Yesterday we released the second Preview of Visual Studio 2017 version 15.5 and we would love it if you would try it out and tell us what you think. We’ve polished up some features that were introduced with the first Preview, addressed some of the issues you’ve reported, and made improvements in the product’s fundamentals such as performance, reliability, and productivity. For details of all the goodness contained in this Preview, check out the Visual Studio 2017 version 15.5 Preview Release Notes. A few of the notable highlights include:
C++ Development:
We’ve made a lot of improvements to the C++ development experience with Visual Studio version 15.5, and the following changes are debuting with Preview 2. First of all, the Standard Template Library and the Compiler were enhanced to embrace the C++ 17 standard. (For the exhaustive detailed list of all the specific C++ template changes, refer to the Preview Release Notes). We’re also shipping new C++ Core Guidelines checks in C++ code analysis, which will help ensure your C++ code is robust. In this release the Test Explorer supports the Google Test Framework, which enables you to write, discover, and run your Google Test C++ unit tests from within the context of Visual Studio. Lastly, we’ve improved the Linux C++ Workload by introducing support for cross compilation targeting ARM microcontrollers and capabilities to run remote tasks.
TypeScript and JavaScript Development:
Visual Studio 2017 version 15.5 Preview now supports Angular 2 Language Service. Refer to the samples for overview and guidance.
Debugging:
For .NET Developers using the Enterprise version of the product, IntelliTrace’s Step-back debugging feature, which debuted first in Preview 1, continues to expand its capabilities, and it now supports debugging ASP.Net applications running in IIS Express.
Try it out
If you’re not familiar with Visual Studio Previews, please take a moment to read the brief Visual Studio 2017 Release Rhythm. Remember that Visual Studio 2017 Previews can be installed with other versions of Visual Studio and other installs of Visual Studio 2017 without adversely affecting either your machine or your productivity. Previews provide an opportunity for you to receive fixes faster and to try out upcoming functionality before it becomes mainstream. Similarly, the Previews enable the Visual Studio Engineering team to validate usage and detect flaws earlier in the development process. This means that we are highly attuned to feedback coming in through the Previews. It’s a virtuous win-win cycle.
Please install the Visual Studio 2017 Preview today, exercise your favorite workloads, and tell us what you think. You can report issues to us via the Report a Problem tool in the Visual Studio IDE or you can share a suggestion on UserVoice. You’ll be able to track your issues in the Visual Studio Developer Community where you can ask questions and find answers. You can also engage with us and other Visual Studio developers through our Visual Studio conversation in the Gitter community (requires a GitHub account).
