Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 Complete!

Today, the Windows and Windows Server teams announced that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have been released to manufacturing.  In keeping with our goal of delivering great tools on the same cadence as our platforms, I’m thrilled to announce that we have completed final builds of Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5.

This has been an exciting road for all of us involved in these projects, and we’re glad to be able to deliver these to our customers.

For MSDN Subscribers, the bits will be available for download on August 15th. Visual Studio Professional, Premium, Test Professional, and Ultimate with MSDN Subscribers can also sign up for a free, one year developer account for Windows Store today, with Windows Phone developer accounts coming soon.

We’re also planning an exciting launch event on September 12th, so mark your calendars, and visit https://visualstudiolaunch.com for more details.

Thank you to all of you that have taken the time to try the Visual Studio 2012 Developer Preview, Beta, and Release Candidate releases.  Your feedback has been very helpful.

Namaste!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Wow! looks good. eager to try this one. can't wait. :)

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    WOW THAT LOOKS AMAZING!!!! AAAAAAAA I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SHOULTING AT YOU GUYS NOW BUT SEAMS THAT THIS IS THE NEW WAY TO TALK!!!!!!!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    What about MSDN availability?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    I believe this, and Windows 8, will be available on MSDN on August 15.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Be aware of what you are getting into when you install Visual Studio 2012.  It requires .NET 4.5. If you still plan to develop for .NET 4.0 then there are serious drawbacks that Microsoft is not advertising. .NET 4.5 assumes that the developer is happy to have .NET 4.0 bugs fixed when developing "Targeting .NET 4.0" (with .NET 4.5 installed).   This means that developers will not see .NET 4.0 bugs once they have .NET 4.5 installed.  But once you run on a machine that does not (or cannot) have .NET 4.5 installed on it, those bugs will be present again.  (Basically they are hidden while you debug but show up once you release.) However, if you don’t have any .NET 4.0 users, then .NET 4.5 is a safe upgrade. See here for more info: social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../c05a8c02-de67-47a9-b4ed-fd8b622a7e4a

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    awesome luk I LOVE IT

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    I've already started some new projects on Visual Studio 2012! Can't wait to start developing on its final release :-)

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Congratulations for all the hard work! We're very excited to use all the new tools and improvements!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Thank you. When can I download it ?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    How can we obtain the Registration Code for the Windows Store registration process for us that own MSDN subscription? Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Great news! :)   RC looks very good. Looking forward to getting this final release. Good job, guys!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    @ Veli Deli, as stated in the article VS 2012 will be available to MSDN subscribers on Aug 15, 2012.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    If it is RTMed today, why does it take 15 days to put the bits on MSDN Subscriptions? Curious minds would like to know :).

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Thats a news that the community was waiting for... Hurray!!!!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Will the RTM of TFS also be available on August 15th?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Hi Ry, Yes - TFS will also be available on August 15th. -somasegar

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Great news!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Great great news.  Hardly wait to try everything.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    looks like none of the tremendous feedbacks about the ugly and unusefull UI have been heard. I ' m already depressive thinking I will have to work with this sad greyish and quasi monochrome UI. I know there are tons of improvements in it .... but why soo much hate and disrespect against the ones who use this product.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Millions of us would like to know.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Yes - WPF is a part of .NET 4.5 and is supported. -somasegar

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Ah ... The Developer accounts are not yet open for individuals (only for corporate entities)

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    RK, with the magnitude of all of these releases, we're dotting our i's and crossing our t's to ensure we have a good experience for customers.  This includes upgrading our distribution systems to handle the expected onslaught of download traffic.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    I guess what I really want to know is if Blend for Visual Studio will have full designer support for WPF 4.5 applications. I'm using VS 2012 RC and it's completely busted.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Stephen Toub... Because all these releases came as a surprise to Microsoft, right? It's not like you've known they were coming for many months. I guess you absolutely had to wait for RTM before you could start "upgrading your distribution systems" :-)

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Good news... and some more to learn more...

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Someone can let me know why we need to waiting until August 15th?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Good work!  Looking forward to getting our hands on it.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Namaste Soma, As your screenshot their is two themes available Dark and Light in Rc.

