Visual Studio is Microsoft"s flagship integrated development environment (IDE) that is used by lots of developers all over the globe to build multi-platform products. Microsoft continually releases new versions of the IDE with new features and performance enhancements, with the latest generally available version being Visual Studio 2022 in November 2021. Now, the company has released a public service announcement (PSA) regarding older versions of the IDE that are running out of support.
Four versions of Visual Studio are running out of support soon, these are as follows:
- Visual Studio 2012: Extended support is ending on January 9, 2023. Users are recommended to upgrade to a newer version.
- Visual Studio 2017: Mainstream support is ending on April 12, 2022. Only security updates will be issued to baseline version 15.9 under extended support until April 13, 2027.
- Visual Studio 2019 version 16.7: Support is ending on April 12, 2022. Recommended upgrade path is version 16.9 or newer, or Visual Studio 2022.
- Visual Studio 2019 Preview Channel: Support ends in April 2022. Developers should migrate to Release Channel or Visual Studio 2022 Preview.
Although Microsoft has described some possible upgrade paths for developers on older versions of Visual Studio above, its general recommendation is to upgrade to Visual Studio 2022, obviously. It has described this iteration of the software as its "most productive IDE ever", and noted that it has three channels for developers to consider depending upon their requirements: Preview, Current, and Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC). You can download Visual Studio 2022 from here.