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GitHub Copilot Adds New C++ Capabilities with MSVC Upgrades and Build Performance Improvements
Microsoft announced that GitHub Copilot has gained new capabilities aimed specifically at C and C++ developers in Visual Studio. These updates include smoother upgrade paths for the MSVC compiler toolset, enhanced analysis of large codebases, and refactoring assistance tailored to C-style projects.
The C++ team said developers using Visual Studio with MSVC will find that Copilot now helps audit project settings, such as the Platform Toolset and Windows SDK version, offering inline prompts when the toolset is outdated or performance-harming. The tool also evaluates build configuration and suggests reorderings, precompiled header adjustments and incremental-build tweaks to improve build times and output fidelity.
On the refactoring front, Copilot now recognizes common C-style patterns (for example, raw pointers, manual indexing) and proposes modern C++ refactors (such as std::vector replacements, smart pointers or range-based algorithms) directly within Visual Studio's editor. It can generate multi-file suggestions to bring older code closer to modern C++ idioms.
The announcement emphasizes that these enhancements are part of ongoing work rather than immediate mandatory changes, giving teams time to adopt at their own pace while preparing for future C++ standards support.
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