Pure Virtual C++ 2026 Is Tomorrow and On-Demand Sessions Are Now Available

Pure Virtual C++ 2026, our free, one-day virtual conference for the whole C++ community, goes live tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at 9:00 AM PT (16:00 UTC) on YouTube (Microsoft Reactor) and Twitch, hosted by Mads Kristensen and Sinem Akinci. Register now →

But you don’t have to wait until tomorrow to start watching. Our full slate of on-demand sessions is available right now on the Visual Studio YouTube channel. These talks aren’t aired during the live broadcast. They’re yours to watch on your own schedule, today or any day after.

And tomorrow, we go live

Before we dive into the on-demand sessions, here’s our conference schedule for tomorrow. The broadcast runs about three hours starting at 9:00 AM PT (16:00 UTC) on Tuesday, July 21. During the five featured sessions, we’ll run live Q&A in the chat with each speaker, so bring your curiosity and your questions.

Times are approximate and may shift slightly on the day.

Want the backstory on the featured speakers? Catch up on our Meet the Speakers series.

Register and add it to your calendar → . Can’t make it live? All sessions, featured and on-demand, will be available afterward on the YouTube playlist.

On-demand guide: Build faster, run faster

Below is a guide to every on-demand session: what it covers, who’s presenting, and where to go to learn more.

Armin Gerritsen — Sample Profile-Guided Optimization in Practice: from prototype to production

Armin Gerritsen is a Principal Software Engineer on the Windows Silicon and OS Fundamentals team, focused on delivering the best performance on Windows devices. Over the years he has tuned Profile-Guided technology and expanded its use across the Windows OS, along with many other optimizations throughout the OS stack.

What the session is about. When real profile data drives optimization, the compiler spends its effort exactly where your users spend their time. Traditional Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) works, but instrumented builds, slow runs, and synthetic workloads kept many teams away. Sample Profile-Guided Optimization (SPGO), now generally available in MSVC, flips the model: collect lightweight hardware samples from your normal release build, feed them to the linker, and let the compiler re-optimize hot paths, code layout, and inlining based on what really happens at runtime. Armin walks the full loop on a small C++ sample, shows how the same approach scaled to Windows and to apps like Adobe Photoshop (delivering up to ~20% CPU uplift on selected workflows), and shares adoption best practices.

Why watch. SPGO offers PGO-class speedups with a fraction of the friction. If you’ve wanted data-driven performance without instrumented builds, this is the on-ramp.

Learn more

• Introducing Sample Profile Guided Optimization in MSVC — C++ Team Blog
• SPGO Tutorial: Improve C++ performance — Microsoft Learn
• Boosting Adobe Photoshop’s performance with MSVC and SPGO — C++ Team Blog

On-demand guide: The AI-native C++ workflow

Augustin Popa — C++ Dependencies Without the Headache: vcpkg + Copilot CLI

Augustin Popa is a Senior Product Manager on the Microsoft C++ team, working across the Visual Studio IDE, Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools, and vcpkg, the cross-platform C/C++ package manager. • Follow Augustin: LinkedIn

What the session is about. Managing C++ dependencies doesn’t have to mean wrestling with manual configuration, and in this talk it barely feels like work at all. Augustin builds a CMake project from scratch and uses vcpkg together with GitHub Copilot CLI to discover, add, and manage C++ library dependencies without ever leaving the terminal. Along the way he shows how an AI agent in the command line can “autocomplete” everyday tasks, from discovering and integrating libraries to keeping your build reproducible, and he introduces a new vcpkg skill you can start using today.

Why watch. Dependency management is one of the oldest friction points in C++. Pairing vcpkg with an agent in the CLI turns a fiddly, potentially error-prone chore into a few conversational steps, and the same workflow carries straight over to Visual Studio and VS Code.

Learn more

• vcpkg + GitHub Copilot CLI

Garrett Campbell & Hannia Valera — What’s new in VS Code CMake Tools: AI-powered development

Garrett Campbell and Hannia Valera are engineers on the Microsoft C++ team focused on C++ developer tools. Garrett is a Senior Software Engineer whose work spans embedded development, CMake support in Visual Studio and VS Code, and agentic build-performance tooling. Hannia is a Software Engineer working on CMake Tools in VS Code and on engineering productivity for C++, including CMake workflows, build and diagnostic reliability, release quality, and AI-assisted development. • Follow Garrett: LinkedIn · Follow Hannia: LinkedIn

What the session is about. The CMake Tools extension is central to the C++ experience in VS Code, and this session walks through what’s new: real performance gains, quality-of-life improvements, and, importantly, the hooks that make agentic AI workflows possible. Expect automatic CMakeLists.txt updates, broader test support, and live demos of the extension driving an agentic loop against a real project.

