Microsoft has released a preview of Visual Studio 2026, the first major version update since 2021, promising deeper AI integration and a new look and feel.

Visual Studio 2026 embraces fluent design and offers new themes, but developers care more about the code and tools

Visual Studio is the second most popular IDE after VS Code, so the first major update in five years sounds like a big deal for developers. Visual Studio 2022, also known as version 17.x, was first released in November 2021. The new version will be 18.x. Yet based on the information revealed by principal product manager Mads Kristensen, and The Register 's download of the preview, the changes are incremental rather than revolutionary.

Changes highlighted by Kristensen include a new logo, the renaming of Visual Studio Prev

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