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Microsoft is urging developers to stop using .NET Core 2.2 ahead of its end of life, which is scheduled for December 23, 2019. Because of the looming deadline, Microsoft is telling developers to upgrade from .NET Core 2.2 "now".

As of that date, .NET Core patch updates won't include updated packages of container images for .NET Core 2.2.

As Microsoft explains, .NET Core 2.2 is no longer receiving support because it is a 'current' or non-LTS (long-term servicing) release, which is supported for only three months after the next release, and .NET Core 3.0 was released on September 23.

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So, time's up for 2.2 and Microsoft wants developers to move to .NET Core 3.2, which was released on December 3, 2019 as an LTS release.

.NET Core is the modular open-source implementation of .NET for creating web apps and services that run on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It can share the same code with .NET Framework and Xamarin apps.

Microsoft promises the upgrade .NET Core 3.1 will be simple, but will require specific steps depending on where users are upgrading from.

"The supported upgrade path from .NET Core 2.2 is via .NET Core 3.1. Migrating from 2.2 to 3.1 is straightforward; update the project file to use 3.1 rather than 2.2."

It has also offered instructions for migrating projects from 2.0 to 2.1. Upgrading from ASP.NET Core 2.2 to 3.1 has "additional considerations", it warns.

The .NET Core 2.2 warning was part of flurry of blogposts from Microsoft this week about changes to .NET Core and follows its September release of "battle-tested" .NET Core 3.0 from Microsoft teams in Bing and dot.net.

Microsoft has had two months to test version 3.1 for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The downloads include a .NET Core 3.1 SDK and runtime, Docker container images, and a snap installer for Ubuntu.

"The most important feature is that .NET Core 3.1 is a long-term supported (LTS) release and will be supported for three years," said Richard Lander, a program manager on the .NET team.

"Many other Microsoft teams will soon be deploying large workloads on .NET Core 3.1 in production," said Lander.

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Microsoft also released Visual Studio 2019 16.4, which includes .NET Core 3.1 and a GitHub integration that allows users to publish code directly from Team Explorer to synchronize code from local repositories.

"It is a required update to use .NET Core 3.1 with Visual Studio. For Visual Studio 2019 users, we recommend simply updating Visual Studio to 16.4 and instead of separately downloading .NET Core 3.1."

The new release includes support for the Microsoft created C++/CLI, which it says has been highly requested by developers targeting Windows.