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Agent mode is now generally available with MCP support


Copilot agent mode is the next evolution in AI-assisted development—and it's now generally available in the Visual Studio June update. Agent mode turns GitHu...
Latest posts

Top News from October-December 2015, Part 2

In Part 1 of this post I shared news from the fall on Visual Studio, .NET, ASP.NET, and languages. Here I’ll conclude the roll-up with news around Connect(); //2015, cross-platform development,. Visual Studio Code, Windows 10, and a little more. Connect(); //2015: Our second Connect(); event was, to my mind, even more impressive than the first. I say this not just for the news and announcements, as John Montgomery reviews in his post, but for the way that all the demos tied together into one story that really illustrated the comprehensive platforms and tools that Microsoft is now delivering. Those demos were all...

Top News from October-December 2015, Part 1

It’s been a few months since our last roll-up of top developer stories, so I’ll be catching up with the news from last fall in two posts. We’ll start here in Part 1 with Visual Studio, .NET, ASP.NET, languages, and a few other tools for good measure. Part 2 will cover a variety of topics including Connect(); //2015, Windows 10, cross-platform development,. Visual Studio Code, and a number of other goodies. So let’s get started.Visual Studio Update 1: almost like clockwork, John Montgomery announced the CTP (October), RC (November), and RTM (December) releases of Visual Studio Update 1. Amo...

Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova Update 5

Welcome to the new year and a new Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova (TACO) update! We just released Update 5 of the tools for you—full details are in the release notes—and we’ve created a new developer blog that you can follow to keep up to date with tips, tricks, and articles from our development team.New in Visual Studio TACO Update 5In Visual Studio 2015, you should see a prompt to download and install the new Visual Studio TACO Update 5 release.The top changes in this release are: Read more from our developers, or go to the release notes for Update 5.Keeping in touch with you!In ...

Unit Testing Apache Cordova Apps with Visual Studio, Part 2

Part 1 of this post provided some background on unit testing with a basic example in Visual Studio for an app written with Apache Cordova. In this post we’ll make many improvements to that example using the process of test-driven development, which helps you separate the process of thinking about how to challenge a unit of code to fail from the process of coding that unit to make it not fail! We’ll also discuss a little about debugging unit tests. Again, these two posts are a shorter version of walkthroughs that we’ve recently added to the documentation for the Visual Studio Tools for Apach...

Unit Testing Apache Cordova Apps with Visual Studio, Part 1

See Part 2 of this series. Great apps—like great artists, actors, and athletes—are great performers. Human beings validate and continually improve their performances through extensive training, practice, rehearsals, and after-the-fact reviews. We achieve these same ends in software development through many levels of rigorous testing—or continuous validation—across the entire app lifecycle. Chances are you’ve heard about unit testing, but you might not be clear on what it is, exactly, and how it fits into a cross-platform app project build with Apache Cordova. In the documentation f...

Installing the Unreal Engine in Visual Studio

As previously announced, Visual Studio has partnered with some of the most popular game engines to bring you an easy acquisition experience for game development tools. Today we are pleased to confirm that we now provide the ability to acquire and install the Unreal Engine directly from the IDE. What is Unreal Engine? The Unreal Engine is a cross-platform game engine targeting DirectX 11 and 12 for PC and Xbox, OpenGL for iOS, OS X and Android, and WebGL for the Web. Console development on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is also available on the Unreal Engine for registered developers of those platforms. Unreal...

The .NET Journey: Recapping the last year

Having just completed Connect(); // 2015, we thought to take a moment to review everything that’s happened with .NET over the last year, between last year's and this year's Connect();. And what a year it’s been! We’ve seen significant developments in the .NET Framework, including the release of new versions, and also the release of two new technologies, .NET Native and .NET Core, both of which will change the ways in which the .NET Framework is used and the platforms on which it is supported. The .NET Framework 4.6 The .NET Framework version 4.6 was released in July with Visual Studio 2015 and...

Connect(“demos”); // 2015: HealthClinic.biz

During Connect(); //2015 we showcased many technologies available to you as a developer across Azure, Office, Windows, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Team Services. We’ve also heard from you that you love to have real-world applications through which you can directly experience what’s possible using those technologies. This year, then, we built out a full health and technology scenario for our Connect(); //2015 demos and are delighted to share all the source code with you: HealthClinic.biz is a fictitious regular doctor practice specialized in offering healthcare preventive care. This clinic i...

Visual Studio Update 1 RTM

Today we’re releasing Visual Studio 2015 Update 1. Let me be the first to thank everyone who installed these earlier releases, provided feedback, and helped us iron out the kinks. [The final release of Team Foundation Server Update 1 is also available today, which you can read about on Brian Harry's blog.] I’ve already shared many of the features that we introduced in the CTP and the release candidate (RC), and you can find a complete list of features in Update 1 in the Visual Studio Update 1 RTM Release Notes. Let me now highlight the final additions made for RTM: A...