C++ Team Blog
The latest in C++, Visual Studio, VS Code, and vcpkg from the MSFT C++ team
Latest posts
May/June update for the C/C++ extension in Visual Studio Code
We would like to thank all of you who have tried out the C/C++ extension in Visual Studio Code and have already provided rich feedback on your experiences and filed issues and requests with us. We are working hard on incorporating your feedback into the product. Continuing with our effort to make Visual Studio Code as the editor tool of choice for C++ developers with this update of the C/C++ extension, we are introducing the following features: • Code formatting with clang-format • Fuzzy Auto-Complete for C/C++ code • Debugging on Windows for Cygwin/MinGW applications • Console application debugging with GDB on t...
Introducing a new, advanced Visual C++ code optimizer
We are excited to announce the preview release of a new, advanced code optimizer for the Visual C++ compiler backend. It provides many improvements for both code size and performance, bringing the optimizer to a new standard of quality expected from a modern native compiler. This is the first public release and we are encouraging people to try it and provide suggestions and feedback about potential bugs. The official release of the new optimizer is expected to be Visual Studio Update 3, while the release available today is unsupported and mostly for testing purposes. How to try it out The compiler bits with ...
C-Runtime Deployment: Why choose AppLocal?
There are three main ways to depend on and deploy the Visual C++ libraries and the Universal CRT: From a performance and maintainability standpoint, depending on the libraries DLLs and centrally deploying them is the preferable option: the centrally deployed DLLs can be “shared” by all of the programs that depend on them (reducing both disk space use and memory usage on end user machines) and they can be serviced by us (Microsoft) in the event of a security issue. However, we recognize that central deployment of the DLLs is not always a viable option. And rest assured: we are not planning o...
Update your Visual Studio Code C/C++ extension now!
Would like to thank all who have tried out the C/C++ extension in Visual Studio Code and have already provided rich feedback on their experiences, filed issues with us. Pairing with the Visual Studio Code 1.0 announcement we are also updating the C/C++ extension today in VSCode with the following improvements based upon the feedback that we have heard so far: Code Editing Debugging Update your extension now! If you already using the C/C++ extension, you can update your extension easily by using the ext update dropdown. This will display any available updates for your currently ...
Clang/C2: We need your advice!
The Visual C++ team has shipped three releases of Clang with Microsoft CodeGen (Clang/C2). We've got a solid pre-production compiler that passes all of our STL tests and compiles a bunch of code into native Windows binaries. We've about to move to the 3.8 release of clang. We're also working on getting x64-hosted tools up and running. Our Clang/C2 support in Visual Studio is turning a corner! We'd like to hear from you, our developer audience, about what we should tackle next. What's most important to you? If you'd like to talk directly with us about what matters to you with Clang/C2, please fill out this five...
Be sure to try out the C++ Quick Fixes extension!
Hello C++ World! Our C++ Quick Fixes extension has gotten some pretty good initial feedback since we released it a few months ago. I wanted take some time to make sure that you are 1. aware of its benefits 2. giving us feedback on current features, and 3. giving us feedback on what other “Quick Fixes” you’d like to see! The theme of the Quick Fixes extension is to provide additional features that help you address errors/squiggles in your code. Using the Extension To access the feature, hover over a red squiggle and look for a lightbulb, or use the default keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Dot (Ctrl+.). Note that fo...
Using C++ Coroutines to simplify async UWP code
The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) introduced many async APIs; there are now almost 1700 of them. In fact, the team switched every API that could take 50ms or more to complete to async mode. Coding with the async pattern is not an easy task, especially in C++ where you have to create a ppl task and use a continuation (.then) with some lambdas. In fact, in many cases writing the code itself is not so hard, but the readability is not good. C++ Coroutines can simplify your async code, and make the code easy to understand, write, and maintain. But rather than give you a 1000-word description, let's look at ...
Lightweight C++ Installation in Visual Studio “15”
Recently at the //build conference, we announced a preview of a new installation experience for Visual Studio that gives you a more focused subset of the tools you need, and minimizes the impact to your machine. In this new installer (which is separate from the full Visual Studio “15” Preview), we’re focusing on laying the groundwork to radically improve installation, making it faster for most developers, and making scenarios like running multiple builds side-by-side much smoother. Download the installer and try it out for yourself! The C++-only Experience The new installation experience delivers a focused “...
Visual C++ 2015 Update 2 Bug Fixes