Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft. It provides a comprehensive set of tools and features to help developers create, debug, test, and deploy software applications for various platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, web, and cloud services. Visual Studio is widely used by software developers to streamline the development process and improve productivity.

What are the top use cases of Visual Studio?

Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It can be used to create a wide variety of applications, including web applications, desktop applications, mobile applications, games, and cloud applications.

Here are some of the top use cases of Visual Studio:

• Web development: Visual Studio is a popular IDE for developing web applications. It includes a number of features that make it a powerful tool for web developers, such as:
  • A web development environment for creating ASP.NET applications
  • A built-in web server for testing your applications
  • A debugger that allows you to step through your code and examine its execution
• Desktop application development: Visual Studio is also a popular IDE for developing desktop applications. It includes a number of features that make it a powerful tool for desktop developers, such as:
  • A graphical user interface (GUI) designer for creating Windows Forms and WPF applications
  • A debugger that allows you to step through your code and examine its execution
  • A unit testing framework for testing your code
• Mobile application development: Visual Studio can also be used to develop mobile applications. It includes a number of features that make it a powerful tool for mobile developers, such as:
  • A mobile development environment for creating iOS and Android applications
  • A debugger that allows you to step through your code and examine its execution
  • A unit testing framework for testing your code
• Game development: Visual Studio can also be used to develop games. It includes a number of features that make it a powerful tool for game developers, such as:
  • A game development environment for creating 2D and 3D games
  • A debugger that allows you to step through your code and examine its execution
  • A unit testing framework for testing your code
• Cloud development: Visual Studio includes a cloud development environment called Visual Studio Online. Visual Studio Online allows you to develop and deploy applications to the cloud without having to set up your own infrastructure.

What are the features of Visual Studio?

Visual Studio is a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft that can be used to create a wide variety of applications. It is used by a wide range of developers, from hobbyists to enterprise-level developers. Some of the features of Visual Studio include:

• Code editor: Visual Studio has a powerful code editor that includes features such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and IntelliSense.
• Debugger: Visual Studio has a powerful debugger that allows you to step through your code and examine its execution.
• GUI designer: Visual Studio includes a GUI designer for creating Windows Forms and WPF applications.
• Web development environment: Visual Studio includes a web development environment for creating ASP.NET applications.
• Unit testing framework: Visual Studio includes a unit testing framework for testing your code.
• Version control system: Visual Studio integrates with a variety of version control systems, such as Git and Team Foundation Server.
• Cloud development: Visual Studio includes a cloud development environment called Visual Studio Online.
• Extensibility: Visual Studio is extensible, which means that you can add new features and functionality to it. There are a number of extensions available for Visual Studio, including extensions for different programming languages, frameworks, and tools.

What is the workflow of Visual Studio?

The workflow of Visual Studio varies depending on the type of application you are developing. However, there are some common steps that you will typically follow:

• Create a new project: The first step is to create a new project in Visual Studio. You can do this by selecting the “File” menu and then clicking on “New”. From there, you can select the type of project you want to create.
• Write code: Once you have created a project, you can start writing code. Visual Studio provides a powerful code editor that includes features such as syntax highlighting, code completion, and IntelliSense.
• Debug your code: Once you have written some code, you can debug it to make sure it works correctly. Visual Studio’s debugger allows you to step through your code line by line, examine the values of variables, and set breakpoints.
• Test your code: Once you have debugged your code, you can test it to make sure it works as expected. Visual Studio includes a unit testing framework that allows you to create unit tests that verify the functionality of your code.
• Deploy your application: Once you are satisfied with your code, you can deploy your application to a production environment. Visual Studio provides a number of deployment options, such as deploying to a web server or deploying to a mobile device.

How Visual Studio Works & Architecture?

Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft that can be used to create a wide variety of applications. It is used by a wide range of developers, from hobbyists to enterprise-level developers.

Visual Studio works by using a number of different components, including:

• The code editor: The code editor is the main component of Visual Studio. It is where you will write and edit your code.
• The debugger: The debugger allows you to step through your code line by line and examine the values of variables. This is useful for debugging errors in your code.
• The graphical user interface (GUI) designer: The GUI designer allows you to create Windows Forms and WPF applications. It includes a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to create user interfaces.
• The web development environment: The web development environment allows you to create ASP.NET applications. It includes a built-in web server that allows you to test your applications locally.
• The unit testing framework: The unit testing framework allows you to create unit tests that verify the functionality of your code. Unit tests are small, self-contained tests that test a specific unit of functionality in your code. They are a great way to ensure that your code is working as expected.
• The version control system: Visual Studio integrates with a variety of version control systems, such as Git and Team Foundation Server. This allows you to track changes to your code and collaborate with other developers on the same project.
• The Cloud development environment: Visual Studio includes a cloud development environment called Visual Studio Online. Visual Studio Online allows you to develop and deploy applications to the cloud without having to set up your own infrastructure.