  1. When I choose Dark Everything in background set to #000 Black.
  2. When I set Light then project list (as your final screenshot) are come in Black #000 also. Is their any myth behind setting black also when user choose light themes. I don't feel that Blue color for text foreground with black in bground is a good idea. Thanks Visual studio team to ship a new version of their software. I hope people love to use it.
  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    I'm another MSDN Subscriber failing to find additional details on how to "sign up for a free, one year developer account for Windows Store today".  The enrollment process appears to require a discount code.  If we missed the opportunity today we hope it will be repeated on the launch date.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    The ui is still the broken one despite all our thousands of feedbacks?? :(

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Thank you!.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Just as I install the RC you announce the final build. Any ideas as to what time will it hit Dreamspark for Students?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    So good for this event. Can't wait until it really releases :)

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Menu captions are still in uppercase. The UI is still in grayscale. .Net 4.5 is still an inplace upgrade without XP support. Yet you have the nerve to tell us that our feedback has been very helpful?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    This looks really ugly :-(

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Is this the final build we can install or will we need to re-install the released version?????

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    If you still plan to develop for .NET 4.0 then there are serious drawbacks that Microsoft is not advertising. RC looks very good. Looking forward to getting this final release. <a href="http://www.aworkzone.com">Aworkzone</a>

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    I could never attend any session and got the app store registration token. The UI is still in grayscale. [url=http://www.aworkzone.com]Enterprise[/url]

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Looks very sad,

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    When will the express version be available to public?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Will the VS2012 RTM run on Vista?

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    а смысл ставить на Vista? переходи на Windows8 )))

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    The UI is horrible and anti-productive. I can't imagine working with this s..t 12-16 hours per day.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Thank you!

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Having used 2012 early on I can't wait for the final release.  For those of us who are adaptable the UI is not bad and the upgrades/features make for a way more productive environment than VS2010.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2012
    Congrats! The community previews have been outstanding.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    it's a greate new for IT world

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Certainly this looks truly awesome.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Will Blend 5 work for WPF?

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Will it be possible to develop .Net 4.5 applications using VS 2010 and do not see this horrible pocky UI every day?

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    What about intelisense support for text templates ? For now we must use extensions for this task, but they are poor. From what I see on the screenshoot, our feedback was useless.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Microsoft releases another unusable product.  Yipppeeee... Same bugs,  dreadful UI,  poor performance, no rad and more spin. I guees the new slogn is "What Microsoft abyss do you want to fall into today."   I do not understand the congratulations on this blog, I used the RC and it is nothing to write home about it feels more like a BETA release then RTM.  I am sicking with VS 2010 and XP at least the bugs, and there are a lot of them, are known. I will give you congratulations when you issue a Visual Studio and .NET end of life given it is obvious you have no clue how to get this product stable.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Can't say I'm overly excited about this - can't believe the rabid fans leaving feedback that they are excited - they obviously haven't downloaded the RC or beta. Either that or they are N00bs who haven't used VS before and don't realise how much better the VS2010 UI is/was. I've spent a bit of time with the RC now (mainly because of bugs in VS2010 which I hypothesise were created by installing the RC). I can't adapt to it at all, using the Solution Explorer is painful, like staring at porridge. "Luckily" we are still on XP at work so can't install this abomination. I think MS would've been better off releasing an SP2 for 2010 composed of bug fixes and 4.5 support. Very disheartened by the direction VS is going, after 2 decades of (more or less) gradual improvement. We don't need Gucci interfaces; we are developers, not brain dead hipsters. Jeez.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    We are missing ScottGu... Whats up with CAPS? its ugly and childish...

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    Suggestion to M$$$ Why dont you huys change all your main web menus into CAPS and see how it looks? Again, CAPS in the menu is UGLY.

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    So still no answer as to whether Blend 5 supports WPF designer?

