What’s new in 2.2

We’re publishing a series of posts here that go over some of the new feature areas in detail. We’ll update the post with links to these posts as they go live over the coming days:

• API Controller Conventions
• Endpoint Routing
• Health Checks
• HTTP/2 in Kestrel
• Improvements to IIS hosting
• SignalR Java client 

This release contains the previously released .NET Core 2.1.2 Runtime and the following:

• ASP.NET Core 2.1.2
• .NET Core SDK 2.1.400 

New Features

Comes with Git v2.18.0.
Comes with Git Credential Manager v1.16.2.

Announcing TypeScript 2.9 

• We added support to change installation locations.
• You can Save All your pending changes before you start your update.
• The update dialog provides you even more details about your update during installation.
• C# 7.3 is included in Visual Studio version 15.7.
• We improved solution load time for C# and VB projects.
• We made numerous updates to F# and its tools, with a focus on performance.
• We reduced the time to enable IntelliSense for large .NET Core projects by 25%.
• We made Quick Info improvements and new .NET refactorings like convert for-to-foreach and make private fields readonly.
• We added the ability to publish ASP.NET Core applications to App Service Linux without containers.
• Live Unit Testing works with embedded pdbs and supports projects that use reference assemblies.
• The Test Explorer has more responsive icons during test runs.
• C++ developers can use CodeLens for unit testing.
• We added new rules enforcing items from the C++ Core Guidelines.
• Debugging large solutions with /Debug:fastlink PDBs is more robust.
• CMake integration supports CMake 3.11 and static analysis.
• Python projects support type hints in IntelliSense, and a Run MyPy command has been added to look for typing errors in your code.
• Conda environments are supported in Python projects.
• We added a next version of our Python debugger based on the popular open source pydevd debugger.
• TypeScript 2.8 is included in Visual Studio version 15.7.
• We improved Kestrel HTTPs support during debugging.
• We added support for JavaScript debugging with Microsoft Edge.
• The Debugger supports VSTS and GitHub Authentication for Source Link.
• IntelliTrace’s step-back debugging feature is supported for debugging .NET Core projects.
• We added IntelliTrace support for taking snapshots on exceptions.
• We removed the blocking modal dialog from branch checkouts in Git when a solution or project reload is not required.
• There is an option to choose between OpenSSL and SChannel in Git.
• You can create and associate Azure Key Vaults from within the Visual Studio IDE.
• Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin can automatically install missing Android API levels required by Xamarin.Android projects.
• The Xamarin.Forms XAML editor provides IntelliSense and quick fixes for conditional XAML.
• We added support for Azure, UWP, and additional project types in Visual Studio Build Tools.
• You can create build servers without installing all of Visual Studio.
• The Windows 10 April 2018 Update SDK - Build 17134 is the default required SDK for the Universal Windows Platform development workload.
• We added support for Visual State Management for all UWP apps and more.
• We enabled automatic updates for sideloaded APPX packages.
• You have new tools for migrating to NuGet PackageReference.
• We added support for NuGet package signatures.
• We added Service Fabric Tooling for the 6.2 Service Fabric release.
• We updated Entity Framework Tools to work with the EF 6.2 runtime and to improve reverse engineering of existing databases.

This is a "go live" release that can be used in production with the understanding that you will need to update to the final stable release once it is available.  

.NET Core 2.1-Preview2 comprises:

• .NET Core Runtime 2.1.0-preview2-26406-04
• .NET Core SDK 2.1.300-preview2-008530

New Features

Comes with Git v2.17.0.
Comes with OpenSSL v1.0.2o.
Comes with Git Credential Manager v1.15.2.
Comes with OpenSSH v7.7p1.
 

• We improved solution load performance by optimizing design time build.
• We've added installation progress details on Visual Studio Installer.
• You can pause your installation and resume at a later time.
• We streamlined the update process so the notification takes you directly to the Installer.
• Non-administrators can create a VS layout.
• We added a new shortcut for Edit.Duplicate in the keyboard mapping.
• We made significant improvements to the F# language and tools, particularly for .NET Core SDK projects.
• The C++ compiler optimizes your code to run faster through improved optimizations.
• C++ Mapfile generation overhead is reduced in full linking scenarios.
• Debug options are available for Embedded ARM GCC support.
• We added strong name signing on CoreCLR for the C# compiler.
• Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin has lots of new productivity updates for iOS and Android developers.
• Python no longer requires a completion DB, and Anaconda users have support for conda.
• The Performance Profiler's CPU Usage Tool can display logical call stacks for asynchronous code.
• The CPU Usage tool displays source line highlighting and async/await code with logical 'Call Stack Stitching'.
• The debugger supports thread names set via SetThreadDescription APIs in dump debugging.
• Snapshot Debugging can be started from the Debug Target dropdown for ASP.NET applications.
• We've launched the initial implementation of Navigate to decompiled sources for .NET code navigation.
• New enhancements for Configure Continuous Delivery include support for TFVC, Git authentication over SSH, and containerized projects.
• You can now click on the Continuous Delivery tile in Team Explorer to configure automated build and deployments for your application.
• Team Explorer supports Git tags and checking out pull request branches.
• Service Fabric Tooling for the 6.1 Service Fabric release is now available.
• The Windows 10 Insider Preview SDK can be installed as an optional component.
• File versions for a number of Visual Studio executables now reflect the minor release.
• Test Explorer has a hierarchy view and real time test discovery is now on by default.
• We have added support for testing Win10 IoT Core applications.
• Visual Studio Build Tools supports TypeScript and Node.js.
• ClickOnce Tools support signing application and deployment manifests with CNG certificate.
• You can access Azure resources such as Key Vault using your Visual Studio accounts. 

Team Explorer support for TLSv1.2

• We have updated the Git and the Git Credential Manager components that ship in Visual Studio.
• The optional Git for Windows component has also been updated.
• This update allows Git to connect to services that have deprecated support for TLSv1 and TLSv1.1 in favor of TLSv1.2.

Issues Fixed in this Release

These are the customer-reported issues addressed in this release:

• Projects targeting .NET Core 2.1 or newer are not supported by Visual Studio 2017 version 15.5.
• Fixed issue where installation of the SDK for .NET Core 2.1 or newer would cause the option to create ASP.NET Core 2.0 Web applications to disappear.