How to Install and Configure Visual Studio?

Here are the steps on how to install and configure Visual Studio:

1. Go to the Visual Studio website and download the installer for your operating system.
2. Run the installer and follow the instructions.
3. Once the installation is complete, you will need to configure Visual Studio.
4. To do this, open Visual Studio and select “File” > “Options”.
5. In the Options dialog box, select the “Projects and Solutions” category.
6. In the Projects and Solutions category, select the “General” tab.
7. In the General tab, you can configure the following settings:
   • The default language for your projects.
   • The default location for your projects.
   • The default project templates.
8. Once you have configured Visual Studio, you are ready to start developing applications.

Overview

At GitHub Satellite 2020, GitHub unveiled a set of features designed to deepen developer collaboration, streamline open-source contribution, and tighten repository security. The headline announcements were Codespaces — a fully cloud-hosted development environment — and Discussions, a threaded Q&A layer for GitHub repositories. Alongside these, GitHub integrated code scanning directly into its interface and extended secret scanning to private repositories. Enterprises received attention too, with the announcement of GitHub Private Instances.

GitHub Codespaces: A Full Dev Environment in the Browser

GitHub Codespaces provides a complete, cloud-hosted development environment that launches in seconds from within a GitHub repository. Rather than cloning a repo, installing dependencies, and configuring a local environment, developers can open a Codespace and immediately have a ready-to-use workspace scoped to that project.

At its core, Codespaces runs Visual Studio Code in the browser, giving developers access to familiar features including IntelliSense code completion, syntax highlighting, extensions, and code navigation — the same experience as the desktop editor. This is a significant step beyond GitHub’s built-in file editor, which has historically been limited to simple text changes without language-aware tooling.

Relationship to Visual Studio Codespaces

Microsoft acquired GitHub in 2018 and had already been offering a similar product under the name Visual Studio Online, subsequently renamed Visual Studio Codespaces. GitHub Codespaces product lead Matt Colyer confirmed on Hacker News that GitHub collaborated with the Visual Studio Codespaces team inside Microsoft to build a GitHub-native experience on top of the same underlying technology. The result is a product that integrates directly with GitHub repositories, permissions, and workflows rather than being a separate standalone service.

Impact on Open-Source Contribution

Several developers commenting on Hacker News at the time of the announcement noted that Codespaces could meaningfully lower the barrier to contributing minor fixes and improvements to open-source projects. Setting up a local development environment for an unfamiliar project can be a significant friction point — Codespaces removes much of that friction by providing a pre-configured environment without any local setup required.

Others highlighted that the remote development capabilities already present in Visual Studio Code could open up additional scenarios, such as contributing from low-powered devices or from environments where installing development tooling is restricted.

At the time of the satellite event, Codespaces was available in limited beta, with general availability planned at pay-as-you-go pricing.

GitHub Discussions: Threaded Q&A for Repositories

GitHub Discussions adds a dedicated space for open-ended conversation within a repository — distinct from Issues and Pull Requests, which follow a more linear, task-oriented structure. Discussions supports a threaded question-and-answer format, allowing maintainers and contributors to mark answers, organize threads, and build a persistent, searchable knowledge base for a project.

Recognizing that the boundaries between an Issue and a Discussion are not always clear at the outset, GitHub allows conversion between the two formats in either direction. A question that starts as an Issue can be moved to Discussions, and a Discussion that surfaces an actionable bug or feature request can be converted back to an Issue.

How Discussions Differs from External Q&A Platforms

The announcement prompted comparisons to Stack Overflow and Reddit forums, both of which serve project-specific communities. A meaningful distinction, however, is that Stack Overflow and Reddit are built around global reputation systems that carry weight across projects and communities — a mechanism that fosters trust and moderation at scale. GitHub Discussions is scoped to individual repositories and, as announced, does not replicate that cross-community reputation layer. For many projects, a tightly integrated in-repo discussion space will be more practical than directing users to an external forum, even if the broader knowledge-sharing ecosystem those platforms provide remains valuable.