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2012
    I am dissapointed that so many feedback was ignoreg. We have presended dtrong indication, but MS does not care about this. So they created Visual Stink

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    Alex & Martin- Some news about Blend should be coming soon.  Thanks for your interest and patience.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    Missing Scott Gu, whatever. Any manager that by design causes compatibility issues (like microsoft doesn't do this well enough on their own LOL)  and pours resources into changing one of the few areas of Visual Studio that was marginally acceptable the UI doesn't deserve their job. We would be better off if Microsoft didn't develop and just fixed bugs! Otherwise it is one step forward and 5 back. Don't kid yourself Microsoft product are so bad no one wants to upgrade so they do stupid stuff like .net 4.5 to try and force corporations into their newer technologies. This is going to be an EPIC fail. Wait until service pack 25 when they back pedal then install VS 2012.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    @KodiakMx, @Rohit Sharma, @K.Piette There are a few questions about how MSDN subscribers access the developer account benefits for Windows Store and Windows Phone. Windows Store is available today for company registration - simply log into My Account at msdn.microsoft.com/.../manage. You'll see Windows Store developer account listed, with links to the registration code and the registration process. Windows Store individual account registration will become available later this fall, and Windows Phone developer accounts will be available later this month. Please note that the Windows Store developer account benefit is not available for MSDN subscriptions that are provided through MPN subscriptions, BizSpark, Web Site Spark, and Not for Resale (NFR) subscriptions. Windows Phone developer accounts will not be available for MSDN subscriptions that are provided through MPN subscriptions, Web Site Spark, and Not for Resale (NFR) subscriptions.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    kevinw: As outlined in blogs.msdn.com/.../a-look-ahead-at-the-visual-studio-11-product-lineup-and-platform-support.aspx, Visual Studio 2012 "leverages core capabilities that are only present in the latest versions of Windows" and as such "requires Windows 7 or higher to run."  That's a statement about where Visual Studio itself runs, however, not about the platforms for which you can build apps using Visual Studio 2012. The "platform targeting support" section of that post outlines the latter.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    Robert Iagar: I expect Visual Studio 2012 will be available on DreamSpark by the end of August.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    What about apps that target .NET 3.5? Stephen noted that there are problems for .NET 4.0. Is it even worse for .NET 3.5 apps?

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    ...and another thing. The monochrome glyphs are useless.  Especially on a dark background.  They must all now have a white frame which means when you see a bunch of them together in a menu or on a tool bar they become indistinct blobs and lose all effectiveness at helping you find commands or distinguish items quickly.  As such they become noise and make finding things even harder. I'm fine with flat.  I'm fine with sparse, but your UI must be driven by usability, not some dogma of design as this apparently was.

  • Anonymous
    August 03, 2012
    Kevin Burton: Stephen's comments are about .NET 4.5 being an in-place update for .NET 4, meaning that .NET 4.5 overwrites .NET 4 such that all .NET 4-based apps just running against the installed .NET 4.5.  In contrast, .NET 4/4.5 install side-by-side with .NET 3.5, so you can have both .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.5 on the same machine, and .NET 3.5 apps will continue running against .NET 3.5.

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2012
    I am impressed by the release and its features.

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2012
    Will VS 2012 be available on Microsoft DreamSpark? :)

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2012
    Hi Kljuco, Yes - VS 2012 will be available on DreamSpark before the end of August. -somasegar

  • Anonymous
    August 05, 2012
    Great :) Thnx :)

  • Anonymous
    August 06, 2012
    What's the final build number going to be the same as Windows, 9200?

  • Anonymous
    August 06, 2012
    Awahr, the final build number for Visual Studio is 50727.01.

  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2012
    Is this the RTM version or did I miss something?? This blog entry blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-dark-theme.aspx refer to an RTM version. Anyway great job, when VS2012 Beta was released i was disappointed by new look and feel, but after working with VS2012 every day, it started getting better and the perf improvements are noticeable!

  • Anonymous
    August 07, 2012
    Max, yes, this is RTM.

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2012
    A dreadful release. It crashed several times already in testing and the UI is miserable to look at. With all the opportunities for improvement in VS2010 I was hoping for something much better. Sorry this seem more like untested then complete.

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2012
    When will VS 2012 be available to Select Plus customers?

  • Anonymous
    August 09, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 09, 2012
    David, most Select customers have subscriptions, so they'll get access via MSDN on 8/15.

