Visual Studio Product Lifecycle and Servicing (2024)

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Visual Studio 2022 follows the Microsoft Product Fixed Lifecycle Policy of 10 years. The first 5 years of Mainstream Support provide new features, platform updates, security updates, functionality fixes, and quality improvements. The second 5 years of Extended support provides only security updates. Components and tools included with or depended upon by Visual Studio may have different lifecycle, servicing, and support policies.

Visual Studio is serviced through both minor version feature updates that include significant new features and platform updates, and through security or servicing updates that provide targeted cumulative bug fixes for existing features in the product. Security fixes ship in in all types of updates. Feature updates are indicated by a change in the minor version number, such as 17.3 to 17.4, and security and servicing updates are indicated by a change in the servicing version number such as 17.2.3 to 17.2.4. These updates are available on the Current Channel and the Long-Term Servicing Channels (LTSC). For more information about our channels and updates, see Visual Studio Channels and Release Rhythm.

For the best and most secure product experience, we strongly encourage and recommend that all customers to always use the latest most secure release of Visual Studio on their chosen update channel.

Additional Information

• For a full list of product lifecycle dates, see the Microsoft Lifecycle site.
• Visual Studio 2019 product lifecycle information
• Servicing Policy for Visual Studio for Mac

How to get updates

Visual Studio 2022 will notify you that an update is available by displaying a notification icon in the status bar of the IDE or a notice in the Visual Studio Installer. You can also download the latest recommended update from VisualStudio.com or the Microsoft Catalog. IT Administrators can also configure machines within their organization to automatically download and apply administrator security updates which are released monthly. With Visual Studio 2022, the notifications are now specific to your update channel. For example, if you've configured Visual Studio to get updates from the 17.2 LTSC channel, then you'll be notified of an update only if the latest update available on that channel affects a component you have installed.

Community edition support

The Visual Studio Community edition is supported only on the Current Channel with the latest servicing release of the latest minor version of Visual Studio. You can install the latest release of Visual Studio Community from visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads or my.visualstudio.com.

Current Channel support

The Current Channel enables teams to remain supported on the latest servicing release of the latest minor version of all Visual Studio 2022 editions. You can install the latest serviced minor version of these editions from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads or my.visualstudio.com.

Enterprise, Professional, and Build Tools editions are available on both the Current Channel and the Long-Term Servicing Channels (LTSCs).

Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) support

We realize that sometimes large organizations can't adopt our product updates as quickly as we release them. So, with Visual Studio Enterprise, Professional, and Build Tools editions, we offer administrators and larger development teams more flexibility and control in how and when they advance their organization to the latest updates. An enterprise can choose to configure their client machines to get updates from one of the LTSC channels which will enable them to stay secure while deferring feature updates to a later point. Every even numbered minor version is declared to be an LTSC and is supported and kept secure for 18 months. The table below and the Support Lifecycle Database will reflect the appropriate dates for support.

Customers who choose to remain on a particular servicing baseline can find the latest release of that baseline on My.VisualStudio.com or on the Microsoft Catalog. Deployment, configuration and acquisition guidance can be found in the Visual Studio Administrator Guide.")

Additional installation and update options

In addition to the bootstrappers that are available on the Visual Studio site that always install the latest release on the Current Channel, we offer other ways to install specific versions of Enterprise, Professional, and Build Tools editions. Additional deployment, configuration, and acquisition guidance can be found in the Visual Studio Administrator Guide. Other than LTSC releases, we do not offer support or servicing for older Visual Studio 2022 releases.

• You can create and maintain your own network installation of Visual Studio (aka layout) and store it locally or on a network share.
• All minor version and servicing updates are available on the Microsoft Catalog if you want to update your installation or your offline install cache to a specific release.
• The Visual Studio 2022 Release History page provides direct links to the bootstrappers for every minor version and servicing release that you can use to install or update from.
• The final servicing release of each LTSC will be available from the Visual Studio Subscription portal.
• You can install or update Visual Studio 2022 using the Windows Package Manager winget tool.

