Visual Studio 2026

iamgigglz · 12 Dec 2025 at 09:36

Anyone had a proper crack at it yet?
I've been using it for all my .Net work and the only real benefit I'm seeing it the "live" view of variable values while debugging, which is really helpful tbf.
None of my projects are big enough to comment on build times or anything like that and I don't use any of the AI stuff.

I came across my first real issue this morning though. I added a parameter to a service method and its interface, but the references to the method in my controller weren't "seeing" the new parameter. F12 took me to an old decompiled version. No amount of cleaning & rebuilding fixed the problem.
I opened the solution in VS2022 and hey presto it works as expected.

iamgigglz · 12 Dec 2025 at 10:02

Mr Jack said:
What does this mean? How does the new "live" view differ from seeing the value of variables while you're stepping through in previous versions?

Basically (almost) any variable that's on screen and part of your current "flow"(?) of code will have its current value displayed next to it so you don't have to pin variables or hover.

iamgigglz · 12 Dec 2025 at 10:03

Grim5 said:
Does it have copilot built in?

Yes but it's as easily switched off/ignored as it always has been.

iamgigglz · 12 Dec 2025 at 10:25

Mr Jack said:
I've been trying to move away from using Visual Studio mostly, I find it's too heavyweight for the work I do and the design increasingly feels old and cluttered.

Agreed. I was vainly hoping for something new & shiny for 2026 but it seems to be more of an "under the hood" upgrade. I wouldn't use it if I didn't have to.

iamgigglz · 17 Apr 2026 at 07:40

Zaxxan said:
I use it but the forced updates is so annoying, is there anyway to disable this?

What do you mean by forced updates? Mine always says "Update on close" so there's no disruption

iamgigglz · 17 Apr 2026 at 09:06

That's really odd. I often build multi-project solutions and I've never been interrupted by updates.
Try going to Tools -> Options -> Environment -> More Settings -> Product Updates and change the Installation mode to "Download all, then install".
You could also untick "Automatically download updates" but there should be no harm in leaving that ticked.