Microsoft released the newest version of its popular IDE, Visual Studio 2017 today for Windows alongside a preview of the still in development Mac software. The biggest improvement comes in its installation screen, which finally lets you pick and choose which components to install.




The big push with this update is speed. In this case, that includes a new live dependency validation feature for quicker bug hunting, improved collaboration features (including significantly enhanced GitHub integration), and a handful of new publishing features. That all comes alongside a completely new installer that allows you to pick your own workloads, components, and language packs. This gives Visual Studio a lower memory footprint and faster startup time while also just making it far less cluttered to use. This should prove helpful when installing Visual Studio on a laptop that doesn’t have a ton of extra storage space.

As was the case with the last version of Visual Studio, a free version is available alongside the professional tools for students, open-source, and individual developers. The Mac version also gets a new preview version with a slew of bug fixes and performance improvements as it inches toward a proper release. Love it or hate it, Visual Studio is ubiquitous in the software industry, and this newest version makes it a bit more accessible. You can find a much more detailed breakdown of all the newest features over at Microsoft’s landing page.


What’s new in Visual Studio 2017 | Microsoft