Why watch. If you build C++ in VS Code, these changes shrink the gap between “edit code” and “have a working, tested build”, and they make Copilot a far more capable collaborator inside your CMake projects.

Learn more

• CMake Tools extension for VS Code
• C++ symbol context and CMake build configuration awareness for GitHub Copilot in VS Code — C++ Team Blog

On-demand guide: Modernizing C++

Moyo Okeremi — PackageReference for C++: Modernization Without the Performance Cost

Moyosore Okeremi is a Senior Software Engineer on the Microsoft C++ team, focused on C++ developer tools. She has contributed significantly to AI-assisted C++ tooling in Visual Studio and to cross-platform project and build support. • Follow Moyo: LinkedIn

What the session is about. C++ projects in Visual Studio can now use PackageReference for a simpler, more modern NuGet experience. Moyo walks through the feature in a real project and explains how the team preserved project-load performance for large-scale solutions, the very concern that historically kept PackageReference out of native C++ projects.

Why watch. This is dependency modernization without a tax: a cleaner NuGet workflow that doesn’t slow down the big solutions where it would hurt most. Moyo also covers how to enable it and where its current limits are.

Learn more

• NuGet PackageReference for C++ Projects in Visual Studio — C++ Team Blog

Michael Price — Eliminate MSVC upgrade anxiety with Copilot agents

Michael Price is a Product Manager on the Microsoft C++ team where he uses his many years experience developing enterprise software and C++ compiler tools to shape what comes next for MSVC, Visual Studio, and VS Code. Lately he’s been exploring how AI agents can make C++ easier to use in practice. Away from work he’s into board games, video games, and soccer — and he thoroughly enjoyed this year’s World Cup, even participating in fan events for both the Algerian and Dutch national teams!. • Follow Michael: GitHub @michaelbprice · LinkedIn

What the session is about. Upgrading the build tools under an enterprise-grade codebase is the kind of task that’s easy to keep postponing: what if it doesn’t compile, what if there are regressions, what if it blows past the two-week window we have? Michael shows how GitHub Copilot agents and C++-specific tools defuse that anxiety: Copilot can update project files, assess the impact, classify any warnings and errors, and work with you to build and iterate on a concrete upgrade plan, potentially saving weeks or months.

Why watch. Upgrades are how your team unlocks new language features and performance wins. This session turns a dreaded, open-ended chore into a bounded, agent-assisted task you can actually schedule.

Learn more

• GitHub Copilot app modernization for C++ is now in Public Preview — C++ Team Blog
• MSVC Build Tools Preview updates – July 2026 — C++ Team Blog

Michael Price — Always Be Upgrading: Living at HEAD with MSVC

Michael Price returns for a companion talk on staying current. • Follow Michael: GitHub @michaelbprice · LinkedIn

What the session is about. MSVC no longer ships once every few years; releases now arrive often enough that updating can be a routine, monthly maintenance task and the MSVC Preview channel lets you live even closer to HEAD, with the freshest bits and newest language features. Michael covers the recent work that makes staying current easier, including Visual Studio Insiders, the new MSVC lifecycle and support policies, the Setup Assistant, and upgrade-relevant agents.

Why watch. “Living at HEAD” sounds intimidating until you see the guardrails. This talk gives you a practical playbook for getting and staying up to date.

Learn more

• MSVC Build Tools Preview: How to Opt In — C++ Team Blog
• MSVC Build Tools Preview updates – July 2026 — C++ Team Blog

RanDair Porter — MSVC, are we there yet? Status of C++23 and C++26 features

RanDair Porter is a compiler engineer on the MSVC C++ compiler, focused on constexpr evaluation, initialization, and codebase refactoring. • Follow RanDair: LinkedIn

What the session is about. This is a straight, matter-of-fact status report on where MSVC stands with C++23 and C++26, both language and library. RanDair demos new features in the IDE, is candid about trade-offs and unfinished work, nods to the last remaining C++23 feature (constexpr cmath), and points you to the Developer Community post where you can vote on C++26 priorities.

Why watch. If you’re deciding when to adopt the newest standards, you want the unvarnished picture: what’s ready, what isn’t, and how to make your voice heard on what ships next.

Learn more

• Share your feedback on C++26 features
• C++23 Support in MSVC Build Tools 14.51 — C++ Team Blog
• STL Changelog on GitHub
• C++23 — cppreference

Watch all these on-demand sessions in our Pure Virtual C++ 2026 playlist today.

See you tomorrow!