Support ends for older versions of Visual Studio

Paul Chapman

February 10th, 202212 2

We want to keep you secure when using Visual Studio. If you’re using an older version of Visual Studio, we have several reminders about upcoming events in the Visual Studio support lifecycle.

Visual Studio 2012: support ends on January 10, 2023 for the IDE and its associated products, runtimes, and components. We recommend users upgrade to a newer version of Visual Studio.
Visual Studio 2017: mainstream support ends April 12, 2022, and the product will transition to extended support until April 2027. During extended support we’ll provide fixes only for security issues. We recommend users move to the 15.9 supported baseline to remain under support.
Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7: support ends April 12, 2022. We recommend users move to the version 16.11 supported baseline, or to Visual Studio 2022.
Visual Studio 2019 Preview Channel: after April 2022, we will no longer provide updates to the Preview Channel of Visual Studio 2019. We recommend users migrate to either the Visual Studio 2019 Release Channel or to Visual Studio 2022 Preview to stay secure and receive the latest feature updates.

What does this mean for you?

Visual Studio 2022 is our most productive IDE ever, and we recommend all our customers upgrade to it, especially those using the Community Edition. With Visual Studio 2022 we offer three channels: Preview Channel so that you can provide early feedback on the latest features. The Current Channel provides these new features when they are ready for widespread use. Users should install each minor update of the Current Channel as it is released to stay in support. Finally, for the Enterprise, Professional, and Build Tools Editions, we offer Long-Term Servicing Channels (LTSC) to give your development team more control over when you adopt new feature releases. We provide quality and security fixes for LTSC for 18 months after release.

Install Visual Studio 2022

Similarly, Visual Studio 2019 offers users of the Enterprise and Professional editions long-term stable and secure development environment by using the servicing baselines. If you’re using version 16.7, to remain under support you’ll need to update to a supported serving baseline. Support for version 16.9 will end October 2022. Version 16.11 will be supported for the balance of the Visual Studio 2019 lifecycle, with Mainstream support ending April 2024, and extended support ending April 2029. For more information about these lifecycle phases, see Fixed Lifecycle Policy.

Visual Studio Subscribers can find Visual Studio 2019 and older versions in the downloads tab of the subscriptions portal at my.visualstudio.com.

Visual Studio 2012

On January 10, 2023, support will end for all Visual Studio 2012 editions, associated products, runtimes, and components and they will no longer receive security updates. These include:

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate, Premium, Professional, Express for Web, Express for Windows Desktop, Team Explorer, and Test Professional editions.
Visual Studio 2012 Shell (Integrated) and Shell (Isolated).
Visual Studio 2012 version of components including Agents, IntelliTrace Collector, Microsoft Azure Tools, Remote Tools, SDK, SQL Server Data Tools, Team Explorer, Visual C++ Redistributable, Web Tools Extensions.

We recommend users upgrade to a newer version of Visual Studio to remain under support. Please see below for the upcoming end-of-support dates for Visual Studio.

Visual Studio version	End of Mainstream Support	End of Support
Visual Studio 2022, Current Channel	January 2027	January 2032
Visual Studio 2022, version 17.0 LTSC	n/a	July 2023
Visual Studio 2019, version 16.11	April 2024	April 2029
Visual Studio 2019, version 16.9	n/a	October 2022
Visual Studio 2019, version 16.7	n/a	April 2022
Visual Studio 2017, version 15.9	April 2022	April 2027
Visual Studio 2015, Update 3 including KB3165756	October 2020	October 2025
Visual Studio 2013, Update 5	April 2019	April 2024
Visual Studio 2012, Update 5	January 2018	January 2023
Visual Studio 2010 and earlier	Out of support	Out of support

Upgrade today!

In conclusion:

It’s time to complete your migration from Visual Studio 2012 to a later supported version.
It’s time to move off the Preview Channel of Visual Studio 2019 to Visual Studio 2022 Preview.
It’s time to move off Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7 to Visual Studio 2019 version 16.11 or Visual Studio 2022.

For the best Visual Studio experience, we recommend installing Visual Studio 2022 today.

If you have any questions about the upgrade or migration process or about our support policy, just ask in the comments below!

Install Visual Studio 2022

Paul Chapman Principal Program Manager, Visual Studio Release Engineering

12 comments

Alexander Wurzinger February 10, 2022 10:33 am 0

>>We recommend users migrate to either the Visual Studio 2019 Release Channel or to Visual Studio 2022 Preview to stay secure and receive the latest feature updates.
Isn’t VS2019 Release + VS2019 Preview the same right now?
Also you can change from VS2019 Release to Preview, but not back, at least not without reinstall, so if you have a VS2019 Preview installed the only thing you can do is to uninstall and install a Release version (or VS2022 Preview)?

Paul Chapman February 11, 2022 9:29 am 0

Thank you for the questions. We’re ending updates to Visual Studio 2019 Preview after April 2022; after that point Preview will be frozen and all updates will go only to Visual Studio 2019 Release.

Yes, unfortunately with Visual Studio 2019 there isn’t a way to switch between the Channels (we’ve added this feature to Visual Studio 2022, and are working on enhancements to it).

Our recommendation would be to either install Visual Studio 2022 Preview (if you want to continue receiving early feature updates), or to install Visual Studio 2019 Release, and then uninstall Visual Studio 2019 Preview. This will reduce install time as components that are shared won’t need to be re-installed.