Security Improvements: Code Scanning and Secret Scanning

GitHub Satellite 2020 also brought meaningful updates to the platform’s security capabilities:

• Code scanning for vulnerabilities is now integrated directly into the GitHub interface, allowing teams to identify security issues in their codebase without leaving the platform or configuring third-party tooling separately.
• Secret scanning — which detects accidentally committed credentials, API keys, and tokens — was extended to private repositories, in addition to the public repository coverage that had existed previously.

Together, these features move security checks earlier in the development workflow (often called “shifting left”), making it easier for teams to catch vulnerabilities and leaked credentials before they reach production.

GitHub Private Instances for Enterprises

For organizations with strict compliance and data residency requirements, GitHub announced GitHub Private Instances — a private, fully-managed GitHub environment. Key capabilities highlighted at announcement include:

• Bring-your-own-key (BYOK) encryption for data at rest
• Backup archiving for data durability and recovery
• Regional data sovereignty compliance to meet geographic data residency requirements

Private Instances targets large enterprises that need isolation and control beyond what GitHub’s standard hosted offering provides, while still benefiting from a fully-managed service rather than operating self-hosted infrastructure.

Summary

GitHub Satellite 2020 represented a broad push by GitHub — under Microsoft ownership — to make the platform the center of the entire development lifecycle: from writing and reviewing code (Codespaces), to discussing and documenting it (Discussions), to securing it (code scanning, secret scanning), and to meeting enterprise governance requirements (Private Instances). Many of these features have since reached general availability and evolved substantially; developers should consult the current GitHub documentation for up-to-date capabilities and pricing.

What Is Continuous Testing?

Continuous testing is the practice of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release. It spans unit testing, functional testing, integration testing, performance testing, security testing, and more — all triggered automatically as code progresses through CI/CD stages.

Key capabilities to look for in a continuous testing platform include:

• Integration with CI/CD servers (Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity, etc.)
• Test case creation and management
• Service virtualization and test environment simulation
• Test data management
• Performance and load testing
• Mobile and cross-browser testing
• Reporting, analytics, and dashboards

Continuous Testing Tools and Platforms

The following tools represent a cross-section of the continuous testing market, covering everything from full ALM suites to specialized load testing and mobile device clouds. Descriptions are based on vendor-published capabilities.

Tricentis Tosca

Tricentis Tosca is a dedicated continuous testing platform designed to keep pace with Agile and DevOps delivery cycles. It focuses on model-based test automation, which reduces test maintenance overhead compared with script-based approaches. Tricentis claims high test automation rates for enterprise teams and provides integrations with common CI/CD toolchains.

Sauce Labs

Sauce Labs provides a cloud-based platform for automated testing of web and mobile applications. Tests written in any language or framework using Selenium or Appium can be executed against a large inventory of browser and device combinations. The cloud model removes the overhead of maintaining an in-house device or browser lab, and the platform is optimized for use in CI and CD environments with an emphasis on security, reliability, and scalability.

Parasoft

Parasoft provides a broad suite of testing technologies targeting complex, connected applications. Its platform combines static analysis, runtime analysis, unit testing, functional testing, API testing, and service virtualization under a single umbrella. Developer-facing tools, manager reporting, and executive dashboards make it suited for organizations that need traceability from code to compliance. Parasoft explicitly supports Agile, continuous testing, DevOps, and embedded/IoT development scenarios.

CA Technologies (now Broadcom)

CA Technologies offered an integrated continuous testing suite covering test environment simulation, automatic test case creation (including generation from requirements), on-demand test data management, and SaaS-based performance testing. The platform included orchestration to automatically promote applications through pipeline stages based on test pass/fail gates, and integrated with open-source tools such as JMeter, Jenkins, Selenium, and Appium. CA Technologies was acquired by Broadcom; these products may have been rebranded or consolidated since the original publication of this article.

IBM Rational Test Tools

IBM’s continuous testing portfolio for Agile teams included UI and integration test automation, performance testing, and service virtualization. Key products mentioned at the time included IBM Rational Test Virtualization Server, IBM MobileFirst Platform Quality Assurance, and IBM Rational Test Workbench. These products have evolved significantly; refer to the current IBM documentation for up-to-date product names and capabilities.

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services (now Azure DevOps)

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) was Microsoft’s cloud-hosted DevOps service offering Git repositories, Agile planning, build automation for Windows, Linux, and macOS, cloud load testing, CI/CD pipelines, and application analytics. VSTS has since been renamed Azure DevOps Services and continues to serve as a full-featured DevOps and continuous testing hub with broad third-party integrations.

