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Visual Studio Icon Visual Studio 2019 Platform Targeting and Compatibility



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Visual Studio 2019 contains many new and exciting features and IDE productivity enhancements to support Windows app development, cross-platform mobile development, Azure development, web and cloud development, and more. To try out Visual Studio 2019, see Visual Studio 2019 Downloads. For more information about everything that's new in this release, see the Visual Studio 2019 release notes and What's New in Visual Studio 2019.

For Visual Studio Code, see Visual Studio Code FAQ.
For Visual Studio 2019 for Mac, see Visual Studio for Mac Platform Targeting and Compatibility.
For Visual Studio 2019 for Mac release notes.

Installation

You can install and use Visual Studio 2019 alongside previous versions of Visual Studio, including Visual Studio 2017, Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio 2013, and Visual Studio 2012.

Download


Click a button to download the latest version of Visual Studio 2019. For instructions on installing and updating Visual Studio 2019, see the Update Visual Studio 2019 to the most recent release. Also, see instructions on how to install offline.

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Note: Installation package size will vary depending on your current Visual Studio configuration.

System Requirements

For information on the system requirements for installing and running the Visual Studio 2019 family of products, including Team Foundation Server 2019, see the Visual Studio 2019 System Requirement page and Visual Studio for Mac Product Family System Requirements.

Feedback and Support

For support, or to submit feedback on Visual Studio, see:

Upgrade Projects to Visual Studio 2019

When following the supported upgrade paths, your Visual Studio source, solutions, and project files will continue to work; however, you should expect to make some changes to sources. While we cannot guarantee binary compatibility between releases, we will do our best to document significant changes to assist you with updates.

Note

For details on how to migrate your projects to Visual Studio 2019, see Porting, Migrating, and Upgrading Visual Studio Projects.

Platform Targeting

Visual Studio provides cutting-edge tools and technologies to create apps that take advantage of the latest platform capabilities, whether Windows, Android, iOS, or Linux. Visual Studio 2019 also targets earlier platforms so you can create new apps or modernize existing apps that execute on earlier versions of Windows while leveraging the enhanced development tools, quality enablement, and team collaboration capabilities in Visual Studio 2019. For more information, see Managing references in a project and Visual Studio Multi-Targeting Overview.

Visual Studio 2019 Support for Windows Development

The following table explains the Microsoft Windows platforms for which you can build apps by using Visual Studio 2019.

Build Apps that Run on Windows Clients Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows 10 Yes
(see notes below)
Yes
(see notes below)
Windows 10 Team Edition Not applicable Yes
(see notes below)
HoloLens No Yes
See the Windows Holographic Dev Center.
Xbox One Not applicable Yes
See the Xbox Dev Center.
Windows 8.1 (Windows 8) Yes Windows Store app development is not available.
Windows 7 Yes Not applicable
Windows Vista Yes
Remote debugging and profiling tools are not available.
Not applicable
Windows XP Yes
Managed development requires using Visual Studio .NET multi-targeting. Remote debugging and profiling tools are not available.
Not applicable
Build Apps that Run on Windows Phone Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows 10 Mobile No Windows Store app development is not available.
Windows Phone 8.1 and earlier No Windows Store app development is not available.
Build Apps that Run on Windows Server Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows Server 2016 Yes Yes
(see notes below)
Windows Server 2016, Nano Server Installation Option Yes, for .NET Core and a subset of Win32
See the Nano Server Dev Center.
No
Windows Server 2012 R2 Yes Windows Store app development is not available.
Windows Server 2012 Yes Windows Store app development is not available.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Yes Not applicable
Windows Server 2008 Yes
Remote debugging and profiling tools are not available.
Not applicable
Windows Server 2003 Yes
Remote debugging and profiling tools are not available. Managed development requires using Visual Studio .NET multi-targeting and requires side-by-side installation of Visual Studio 2010. For more information, see: A Look Ahead at the Visual Studio 2012 Product Lineup and Platform Support.
Not applicable
Build Apps that Run on Windows Embedded Devices Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows 10 IoT Core Yes, for a subset of Win32 APIs
See the IoT Core API Porting Tool for information.
Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows 10 IoT Mobile Enterprise No Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows Embedded 8 Standard and 8.1 Industry Yes No
Windows Embedded Compact 2013 No Not applicable
Windows Embedded 7 (Compact, Standard, and POSReady) No Not applicable
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 and earlier No Not applicable
Windows XP Embedded (Including POSReady 2009, WES 2009, WEPOS) No Not applicable

