Today, we are excited to announce the third preview release of .NET 11! This release includes improvements across the .NET Runtime, SDK, libraries, ASP.NET Core, .NET MAUI, C#, Entity Framework Core, container images, and more. Check out the linked release notes below and get started today.
This release contains the following improvements.
📚Libraries
- System.Text.Json offers more control over naming and ignore defaults
- Zstandard moved to System.IO.Compression and ZIP reads validate CRC32
- SafeFileHandle and RandomAccess expand pipe support
- Regex recognizes all Unicode newline sequences
- See all library updates
⏱️Runtime
- Runtime async removes the preview-API opt-in requirement
- JIT optimizations improve switches, bounds checks, and casts
- Browser and WebAssembly add WebCIL and debugging improvements
- See all runtime updates
🛠️ SDK
- Solution filters can now be edited from the CLI
- File-based apps can be split across files
dotnet run -epasses environment variables from the command linedotnet watchadds Aspire, crash recovery, and Windows desktop improvements- See all SDK updates
C#
🌐 ASP.NET Core
- Zstandard response compression and request decompression
- Virtualize adapts to variable-height items at runtime
- HTTP/3 starts processing requests earlier
- See all ASP.NET Core updates
📱 .NET MAUI
- Maps add clustering, styling, and richer interaction APIs
- XAML and styling improvements reduce startup work and speed up iteration
LongPressGestureRecognizeris now built into .NET MAUI- .NET for Android adds Android 17 / API 37 preview support
- See all .NET MAUI updates
🎁 Entity Framework Core
ChangeTracker.GetEntriesForState()avoids extra change detection- DbContext configuration can remove providers and add pooled factories
- Migrations get more control and clearer feedback
- SQL generation removes unnecessary joins and SQL Server adds JSON APIs
- See all EF Core updates
📦 Container Images
🚀 Get started
To get started with .NET 11, install the .NET 11 SDK.
If you’re on Windows using Visual Studio, we recommend installing the latest Visual Studio 2026 Insiders. You can also use Visual Studio Code and the C# Dev Kit extension with .NET 11.
This is all well and good but it is pretty clear that MS cannot keep up the pace with yearly releases of NET like other companies do. Every NET release requires months of workarounds to properly upgrade apps until all the MS infrastructure catches up. Case in point, VS 2026 and NET 10 were release 6 months ago. As of yet the MS hosted build agents DO NOT have VS 2026 support. It is still in preview. Yet a change was made by the NET 10 SDK team to require VS 2026 (specifically MSBuild 18) in order to build NET...
WinUI is not a part of .NET. It’s a native UI framework built with C++.
Why does MAUI get first party support but WinUI doesnt?