JetBrains TeamCity

TeamCity is a CI/CD server from JetBrains. It provides real-time build feedback, integrates with major version-control systems, issue trackers, IDEs, and cloud services, and requires minimal configuration to get running. While TeamCity is primarily a CI/CD server rather than a test-authoring tool, it plays a central orchestration role in continuous testing pipelines by triggering and reporting on automated test runs.

Neotys NeoLoad

Neotys produces NeoLoad, a load and performance testing platform, alongside NeoSense for performance monitoring. The combination is aimed at enabling development, QA, and operations teams to collaborate on performance requirements and continuously validate application responsiveness as new features are released.

Synopsys Software Integrity Platform

Synopsys focuses specifically on security and quality testing within the SDLC. Its Software Integrity platform includes static analysis (SAST), software composition analysis (SCA) for open-source risk, protocol fuzz testing, and interactive application security testing (IAST) for web applications. It is targeted at organizations that need to embed security testing continuously rather than treating it as a release-gate activity.

QASymphony (now Tricentis qTest)

QASymphony offered qTest as a test case management solution integrating with popular development tools. Additional products in its portfolio included qTest Pulse for DevOps continuous testing, qTest eXplorer for exploratory testing, and qTest Scenario as a JIRA add-on for Test-First methodologies. QASymphony was subsequently acquired by Tricentis.

Appvance Unified Test Platform (UTP)

Appvance UTP positioned itself as a unified platform for creating, running, and analyzing tests — covering unit, functional, performance, and security testing — with codeless and multi-language test authoring options. Its design goal was to consolidate separate testing tools into a single workflow for continuous delivery teams.

Applause

Applause provides crowdsourced and in-the-wild testing services rather than a self-service automation platform. Its model gives teams access to a large global community of professional testers across real devices and geographic regions, covering functional, exploratory, and usability testing across the full application lifecycle.

Rainforest QA

Rainforest QA combines an AI-powered platform with a crowdtesting model, targeting teams that want to run regression, functional, and exploratory tests at the speed of development without writing large volumes of test code. It supports web and mobile testing scenarios.

Mobile Labs deviceConnect

Mobile Labs provided enterprise-grade on-premises and hosted mobile device clouds under the deviceConnect brand. The platform offered secure access to a managed inventory of real mobile devices for developers, test engineers, and support teams, supporting automated continuous integration, DevOps workflows, and both automated and manual app, web, and device testing.

Rogue Wave Klocwork

Rogue Wave Klocwork is a static code analysis tool that detects security, safety, and reliability issues in real time as developers write code. By integrating directly into the developer workflow and CI pipeline, it surfaces issues at the earliest possible stage rather than during a separate QA phase.

TechExcel DevTest

TechExcel DevTest is a quality-management solution for development and QA teams covering the full testing lifecycle: test case creation, planning, execution, defect submission, and resolution. Related products in the TechExcel suite included DevSuite for ALM, DevSpec for requirements management, and DevTrack for task management.

LogiGear TestArchitect

LogiGear TestArchitect uses a keyword-driven, no-coding approach to test authoring, enabling teams to create, maintain, reuse, and share large-scale automated tests for desktop, mobile, and web applications without deep scripting expertise.

Progress Test Studio

Progress Test Studio is a test-automation solution addressing functional, performance, and load testing. It aims to improve test coverage and reduce the number of defects that reach production by enabling teams to automate more tests efficiently.

SOASTA (now Akamai mPulse)

SOASTA’s Digital Performance Management platform combined five technologies: mPulse real user monitoring (RUM), the CloudTest platform for continuous load testing, TouchTest for mobile functional test automation, a Digital Operation Center (DOC) for unified performance visibility, and a Data Science Workbench for analysing web and mobile user performance data. SOASTA was acquired by Akamai; mPulse is now an Akamai product.

Tasktop

Tasktop focuses on value-stream integration rather than test execution itself. Tasktop Sync provided automated, enterprise-grade synchronisation across disparate lifecycle management tools, giving visibility and traceability across the entire development and delivery lifecycle. Tasktop Data collected real-time cross-tool lifecycle data for project health analytics. Tasktop was acquired by Planview in 2022.

Orasi

Orasi is a testing services and solutions provider covering test management, test automation, enterprise testing, continuous delivery, monitoring, and mobile testing.

