Keep asking; it ain't happening. Microsoft has reaffirmed that its full-featured Visual Studio IDE will remain exclusive to Windows, ending a years-long debate over bringing it to Linux and macOS by directing developers to use Visual Studio Code for cross-platform development.
Microsoft updated the free MSSQL extension for Visual Studio Code with public preview support for browsing Microsoft Fabric workspaces and provisioning SQL Database in Fabric from within VS Code, plus GitHub Copilot slash commands and reliability fixes; the extension also supports connecting to SQL Database in Microsoft Fabric via the standard connection experience.
Gartner's new Magic Quadrant for AI Code Assistants report shows GitHub Copilot leading the market while forecasting near-universal enterprise adoption of AI coding assistants by 2028.
Microsoft has published a new post explaining GitHub Spec Kit, clarifying its experimental approach to spec-driven development and how its Specify CLI, prompts, and templates structure AI coding into specify/plan/tasks phases.
Microsoft released .NET 10 RC 1 with a go-live license (production supported through Oct. 14, 2025), highlighting updates across ASP.NET Core, Blazor, .NET MAUI, EF Core, Libraries, and WinForms, with testing supported in Visual Studio 2026 Insiders and VS Code’s C# Dev Kit.
Microsoft released Visual Studio Code 1.104, adding Auto model selection and support for contributed language models in chat, alongside security, productivity, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) improvements.
Microsoft unveiled Visual Studio 2026 Insiders at VSLive! San Diego, introducing deep GitHub Copilot integration, performance and productivity upgrades, a Fluent UI redesign with new themes, and the new Insiders Channel to replace Preview.
Microsoft introduced the Awesome Copilot MCP Server for GitHub Copilot customizations as the MCP community unveiled the official MCP Registry, a cross-company catalog for discovering servers.
Microsoft Copilot Studio now offers near-real-time protection for AI agents in public preview, enabling integration with Defender and third-party systems to block unsafe actions during runtime.
Azure AI Foundry’s August 2025 update brings the GPT-5 family of models, previews a new Browser Automation tool, and expands Agent Service availability to more regions.
By integrating GitHub Copilot directly into Visual Studio's diagnostic workflow, the new Copilot Diagnostics toolset promises to transform how developers identify, understand, and resolve performance issues and bugs.
GitHub’s open-source Spec Kit formalizes spec-driven development for AI coding agents by providing a CLI, templates, and prompts that move work through specification, plan, tasks, and implementation, with details in the announcement and code in the repository.
Microsoft detailed its plans for advanced AI in its flagship IDE in September, with new modes for debugging and profiling, as well as enhancements for agentic DevOps, in the works.
Microsoft is bringing its Azure-aware Copilot experience to Visual Studio 2022. The preview extension lets developers use Copilot to inspect resources, check diagnostics and logs, run Azure CLI, and deploy inside the IDE.
Microsoft added bring-your-own-model support to Copilot Chat in Visual Studio and made the Model Context Protocol generally available in the IDE, expanding model choice and enabling governed connections to internal tools and data.
GitHub Copilot’s upgraded coding agent, now accessible through a new agents panel, lets Visual Studio and VS Code developers offload coding chores to AI and track results across GitHub’s ecosystem.
Microsoft is rolling out a new Python Environments extension in VS Code, now reaching 20% of stable channel users. The tool provides a dedicated panel for creating, managing and assigning environments, with APIs for third-party integration, while also laying groundwork for community-driven environment manager support.
Microsoft used the Visual Studio Live! keynote at its Redmond headquarters to unveil the future of its flagship IDE, including monthly updates, a new major version, deeper AI and Copilot integration, and user-driven enhancements aimed at boosting speed, flexibility, and productivity.
The 2025 Reader's Choice Awards recognize the solutions developers themselves rely on every day to build, test, deploy and maintain world-class applications.
- By Visual Studio Magazine Editors
- 08/14/2025
The update includes a new XAML Source Generator for .NET MAUI and PipeReader support in System.Text.Json. The release also delivers a range of improvements across desktop, web, and libraries, plus numerous fixes and optimizations after data/desktop devs were dissed last month in a "small" release.