Notes

Visual Studio 2019 Support for .NET Development

Visual Studio 2019 supports development of apps that use any of the .NET implementations. Among the workloads and project types, you can find support for .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, .NET Native for Universal Windows Platform (UWP), C#, F#, and Visual Basic. Visual Studio 2019 supports the following .NET implementations:

Note

For more information on each of these implementations, and on the common API specification .NET Standard, see .NET architectural components.

Visual Studio 2019 Support for Android Development

Visual Studio 2019 enables you to build native Android apps using Xamarin and C# or using C++. The Visual Studio Tools for Unity and the Unreal Engine enable Android game development. You can also use Visual Studio for Mac to build Android apps using a Mac.

You can use Visual Studio setup to easily obtain the Android SDK and Android API levels 19, 21, 22, and 23. You can download additional API levels separately using the Android SDK Manager. You can also use Visual Studio Setup to obtain the Android Native Development Kit (R10E), Java SE Development Kit, and Apache Ant.

For more information, see Android development with Visual Studio and Mobile App Development.

Note

For information on .NET development for Android, see .NET architectural components.

Visual Studio 2019 Support for iOS Development

Visual Studio 2019 enables you to build and debug apps for iOS by using C++, Unity, or Xamarin and a Mac configured for iOS development when using remotebuild, vcremote, the Visual Studio Tools for Unity, or the Xamarin Mac Agent. Xamarin supports iOS 7 and higher, and requires OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" or higher. You can also use Visual Studio for Mac to build iOS apps using a Mac.

Note

For more information, see Cross-platform mobile development in Visual Studio. For information on .NET development for iOS, see .NET architectural components.

Visual Studio 2019 Support for Linux Development

Visual Studio 2019 enables you to build and debug apps for Linux using C++, Python, and Node.js. Creating C++ apps for Linux requires the Visual C++ for Linux Development extension. Creating apps with Python or Node,js, requires that you enable remote debugging on the target Linux machine. You can also create, build and remote debug .NET Core and ASP.NET Core applications for Linux using modern languages such as C#, VB and F#.

Note

For information on .NET development for Linux, see .NET architectural components.

  • CentOS 7.1 and Oracle Linux 7.1
  • Debian 8
  • Fedora 23
  • Linux Mint 17
  • openSUSE 13.2
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
  • Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04

Note

For more information see https://dot.net/core.

Visual Studio 2019 Support for macOS Development

Visual Studio 2019 enables you to build console applications and ASP.NET applications that target macOS. However, debugging is not supported. For additional macOS development tools choices, try Visual Studio Code or Visual Studio for Mac. Visual Studio Code provides a streamlined, extensible developer tool experience for macOS. Visual Studio for Mac provides a feature-rich IDE that enables you to build native macOS apps, including ASP.NET, using C#.

Note

For information on .NET development forMacOS, see .NET architectural components.

Other Platforms and Technologies

Visual Studio 2019 also supports the following platforms and technologies. For more information, see https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/features/.

Compatibility with Previous Releases

.NET Framework

.NET 4.7 is is a highly compatible in-place update of .NET 4, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, and 4.6.2.

Note

For more information, see the Migration Guide to the .NET Framework 4.7, 4.6, and 4.5.

Team Explorer, Azure DevOps Server, and Team Foundation Server

Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2019 will connect to Azure DevOps Server 2019, Team Foundation Server 2017, Team Foundation Server 2015, Team Foundation Server 2013, Team Foundation Server 2012, and Team Foundation Server 2010 SP1.

Silverlight

Silverlight projects are not supported in this version of Visual Studio. To maintain Silverlight applications, continue to use Visual Studio 2015.

Windows Store and Windows Phone apps

Projects for Windows Store 8.1 and 8.0, Windows 10 Mobile and Windows Phone are not supported in this release. To maintain these apps, continue to use Visual Studio 2015. To maintain Windows 10 Mobile projects, use Visual Studio 2017. To maintain Windows Phone 7.x projects, use Visual Studio 2012.


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