Visual Studio 2013 is now available for download! We hope you are as delighted with this release as we are to bring it to you. Mark your calendars to join us at the Visual Studio 2013 virtual launch event in November.
Among the new capabilities in Visual Studio 2013 you will find enhanced editor features like Peek Definition and Code Lens, enhancements to debugging and profiling code, and also performance improvements. Visit Somasegar’s blog for details on what this release is all about.
If you haven’t tried out Visual Studio 2013 Preview or RC, when you first launch Visual Studio 2013 you’ll be invited to sign in to Visual Studio with a Microsoft Account.
When you sign in with your Microsoft account, Visual Studio will remember your top settings and automatically synchronize them across devices ensuring Visual Studio is set up to exactly how you like it! You can learn more about this feature from our previous Synchronized Settings blog post or from MSDN.
Signing in has other advantages in addition to synchronizing your settings across devices. As an MSDN subscriber, signing in will automatically unlock the IDE without needing to enter a product key. Signing in to Visual Studio Professional, Premium and Ultimate can extend a trial, and Visual Studio Express users can sign in once to fully unlock their IDE. In addition, when you sign in, Team Explorer can now prepopulate all your Team Foundation Service accounts automatically in the Connect to Team Foundation Server dialog and connect to them without re-prompting for credentials. Check out Signing in to Visual Studio to learn more about the capabilities that get lit up when you sign into Visual Studio.
You can still unlock Visual Studio Professional, Premium and Ultimate with a product key. However, features that need a signed in user, like Synchronized Settings won’t be available.
Download Visual Studio 2013 to try out the new features. You can also visit our What’s New and Productivity Tips pages on MSDN to help you get started with Visual Studio 2013. For information on Windows 8.1 check out Blogging Windows. MSDN subscribers can download both Visual Studio 2013 and Windows 8.1 from the MSDN and TechNet Subscribers Download page.
Visual Studio 2013 works seamlessly side-by-side with Visual Studio 2012. Project round tripping is also supported between Visual Studio 2013 and Visual Studio 2012. For more information check out system requirements and platform compatibility.
Read these additional posts from the people who contributed to this release to gain more insight into Visual Studio 2013:
Thank you for all the feedback thus far that has helped shape Visual Studio 2013. We look forward to hearing from your feedback / ideas so please add your suggestions to UserVoice or vote up an existing suggestion. Use Connect to log bugs, and Forums for Q&A. You can also contact Product Support for any issues in production.
Enjoy!
Then Visual Studio Team