Microsoft announced the release of Visual Studio 2022 64-bit Preview 1 yesterday, and it is available for download now. For the first time in Visual Studio history, Visual Studio 2022 marks the first release of a 64-bit version of Visual Studio. The “key goal with this preview is to test and tune the scalability of the new 64-bit platform”, Microsoft says. Because converting Visual Studio to 64 bit affects every part of the suite, Microsoft has stated that the preview’s scope is much bigger than the team’s usual previews with Visual Studio.
The idea to make build a 64-bit version of Visual Studio is to ensure better use of system resources when tasked with more complex solutions overtime. According to Microsoft, during the early testing of Visual Studio 2022, customers were able to run the VS IDE for days, even with solutions containing 700 or more projects.
However, there are a “small number” of features missing from Visual Studio 2019 in the publicly released VS 2022 Preview 1 as noted under the release notes, Microsoft has stated. Visual Studio 2022 previews can be installed side-by-side with earlier versions of Visual Studio’s existing three branches of editions – Community, Pro, and Enterprise. Previews of Visual Studio 2022 are, of course, free to use.
As part of its Visual Studio 2022 roadmap, Microsoft has shared that testers should expect new features and performance improvements showing up overtime with Preview 2. You can download the VS 2022 Preview 1 here.
