Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.2, Plus a 15.3 Preview

While the general availability of Visual Studio for Mac generated a lot of news today, Microsoft also shipped two other important Visual Studio versions: Visual Studio 2017 version 15.2 and Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 Preview.

“Whether it is Visual Studio Enterprise, Visual Studio Team Services, Visual Studio Code, we are committed to providing the most productive developer experience end-to-end,” Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie notes. “Visual Studio 2017 version 15.2 delivers bug fixes and new functionality that was not previously available in the past releases [and] Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 Preview includes bug fixes, improvements in accessibility, and new functionality, most notably .NET Core 2.0 preview support.”

Visual Studio 2017 version 15.2 includes the Python and Data Science workloads that were removed from the initial release, TypeScript 2.2 support, Unity 5.6 compatibility in the game workload, and support for Xamarin 4.5 with Android SDK Manager. Microsoft notes that it also made feature improvements to the C++ Linux tools, and that RedGate ReadyRoll is now integrated into the Data workload. You can learn more at the Visual Studio 2017 release notes website.

Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 Preview includes support for .NET Core 2.0 Preview (including Visual Basic and F#), support for Windows Nano and Linux Docker containers, Nano debugging support for Docker, Microsoft Graph compatibility, improvements to Live Unit Testing, and improved conformance with the C++ standard. You can learn more from the Visual Studio 2017 Preview 15.3 release notes.

Both products are available now for download from the Visual Studio website, and if you’re already running Visual Studio 2017 you can always upgrade to the latest version using the Visual Studio Installer utility.