Choosing the Right Continuous Testing Tool

No single tool covers every continuous testing need. In practice, most DevOps pipelines combine several tools — for example, a CI server (TeamCity or Azure DevOps), a functional test framework (Selenium or Appium), a cloud device grid (Sauce Labs), and a performance testing tool (NeoLoad). When evaluating options, consider:

• Pipeline integration: Does the tool have a native plugin or REST API for your CI/CD server?
• Test types covered: Unit, functional, API, performance, security, exploratory?
• Maintenance overhead: Script-based, model-based, or keyword-driven authoring?
• Reporting and traceability: Can results be linked back to requirements and user stories?
• Scalability: Cloud-based execution vs. on-premises grid?
• Vendor viability: Several tools listed here have been acquired or rebranded since 2017.

Note: This article was originally published in April 2017 and sourced from SD Times. Several of the companies and products listed have since been acquired, renamed, or discontinued. Verify current product names and availability directly with vendors before making purchasing decisions.

Introduction

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) — now rebranded as Azure DevOps — lets you configure a project so that every code commit automatically triggers a build and, on success, deploys the updated application to Azure App Service. This guide walks through that complete setup for an ASP.NET Web API application, from creating a Git repository in VSTS through to verifying a live deployment in Azure.

Prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2015 or later (Visual Studio 2017 used in this example)
• An active Azure subscription
• A Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) account
• An existing ASP.NET Web API project on your local machine

Overview of Steps

1. Create a new project in VSTS with Git version control
2. Push an existing local project to the new Git repository from Visual Studio
3. Configure a Build Definition in VSTS with Continuous Integration enabled
4. Create an Azure Web App as the deployment target
5. Configure a Release Definition in VSTS with Continuous Deployment to Azure App Service
6. Commit a change and verify the automated build and deployment

Step 1: Create a New Project in VSTS with Git Version Control

Sign in to your VSTS account and click New Project on the home page.

In the Create new project dialog:

• Enter a project name (e.g., KendoGrid)
• Set Version control to Git
• Choose a Work item process (e.g., Agile)
• Click Create

You can use either Git or Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC). Git is the recommended choice for most modern workflows due to its distributed nature and broad tooling support.

Step 2: Push an Existing Project to the VSTS Git Repository

Open your existing ASP.NET Web API project in Visual Studio (File > Open). Once the project is loaded, look at the bottom-right status bar for the Add to Source Control option and click it.

The Team Explorer window opens and presents two options:

• Push to Visual Studio Team Services — creates a new repository on your VSTS account automatically
• Push to Remote Repository — connects to the Git repository you already created in Step 1

Because you already created the repository in VSTS, choose Push to Remote Repository.

Click Publish Git Repo, paste the remote Git URL from your VSTS project, and click Publish.

After a successful push, you can browse to the Code tab of your VSTS project to confirm that all files are present in the repository.

Step 3: Configure a Build Definition in VSTS

From the repository page in VSTS, click Set up build in the top-right corner.

The Create new build definition wizard opens. Select the ASP.NET (Preview) template, which pre-populates the build steps appropriate for an ASP.NET project (NuGet restore, build, test, publish).

On the settings screen, check Continuous Integration. This tells VSTS to trigger a build automatically on every commit pushed to the repository. Click Create.

VSTS will pre-load all required build tasks. Review the steps (NuGet restore, MSBuild, VSTest, Publish Build Artifacts) and adjust only if your project requires non-default settings. When finished, click Save.

Step 4: Create an Azure Web App as the Deployment Target

Log in to the Azure Portal. Create a new Web App by navigating to New > Web + Mobile > Web App. Complete the required fields (App name, Resource Group, App Service Plan) and click Create.

Once provisioned, the overview blade shows the default URL for your new App Service (e.g., https://<your-app-name>.azurewebsites.net). Keep this URL handy — you’ll need it when configuring the release definition.

Step 5: Configure a Release Definition in VSTS

In VSTS, navigate to Build & Release > Releases and click New Definition.

From the list of deployment templates, select Azure App Service Deployment and click Next.

On the next screen:

• Select your Project and Build Definition from the dropdowns
• Check Continuous Deployment to trigger a release automatically after every successful build
• Click Create

In the release definition editor:

• VSTS automatically lists the Azure subscriptions associated with your login. Select the appropriate subscription.
• Click Authorize to grant VSTS access to your Azure resources.
• Select the App Service Name you created in Step 4 from the dropdown.
• Enter the App Service URL in the App Service URL field.
• Click Save.

Step 6: Commit a Change and Verify the Pipeline

With the CI/CD pipeline in place, any commit pushed to the VSTS Git repository will automatically trigger a build. If the build succeeds, a release is triggered automatically and the application is deployed to Azure App Service.

