The .NET Framework 4.5.1 RC is now available. It comes with a go-live license, enabling you to deploy 4.5.1 apps in production.
Here are the RC bits. Download them. Try them out. Tell us what you think.
- .NET Framework 4.5.1 RC (offline installer also available)
- Visual Studio 2013 RC (includes 4.5.1)
Our RC release is a set of “fit and finish” changes on top of the earlier .NET Framework 4.5.1 Preview, which we released in June. The best place to learn about the features and capabilities of RC is to read our earlier .NET Framework 4.5.1 Preview post. Our plan was to complete all new 4.5.1 features in the Preview release, and then to polish them on our way to RTM. That’s exactly what you see playing out with the RC release.
You can also check out our What's New in the .NET Framework 4.5 MSDN page, which calls out new 4.5.1 features. Still, if you are a TL;DR type of reader, I’ll call out some of the big features here, in the three categories that we focused on. They are all waiting for you in the new release.
- Developer productivity
- x64 edit and continue
- Async-aware debugging
- Managed return value inspection
- ADO.NET idle connection resiliency
- Improvements in Windows Store app development
- App performance
- ASP.NET app suspension
- On-demand large object heap compaction
- Multi-core JIT improvements
- Consistent performance before and after servicing the .NET Framework
- Continuous innovation
- .NET Framework updates
- NuGet releases
- Better discoverability of Microsoft .NET NuGet packages
- Supporting large scale deployment of .NET NuGet packages
The .NET Framework 4.5.1 is gathering momentum. We can tell that just from the download numbers, but also from the developers that we’ve been talking to. Do check out the 4.5.1 RC, even if you haven’t tried the Preview release. Please tell us how the .NET Framework 4.5.1 is working out for you. We’d love to get your feedback.
We also announced that the .NET Framework 4.5.1 and Visual Studio 2013 will RTM with Windows 8.1 GA. You can read more about the launch on Soma’s blog.