and web apps. It also adds a new debug command that runs your application to a specific point.
With this release, Microsoft also released a new JavaScript/TypeScript project type that builds standalone JavaScript/TypeScript projects with additional tooling
If you are more excited about the .NET Hot Reload experience, Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2 now makes it possible to make many types of code edits (both .NET and C++ code) to your running app and apply them without needing to pause the execution of the app.
How to download Visual Studio 2022 Preview
Visual Studio 2022 is still under development and comes as a Preview build. To download the latest version of Visual Studio 2022 (Preview), navigate to this page and download* the edition of your choice. It comes in three different editions: Visual Studio Community 2022, Visual Studio Professional 2022, and Visual Studio Enterprise 2022.
* We update this page regularly with the official download links of Microsoft Visual Studio 2022. Here you will always get the latest version of the Visual Studio installer.
Before downloading the Visual Studio 2022 Preview build, make sure that you meet the minimum system requirements to install it. Do note that this preview release is not "go-live" and is not intended for use on production computers or for creating production code.
What's new in Visual Studio 2022 Preview 2
C++
- You can now build and debug natively on WSL2 without establishing an SSH connection. Both cross-platform CMake projects and MSBuild-based Linux projects are supported.
- The v143 build tools are now available through the Visual Studio installer as well as the standalone build tools.
- Visual Studio now supports the
buildPresets.targets option in CMakePresets.json. This allows you to build a subset of targets in your CMake project.
- The Project menu in CMake projects has been streamlined and exposes options to "Delete Cache and Reconfigure" and "View Cache".
- Code analysis now enforces that return values of functions annotated with
_Check_return_ or _Must_inspect_result_ must be checked.
- LLVM tools shipped with Visual Studio have been upgraded to LLVM 12. See the LLVM release notes for details.
- Clang-cl support was updated to LLVM 12.
- C++ AMP headers are now deprecated. Including <amp.h> in a C++ project will generate build errors. To silence the errors, define
_SILENCE_AMP_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS.
- The new Hot Reload experience is now available to native C++ applications when running under the debugger.
Debugging & Diagnostics
- Attach to process dialog improvements
- Exception helper improvements
- Force Run to Click
- Memory Dump Diagnostic Analysis
.NET Productivity
- Introduce parameter refactoring can move a new parameter from the method implementation to its callers.
- Track Value Source for data flow analysis.
- Option to underline variables that are re-assigned.
- Added search option in Generate Overrides dialog.
- Quick info for XML <code> tags now preserve whitespace and CDATA blocks.
- Find All References window will now group multi-target projects.
- Refactoring to remove repetitive types in Visual Basic.
- Go to Implementation will no longer navigate to members with abstract declarations that are also overridden.
Razor (ASP.NET Core) Editor
- Hot Reload support in Razor files.
- Performance improvements.
- Formatting and indentation enhancements.
- New Razor editor colors.
- TagHelpers are now colorized and have quick info classification support and completion tooltips
- Angle brace highlighting and navigation for Razor constructs.
- Comments now have auto-completion, smart indentation, auto-inclusion of commenting continuations, and block comment navigation.
Hot Reload
- Hot Reload (for both .NET and C++ code) makes it possible to make many types of code edits to your running app and apply them without needing to pause the execution of the app with something like a breakpoint. In this release we continue to improve this feature, highlights include Support for C++, .NET Hot Reload when running without debugger (CTRL-F5), support for more types of edits, and more.
Trusted Locations
- We have revamped the “Trust Settings” functionality and can now show a warning whenever untrusted code (e.g. files, projects, or folders) is about to be opened inside the IDE.
XAML Live Preview
- XAML Live Preview is now available for WPF developers as the first preview of this new experience. With Live Preview we enable the ability to capture a desktop app's UI and bring it into a docked window within Visual Studio, making it easier to use XAML Hot Reload to change the app and easily see the changes as you make them. This feature improves the XAML Hot Reload experience on a single screen device, while also making it possible to polish the app's UI with tools such as deep zooming, rulers, element selection, and info tips.
Remote Testing
- Very early experimental preview of enabling running tests on remote environments such as Linux containers, WSL, and over SSH connections.
User Interface
- The default icons have been updated and refreshed.
Azure Cloud Services
- Azure Cloud Service (classic) and Azure Cloud Service (extended support) projects are now supported.
JavaScript/TypeScript
- We have released a new JavaScript/TypeScript project type that builds standalone JavaScript/TypeScript projects with additional tooling. You will be able to create Angular and React projects in Visual Studio using the framework version installed on your computer.
- JavaScript and TypeScript testing are now available in the Visual Studio Test Explorer.