  • Anonymous
    August 10, 2012
    Gee, basically force the Win8 GUI style on the developers.  I predict Win8 and Visual Studio 2012 are going to be Windows ME (if not Bob) all over again.  I've been doing this since Windows 286, and been doing Microsoft Development since QuickBasic 3.0 (One time leader over on CompuServe etc) and I was the FIRST person to order VB 1.0 (knew when it was going on sale, called right at opening time).  This is the first time I'm seriously thinking of abandoning the Microsoft Platform.  With most apps being delivered by the browser these days, I can choose what server platform to deliver my HTML/CSS/JQuery etc.  We just need another Phillipe Kahn to come out with something the quality (relative to what is current) of the Borland C compiler, and maybe, just maybe, Microsoft will listen to developers again, instead of the PHBs of those developers

  • Anonymous
    August 10, 2012
    Thank you too, we really very happy to use Visual Studio :-)

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2012
    You guys staying with ALL CAPS, really?!

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2012
    Awesome stuff...

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2012
    i am very happy

  • Anonymous
    August 12, 2012
    It's exceptionally disappointing that the team have ignored the substantial negative user feedback regarding the colourless and SHOUTING UI. I for one won't be upgrading to this version.

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2012
    hope it would comes with new advanced features and nice look .

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2012
    OK, 15 August, who's time zone?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    WebMinder: PDT.

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    What are the system requirements for Visual Studio 2012? I am looking forward to buying Visual Studio 2012 Professional in October or November of this year. Also, I need to buy a new laptop. Please let me know, so I know what to buy. Thank you, and thanks for all of the hard work.

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    Will MVC 4 final bits be released 8/15 as well, or is it completely out-of-band?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    @Ray I Dukes -- Agree -- this question holds for all the various SDKs.  It would also be useful to know when .NET 4.5, MVC 4, etc. will be available on hosted Azure cloud services without having to do some sort of funky install script.  For instance, if we start using VS 2012, at what point will all the updated frameworks be part of the OS images on Azure?  Can we upgrade our projects to the new frameworks right away, or will we need to stick with old frameworks even if we're using updated tools?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    @Stephen Toub: Uhhhh.... I should've asked "What time" ;0)  OK, what time today, it is now 0:35 PDT.

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    Eagerly awaiting for the final release candidate.

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    Is it still today the RTM will be available for download on msdn?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    Will Bizspark members get access today? It is not in my downloads or product key list. Thnx, Thor Kornbrek tkornbrek@legaldatamgmt.com

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    I thought today it will be available for download for msdn subscriber!? Do someone know something?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    www.microsoft.com/visualstudio says "Visual Studio 2012 is complete! Available for download August 15." However ALL the links take you to VS 2010.  Where is the product available for download (the actual product -- not the RC)?

  • Anonymous
    August 14, 2012
    Looking forward to downloading this today.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Hi, When tools like Windows Azure SDK, Azure tools and WIF will be available to download?

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    No link Yet! Are you sure it is releasing today?

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Where's the bits?

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Still no sign of the RTM. What gives? Beefing up the servers for the download onslaught? that should have been done days ago.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Please delete my rant! The download deluge has begun!! Thx!!!

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Hmmm... shouldn't the download related servers scale seamlessly on Azure?  20 minutes and still can't start a download or get a license key...

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Its like a Christmas time but Santa got stuck inside the chimney...I dont get anything from MSDN Subscription atm

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    The new phonebook's here!  The new phonebook's... er, bits are here!  Download complete.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    Ugly menu.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    As most folks are likely now aware, the bits have been released.  More information is available at blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-2012-and-net-4-5-now-available.aspx.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    @LeTrape: The Windows Azure SDK for .NET has been updated to work with this RTM release.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    @Aug 15th: BizSpark benefits come through MSDN, so this should now be available to you.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    @John: The system and hardware requirements for Visual Studio Professional 2012 are listed on the product page at www.microsoft.com/.../downloads.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    @Ray I Dukes: Yes, ASP.NET MVC 4 is now available, from http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4.

  • Anonymous
    August 15, 2012
    @Stephen Toub - do you know a date that VS2012 will be available on DreamSpark and DreamSpark Premium?

  • Anonymous
    August 16, 2012
    @cmoore76: Please see Neil Carter's answer in the comments at blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-2012-and-net-4-5-now-available.aspx

  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2012
    For everyone who asked about DreamSpark: Visual Studio 2012 is now available to students through http://www.dreamspark.com.

  • Anonymous
    September 10, 2012
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 28, 2012
    very  bad

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2013
    Wow! looks good