Download Visual Studio 2022 17.8.0

Microsoft has released version 17.8.0 of Visual Studio 2022, a version with extended support. This popular programming development environment, available in Community, Professional and Enterprise flavors, has useful options to make programming in Visual C++, Visual Basic, C#, F# and Python easier. The new version is fully 64bit and has a new simplified user interface. More information about version 17.8 is available this page from Microsoft; These are the most important changes in this release:

GitTooling

Create a Pull Request in Visual Studio

Instead of using the browser, you can create your pull request in Visual Studio. Use the Markdown editor with your pull request descriptions to render headers, bulleted lists, and other Markdown syntax by clicking on the “Preview” button.
Enable this via Preview Features > Pull Request.
We've iterated in preview versions to deliver better error handling and an improved the reviewer experience. Let us know what you think of Pull Request experience here.

Summary Difference View

We've added the new summary difference view option to allow you to focus on the changes in your code. You can expand and collapse specific regions in the summary view to get more context. Try this out by clicking the Summary button in the upper right corner when you're comparing files or checking against previous versions of your code.

GitHub Avatars added to Git Repository Window

See your GitHub avatars in the multi-branch graph in the Git Repository Window.

Multi-Repo Activation Setting and Limit Increase

In some workflows, it was important to control whether multi-repo was activated automatically. With a new setting, you can keep your focus on an individual repository without seeing the multi-repository UI. Additionally, we've increased the number of repositories you can work with at once to 25.

Developer Community Highlights

• Fixed disable automatic multi-branch-history toggling of current/initial Git branch on Git Repository dialog. This avoids disrupting current flows while working in the Git Repository window.
• Fixed Git branches side bar does not stay collapsed to better respect user preferences.
• Fixed the MessageBar has low contrast in the new VS 2022 17.8.0 Preview 1.0 to make the infobar appear with appropriate contrast.

C++ and Game Development

• We have added support for users to run their remote Linux unit tests from the Test Explorer in Visual Studio to any remote Linux machines they are connected to through the Connection Manager
• Added Problem Details window for navigation of structured diagnostics. Open it using the Details icon on an entry in the Error List.
• We have now implemented support for the optional C11 threads library. This includes threads, mutexes, condition variables, and thread-local storage.
• CMake version 3.27 now ships with Visual Studio in the Desktop Development with C++ workload.
• You can now navigate to the CMake Targets View by right-clicking anywhere in your Solution Explorer and selecting Switch to CMake Targets View.
• You can now also access the CMake Targets View by selecting it from the View dropdown.
• The CMake Targets View has been simplified so that users don't have to click through folders without buildable executables to get to their desired target.
• You can now view and edit files on your remote machine in Visual Studio through the Remote File Explorer window.
• You can now easily make global functions 'static'.
• When you have a free function that's not in an anonymous namespace and is missing a forward declaration in a header file, you'll receive a suggestion to mark it as static.
• You can adjust this feature's settings by going to Tools > Options > Text Editor > C/C++ > IntelliSense.
• Added new snippets for Unreal Engine. Start typing in the editor window and UE snippets will start showing as a member list item in your UE projects. Press tab or enter to create the snippet. Supported snippets include (UClass, UClassExported, UENUM, UFUNCTION, UINTERFACE, UINTERFACEExported, UPROPERTY, USTRUCT, USTRUCTExported, UELOG, SWidget, TActorRange, TObjectRange, WITH_EDITOR)
• You can now create, manage, and run your Unreal Engine tests from within Visual Studio. To ensure Unreal Engine Test Adapter is enabled properly, double check that “Unreal Engine Test Adapter” is selected in the Visual Studio Installer under the “Game development with C++” workload. After installing the UE Test Adapter, your Unreal Engine tests will automatically show up in the Test Explorer when you open Visual Studio. The latest version of our Unreal Engine plugin from the UE marketplace or GitHub is required.
• We added a “Functions View” to Build Insights integration inside Visual Studio. Build Insights' generated diagnostic report will now show you function generation time as well as ForceInlines.
• Added automatic suggestions for making member functions const if they logically should not modify the object's state. By hovering over a member function and clicking the light bulb icon, you can quickly access suggestions to mark the function as const.
• You can now hover over a class, struct, union, base type or enum to see the size and alignment.
• Now, you have the capability to sort your #include directives. This feature is accessible through the “#include Directives” dropdown inside context menu. You can also access it by adding “Sort #include directives (C++)” in the Code Cleanup configuration settings.
• You can adjust the sorting order to align with your preferences by navigating to Tools > Options > Text Editor > C/C++ > Code Cleanup.
• /FU is no longer supported for C compilations as there is no /clr support for C.
• /FU:asFriend has been added to provide parity with in-source #using as_friend.

Enterprise Management

Administrators can now easily initialize client machines before delegating standard user control or updating or modifying their installation of Visual Studio. Now, you can programmatically install just the installer by executing “vs_enterprise.exe install –installerOnly”.

Administrators that take advantage of us administrator update solution to deliver monthly security updates across their organization can now prompt users to close Visual Studio, which is a common situation that blocks administrator updates from applying. To enable the prompt, configure the new “AdministratorUpdatesNotifications” global policy, which is available in both Intune settings catalog and our ADMX Templates. Thank you to the administrator community who suggested this feature.