Release Candidate (RC) Support

Release Candidate (RC) builds are offered on the Current Channel before general availability of a major release. You may use the RC in your daily work, including releasing apps built with it. RC requires a license to use Visual Studio. Once the new major release goes live, you'll need to upgrade to it to remain under support.

Preview Channel support

Visual Studio Community, Professional, and Enterprise editions are available from the Preview Channel. The Preview channel lets you try out brand new features before they're broadly released. While the Preview Channel is offered "as-is", we welcome feedback on it, and we incorporate that feedback into new preview builds. For more information on Preview Channel, see Visual Studio Channels and Release Rhythm.

Older versions of Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2019 and earlier are supported for 10 years. The following table summarizes the current support state for Visual Studio products.

Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable

The Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable follows the product lifecycle for the version of Visual Studio in which it first ships. For reference, here is a list of the latest supported versions of the Visual C downloads.

There are a few specific instances where we continue to support the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable beyond the underlying Visual Studio product lifecycle for security fixes only, and only in the context and timeframe of the Microsoft product(s) that depend on it. One such instance is when the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable is distributed in other Microsoft products, such as SQL Server, Windows Server, or Microsoft Office. Another such instance is when the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable is used in conjunction with supported versions of Visual Studio Tools for Office or Visual Basic for Applications. We do not support the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for any third-party applications beyond the underlying Visual Studio lifecycle or what is specifically mentioned above.

Starting with Visual Studio 2017, the MSVC Toolset, including the C++ compiler, follows the product lifecycle for the version of Visual Studio in which it first ships even if it ships in a subsequent version of Visual Studio. For example, the "MSVC v141 - VS 2017 C++ x64/x86 build tools (v14.16)" follows the support lifecycle of Visual Studio 2017 and the "MSVC v142 - VS 2019 C++ x64/x86 build tools (v14.20)" follows the support lifecycle of Visual Studio 2019. For Visual Studio 2015 and earlier, the Visual C++ toolset is supported according to the lifecycle of the version of Visual Studio in which it shipped.

Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime

The Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (VSTO Runtime) that ships with Visual Studio, version 10.0.50903, follows the support lifecycle of Visual Studio. If you've installed Microsoft Office on your development machine, a newer version of VSTO Runtime may be installed and used. You may also download and use newer versions of VSTO Runtime with Visual Studio. We recommended that developers install the latest version of the VSTO Runtime with their applications. It will be supported when running with supported versions Office. If the VSTO Runtime needs to be serviced, only the latest version will be updated. For more information, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Lifecycle Policy. For more information on the Office Support Lifecycle, see Lifecycle FAQ - Office, Office 365, and Microsoft 365.

Components not covered by Visual Studio servicing

Visual Studio includes a collection of compilers, languages, runtimes, environments, and other resources or tools that enable development for many platforms. As a convenience to Visual Studio customers, the components in the list below may be installed with Visual Studio and are subject to their own license and servicing, support, and lifecycle policies. Please note this list does not represent the entire list of components used by Visual Studio that are governed by their own policy but aims to highlight the most used.

During the timeframe when these components are still under support within their respective support timeframes, the Visual Studio team will review any CVEs issued against these components, determine whether they constitute a vulnerability for Visual Studio use, and addresses the vuneralibity appropriately per the Visual Studio support policy. When these components are no longer supported, they will be appended with the "(out of support)" label in the installer UI, and you may remove them during the next update using the Remove out-of-support components functionality. Click here for a listing of all the components that have already transitioned to be out of support.

For Microsoft components that are installed by Visual Studio and do not have an explicit lifecycle policy in the lifecycle database, the supported version is the latest version that is currently available for download.

When Visual Studio provides tools and templates that depend upon a component, the lifecycle and support policy for the tool will follow the support policy for the component. For example, the tooling for .NET Core 6 will follow the support policy for .NET Core 6.

Feedback and Suggestions

We would love to hear from you! You can Report a Problem or Suggest a Feature by using the Send Feedback icon in the upper right-hand corner of either the installer or the Visual Studio IDE, or from Help > Send Feedback. If you're an IT Administrator and don't have Visual Studio installed, you can submit IT Admin feedback here. You can track your issues by using Visual Studio Developer Community, where you add comments or find solutions. You can also get free installation help through our Live Chat support.