Visual Studio 2019 Product Lifecycle and Servicing

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Visual Studio 2019 follows the Microsoft Product Fixed Lifecycle Policy of 10 years. The first 5 years of Mainstream Support provide feature updates, platform updates, security updates, and functionality fixes, and the second 5 years of Extended support provide security updates. For more information, search the Support Lifecycle Database.

Visual Studio is serviced through both minor version updates that includes significant new features, and through servicing updates that provide targeted cumulative bug fixes for existing features in the product. The minor and servicing levels are denoted by the second and third digit respectively in the version number. For example, using the version 16.1.5 , “.1” denotes the minor version update, and “.5” denotes the servicing update. Security fixes ship in both minor and servicing updates. For more information about our updates, see the Visual Studio Release Rhythm.

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

How to get updates

Visual Studio 2019 will notify you that an update is available by popping a notification icon in the bottom border bar of the IDE. This will install the latest recommended release. You can also download the latest recommended release from VisualStudio.com. You can find the older versions of Visual Studio to either install or update to on My.VisualStudio.com, and you can find updates on the Microsoft Catalog.

Support Options for Enterprise and Professional Customers

We realize that sometimes large organizations can't adopt our product updates as quickly as we recommend. So, as a benefit to our Enterprise and Professional customers using Visual Studio 2019, we are increasing the availability of supported and older products. We will now declare multiple minor version updates as supported “servicing baselines”. Customers can install the latest release of a servicing baseline to remain secure and in support. We will also make all servicing releases available on the Microsoft Catalog in case of need to restore to a prior configuration. These additional acquisition points will provide administrators and larger development teams more flexibility and control in how and when they advance their organization to the latest updates.

Enterprise and Professional customers who choose to remain on a particular older supported servicing baseline should be aware that support for that servicing baseline will continue for only one year after the release of the next servicing baseline. This is described further below and in the Microsoft Support Service Pack Lifecycle Policy. When Microsoft designates a minor release as a Visual Studio 2019 servicing baseline, the Support Lifecycle Database will reflect the appropriate dates for support. Customers on an older servicing baseline must upgrade to a more current servicing baseline before the end of that one year to remain in a supported and secure state.

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.

The Visual Studio Community edition is only supported on the recommended latest release of the latest minor version of Visual Studio, which is denoted in the blue line in the graphic below.

The following table shows example update scenarios for Visual Studio 2019.

Support for older versions of Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2017 and earlier are also 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. For support, contact the support team for the parent product.

MSVC (C++) Toolset

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) ships with various versions of Visual Studio and Microsoft Office and follows the support lifecycle of the parent product. For more information on the VSTO Runtime Support Lifecycle, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Runtime Lifecycle Policy.

Components not covered by Visual Studio servicing

Visual Studio and Visual Studio for Mac include 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. The Visual Studio team reviews CVEs for these components, determines whether they constitute a vulnerability for the Visual Studio use, and addresses them per the Visual Studio support policy. 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.

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.

In addition to components, Visual Studio also uses several project and project item templates. The support for these templates is governed by the component that provides those templates. For example, if you use a Python template, then support for the template will follow the support policy for Python Tools for Visual Studio.

Feedback and Suggestions

We value your feedback. As always, let us know of any issues you run into by using the Report a Problem tool in Visual Studio. You can also head over to Visual Studio Developer Community to track your issues, make suggestions, ask questions, and find answers from others. We use your feedback to continue to improve Visual Studio, so thank you again on behalf of our entire team.