C++ Team Blog
The latest in C++, Visual Studio, VS Code, and vcpkg from the MSFT C++ team
Latest posts
C++23 Support in MSVC Build Tools 14.51
We’re pleased to provide an update on C++23 support in the Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools. This blog post will cover the feature additions in MSVC Build Tools version 14.51, including C++23 language features, libraries, and ISO C++ Core Working Group (CWG) and Library Working Group (LWG) Issue resolutions. We’ll also discuss the plans for completion of C++23 support in the MSVC compiler and how to make use of these latest feature updates. C++23 Language Features The following C++23 language features are now available under and in the MSVC Build Tools 14.51 Preview. An update of the documentation on learn.mi...
What’s New in vcpkg (Feb 2026 – Mar 2026): Parallel file installation and more!
These updates include a security fix for OpenSSL packaging on Windows, parallel file installation for improved performance, and other improvements and bug fixes.
Visual Studio at GDC Festival of Gaming 2026
Join us at GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 for a deep dive into Visual Studio, GitHub Copilot, PowerToys, and the Windows tools that speed up your daily dev workflow. We'll show how these tools work together to boost productivity and cut friction across your entire inner loop. Session Title: Windows Game Development with Visual Studio 2026 and GitHub Copilot Session Info: Thursday, March 12, 10:10 am - 11:10 am Pacific Time | Room 2009, West Hall Abstract: Developing games on Windows is faster when your tools work together. This session walks through an end-to-end game development workflow, from setting ...
C++ Performance Improvements in MSVC Build Tools v14.51
MSVC Build Tools v14.51 improves performance through a wide range of new optimizations.
C++ symbol context and CMake build configuration awareness for GitHub Copilot in VS Code
C++ code navigation and build system tooling play an important role in the developer inner-loop. Code navigation tooling provides a precise, semantic understanding of your codebase, while build system tooling helps you express build configurations and variants for reproducible builds. In the VS Code ecosystem, these powerful capabilities are available through our C/C++ and CMake Tools extensions. With the latest updates to GitHub Copilot in VS Code, we're bringing the same C++-specific intelligence directly into agent mode by surfacing key language and build system capabilities as tools the agent can invoke. T...
Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools v14.51 Preview Released: How to Opt In
Today we are releasing the first preview of the Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools version 14.51. This update, shipping in the latest Visual Studio 2026 version 18.4 Insiders release, introduces many C++23 conformance changes, bug fixes, and runtime performance improvements. Check out the release notes for an in-progress list of what’s new. Conformance improvements and bug fixes will be detailed in an upcoming blog post and Insiders release notes in the near future. We plan to ship more frequent, incremental MSVC Build Tools previews, just as we are shipping more frequent IDE updates. As a result, we have adjust...
What’s New in vcpkg (Nov 2025 – Jan 2026)
This blog post summarizes changes to the vcpkg package manager as part of the 2025.12.12 and 2026.01.16 registry releases and the 2025-11-13, 2025-11-18, 2025-11-19, 2025-12-05, and 2025-12-16 tool releases. These updates include support for targeting the Xbox GDK October 2025 update, removing a misleading and outdated output message, and other minor improvements and bug fixes. Some stats for this period: vcpkg changelog (2025.12.12, 2026.01.16 releases) Total ports available for tested triplets While vcpkg supports a much larger variety of target platforms ...
MSVC Build Tools Versions 14.30 – 14.43 Now Available in Visual Studio 2026
When Visual Studio 2026 reached General Availability in November, it included several versions of the Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools: To make it easier to bring your Visual Studio 2022 projects to Visual Studio 2026, we are now including all the versions of MSVC that shipped in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0 and later to the Visual Studio 2026 installer. This includes MSVC versions 14.30 – 14.43 and x64/x86 and ARM64/ARM64EC build targets. This change also addresses a request from our users on Visual Studio Developer Community. With these new options in the installer, you can tr...
GitHub Copilot app modernization for C++ is now in Public Preview
With the launch of Visual Studio 2026, we announced a Private Preview of GitHub Copilot app modernization for C++, which reduces the cost of adopting the latest version of the MSVC Build Tools. We used the feedback we received from our many Private Preview participants to make improvements that benefit all our users. After receiving feedback, we added support for CMake projects, reduced hallucinations, removed several critical failures, improved Copilot’s behavior when encountering an internal compiler error, and reinforced Copilot’s understanding of when project files need to be modified to do the upgrade. He...