To test this, make a small change to your application (for example, update a page title in an HTML file) and commit and sync the change from Visual Studio’s Team Explorer.

Navigate to Build & Release > Builds in VSTS. You should see a build queued or in progress. VSTS also sends a build status notification email.

Build in Progress

Build Succeeded

Once the build completes, the release is triggered automatically. Navigate to Build & Release > Releases to confirm the deployment status.

With a successful deployment, open the Azure Web App URL in your browser to confirm the changes are live.

Summary

This walkthrough covered the complete CI/CD setup from code to cloud using VSTS and Azure App Service:

1. Created a new VSTS project with Git version control
2. Pushed an existing ASP.NET Web API project to the VSTS Git repository from Visual Studio
3. Configured a Build Definition with the ASP.NET template and Continuous Integration enabled
4. Provisioned an Azure Web App as the deployment target
5. Configured a Release Definition using the Azure App Service Deployment template with Continuous Deployment enabled
6. Verified that a code commit triggers an automated build and deployment end-to-end

Note: Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) was rebranded to Azure DevOps in September 2018. The underlying concepts — pipelines, build definitions, release definitions — remain the same, though the UI and terminology have evolved. If you are using Azure DevOps today, the equivalent features are found under Pipelines > Builds and Pipelines > Releases.

Visual Studio 2017 Officially Released on March 7

After a series of release candidates, Microsoft officially launched Visual Studio 2017 on March 7, 2017. The date was deliberately chosen to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original Visual Studio release in 1997 — a version that shipped with tools including Visual J++, Visual FoxPro, Visual InterDev, and Visual C++.

The release represented a major milestone not just in terms of age, but in the scope of changes Microsoft made to modernize the IDE, improve startup and solution-load performance, and expand support for modern development workflows including containers, cloud, and cross-platform .NET development.

What the Final Release Candidate Introduced

The last release candidate before the formal launch (build 26206, released February 7, 2017) focused primarily on stability and bug fixes, but it did include two notable feature additions:

• dotnet new Templating Engine (.NET Core): The final RC included integration of the new dotnet new templating engine for .NET Core projects. This allowed developers to scaffold new projects from a wider range of templates directly from the command line, improving the CLI-based development experience.
• Redgate SQL Prompt: Microsoft bundled the Redgate SQL Prompt into the release, providing IntelliSense-style code completion for SQL queries and scripts. This was a notable addition for developers working with SQL Server databases directly inside the IDE.

Bug Fixes in Build 26206

Beyond new features, the final RC addressed a range of bugs across several areas:

VSIX and Extension Projects

Developers building or maintaining Visual Studio extensions (VSIX projects) received targeted fixes in this build. Issues affecting debugging and build pipelines for extension projects were resolved, making it more reliable to develop and test extensions against the new VS2017 host.

.NET Core and ASP.NET Core

Several bugs affecting .NET Core and ASP.NET Core project workflows were fixed, including:

• Problems saving project files correctly
• NuGet package restore and resolution issues
• Bugs in the .NET Core command-line tooling integration

These fixes were important given that .NET Core support was one of the headline features of VS2017 and was still maturing at the time of release.

How to Get Visual Studio 2017

At the time of the release candidate, Microsoft offered two upgrade paths for developers:

1. In-place update: Developers already running an earlier VS2017 RC could update directly from within the IDE using the built-in update notification.
2. Fresh installer download: A standalone installer was available from Microsoft’s official website for clean installations.

VS2017 introduced a new modular installer that replaced the monolithic setup experience of previous versions, allowing teams to install only the workloads and components they actually needed — significantly reducing install size and time.

Why VS2017 Mattered for DevOps Teams

For DevOps and platform engineering teams, Visual Studio 2017 was significant for several reasons:

• Faster startup and load times: Microsoft made substantial performance investments, reducing the time to open the IDE and load large solutions.
• Improved .NET Core tooling: With .NET Core becoming the primary target for cross-platform and containerized workloads, better tooling integration mattered for CI/CD pipeline reliability.
• Docker and container support: VS2017 improved integration with Docker tooling, making it easier to develop and debug containerized ASP.NET Core applications locally.
• Live Unit Testing: Introduced in the Enterprise edition, this feature ran unit tests automatically in the background as code was edited, shortening the feedback loop without leaving the editor.

Further Reading

Full release notes for VS2017 RC build 26206 were published by Microsoft and detail every change included in that build. Developers evaluating the release or maintaining extensions should consult the official Microsoft documentation for the authoritative list of breaking changes and API updates.