Microsoft bows to the inevitable and takes Visual Studio 64-bit for 2022 version
- Reference: 1618851666
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/19/visual_studio_64_bit/
- Source link:
It has been a while coming. Visual Studio dates back to the last century and started out life as Visual Studio 97 (replete with the likes of J++) before version 6.0 turned up to round out the 1990s. Microsoft stuck with naming by year thereafter (aside from a brief dalliance with slapping everything with the .NET moniker at the start of this century).
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Which brings us to Visual Studio 2022 and one of the larger overhauls for the suite, not least of which is the long-awaited move to a 64-bit application.
The announcement of the impending preview comes in the month that a preview of a 64-bit client for OneDrive was also [3]announced . Visual Studio fans have, however, been waiting quite a bit longer for their platform to make the migration.
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Why so long? [5]It's... complicated . First there is the sheer size of the codebase and the issue of how an ecosystem expecting a 32-bit Visual Studio might react. Then there is the potential of a performance hit by shift to chunkier data structures. And so on.
However, not being limited to around 4GB of memory in the main devenv.exe also has a distinct appeal. Engineers accustomed to leaving ridiculous numbers of browser tabs open would be able to do the same with projects and files in Visual Studio without fear of the out-of-memory exception.
That said, "Visual Studio will continue to be a great tool for building 32-bit apps," according to Microsoft.
Addressable memory isn't the only thing that is changing. Refreshed icons and the use of the Cascadia font first seen in Microsoft's Windows Terminal project are also on the cards as well as synchronised settings over devices and integration with Accessibility Insights.
Developers will be shocked, shocked to learn that "Visual Studio 2022 will make it quick and easy to build modern, cloud-based applications with Azure." Improvements in GitHub integration are also inbound and "full support" will be on offer for .NET 6.
As well as other improvements around code searching, C++ 20 tooling, CMake and .NET Hot Reload for web, desktop and mobile app types, the team also plans to shift Visual Studio for Mac to native MacOS UI.
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However, while "the user experience will feel cleaner, intelligent, and action oriented" (handy considering the growth of the tool over the decades), it is the arrival of 64-bit for the old warhorse that will raise more than a few eyebrows. ®
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[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-2022/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YH39eOkP4UlNsSrY5qR7WwAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/09/64_bit_onedrive/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YH39eOkP4UlNsSrY5qR7WwAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://ricomariani.medium.com/visual-studio-why-is-there-no-64-bit-version-yet-849abcf0e5ec
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YH39eOkP4UlNsSrY5qR7WwAAAAw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Search visualstudio. Com for offline installer
Just post it on their UserVoice.. oh
I predict this just results in Visual Studio using more memory with any real improvements.
I guess I was wrong
Well, when the 64 bit OneDrive client was reported I suggested that it was pointless because even VS didn't need 64 bit and remained 32 bit. How wrong I was! Clearly, this change is absolutely essential.
I can't wait to create my 5GB projects that are fully loaded into memory. Now, where did I leave that design I had for a massively bloated application that has every bell and whistle and no focus?
Re: I guess I was wrong
To be fair, Microsoft are probably thinking of removing the bundled 32-bit support (WoW64 layer) and selling it as an optional extra through their little store platform.
If their flagship IDE required it, this might be a little embarrasing or prevent uptake.
Probably a good thing although vs flies along at a decent pace for me on new projects a couple of the large accreteted solutions regularly need chunks of projects disabling to avoid out of memory errors and lots of swapping. Although forget about vs if your somehow stuck on having spinng rust instead of an ssd as your os/app drive
To be fair to vs its performance has really improved with 2017 and 2019 versions its the third party add ons (reharper really not needed anymore thanks to built in refactoring tools, but it's unit test runner is so much better than the built in one) which kill performance.
Refreshed icons
Deep joy
Can we get it on an ISO please :)
I don't like having to drag in 30+gigs just to make an offline cache of mostly cruft. Or at least just provide the compiler in the Windows 10 SDK so I don't need to faff about with Visual Studio.
Yes I am requesting here because I have absolutely zero chance of Microsoft listening to any of their users requests regardless of where I post haha.
Also, I swear I remember Microsoft making excuses for keeping with 32-bit because it makes better use of the cache. I would love to know what made that fact change ;)