Denis Proshutinskii February 10, 2022 9:21 pm 0

There’s 1 thing I miss from VS2019 – Concurrency Visualizer. Hope it will be available in VS2022 soon

Nik Karpinsky February 11, 2022 9:49 am 0

Yep, it is coming. I just got the build updated and we are testing everything. Hopefully we have it out the door in a week or two, you can get updates on it at: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Please-Support-Concurrency-Visualizer-in/1566380
Nik Karpinsky February 16, 2022 11:33 am 0

And it’s live! You can get the VS2022 version here
- David Fiedler February 17, 2022 2:31 am 0
  
  “We’re sorry, the page you requested cannot be found!”
  - Nik Karpinsky February 17, 2022 9:56 am 0
    
    Doh! Sorry about that, I forgot to hit the “make public” button. Should be fixed now.
    - David Fiedler February 19, 2022 6:02 am 0
      
      Thanks

Michael Ober February 11, 2022 7:34 am 0

Looking at the VS 2017 and VS 2019 end of support dates explains why I always skip a version.

CHENG HUP UNG February 13, 2022 10:19 pm 0

Microsoft RDLC Report Designer is missing in VS2022.
All of our existing projects are being affected, this is the reason we are still hanging on to VS2019.
Besides, not only us, a lot of of developers and projects are being affected base on Developer Community:-

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/microsoft-rdlc-report-designer-in-2022/1494593

Leslie Richardson February 14, 2022 10:47 am 0

Thanks for the feedback! The RDLC extension is one of our top extensions we’re trying to prioritize for VS 2022 migration, and while I don’t have a release date on my end right now, we’re currently working with the respective owners to make it happen soon.

john-papachristos March 28, 2022 4:46 pm 0

I’ve been wondering about .NET support for Visual Studio 2019. As older versions of .NET Core and .NET go out of support, and I understand that Visual Studio 2019 will not support later versions (.NET 6 and up), does that mean we should not be using Visual Studio 2019 to develop .NET applications after May 2022 and .NET Core applications after December 2022? Even though the end of life for Visual Studio 2019 is a few more years down the track? It seems that if you want to develop application using Visual Studio in .NET after 2022, then we have to move to Visual Studio 2022.

Comments are closed. Login to edit/delete your existing comments

Alexander Wurzinger February 10, 2022 10:33 am 0

>>We recommend users migrate to either the Visual Studio 2019 Release Channel or to Visual Studio 2022 Preview to stay secure and receive the latest feature updates.
Isn’t VS2019 Release + VS2019 Preview the same right now?
Also you can change from VS2019 Release to Preview, but not back, at least not without reinstall, so if you have a VS2019 Preview installed the only thing you can do is to uninstall and install a Release version (or VS2022 Preview)?
- Paul Chapman February 11, 2022 9:29 am 0
  
  Thank you for the questions. We’re ending updates to Visual Studio 2019 Preview after April 2022; after that point Preview will be frozen and all updates will go only to Visual Studio 2019 Release.
  
  Yes, unfortunately with Visual Studio 2019 there isn’t a way to switch between the Channels (we’ve added this feature to Visual Studio 2022, and are working on enhancements to it).
  
  Our recommendation would be to either install Visual Studio 2022 Preview (if you want to continue receiving early feature updates), or to install Visual Studio 2019 Release, and then uninstall Visual Studio 2019 Preview. This will reduce install time as components that are shared won’t need to be re-installed.
Denis Proshutinskii February 10, 2022 9:21 pm 0

There’s 1 thing I miss from VS2019 – Concurrency Visualizer. Hope it will be available in VS2022 soon
- Nik Karpinsky February 11, 2022 9:49 am 0
  
  Yep, it is coming. I just got the build updated and we are testing everything. Hopefully we have it out the door in a week or two, you can get updates on it at: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/Please-Support-Concurrency-Visualizer-in/1566380
- Nik Karpinsky February 16, 2022 11:33 am 0
  
  And it’s live! You can get the VS2022 version here
  - David Fiedler February 17, 2022 2:31 am 0
    
    “We’re sorry, the page you requested cannot be found!”
    - Nik Karpinsky February 17, 2022 9:56 am 0
      
      Doh! Sorry about that, I forgot to hit the “make public” button. Should be fixed now.
      - David Fiedler February 19, 2022 6:02 am 0
        
        Thanks
Michael Ober February 11, 2022 7:34 am 0

Looking at the VS 2017 and VS 2019 end of support dates explains why I always skip a version.
CHENG HUP UNG February 13, 2022 10:19 pm 0

Microsoft RDLC Report Designer is missing in VS2022.
All of our existing projects are being affected, this is the reason we are still hanging on to VS2019.
Besides, not only us, a lot of of developers and projects are being affected base on Developer Community:-

https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/t/microsoft-rdlc-report-designer-in-2022/1494593
- Leslie Richardson February 14, 2022 10:47 am 0
  
  Thanks for the feedback! The RDLC extension is one of our top extensions we’re trying to prioritize for VS 2022 migration, and while I don’t have a release date on my end right now, we’re currently working with the respective owners to make it happen soon.
john-papachristos March 28, 2022 4:46 pm 0

I’ve been wondering about .NET support for Visual Studio 2019. As older versions of .NET Core and .NET go out of support, and I understand that Visual Studio 2019 will not support later versions (.NET 6 and up), does that mean we should not be using Visual Studio 2019 to develop .NET applications after May 2022 and .NET Core applications after December 2022? Even though the end of life for Visual Studio 2019 is a few more years down the track? It seems that if you want to develop application using Visual Studio in .NET after 2022, then we have to move to Visual Studio 2022.