In this article, we will discuss in detail about the new release of Visual Studio 2017, list of features, setting up the environment, prerequisites and so on. Microsoft announced the new release of Visual Studio 2017 on November 16, 2016.
Prerequisite
We will see in detail about the minimum system requirements of Visual Studio 2017. Visual Studio 2017 will quietly work on the following operating systems and hardware, as shown below.
Operating Systems
- Windows 10 version 1507 or higher
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows 8.1 (with Update 2919355)
- Windows Server 2012 R2 (with Update 2919355)
- Windows 7 SP1 (with Update 3033929)
Hardware
- 1.8 GHz or faster processor
- 4 GB RAM ( Recommended)
If you are going to install a number of features or components based on it, we require hard disk space in the PC/Laptop.
Setting up the Environment
If you want to know how to install Visual Studio 2017 RC to your PC/Laptop. I have downloaded Visual Studio Community 2017 RC from Microsoft, as given in the link. You can see step by step guidelines, as given below.
You can download Visual Studio 2017, as given in the URL. You can copy and paste the URL into your Browser, as shown below.
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Double click and Run the vs_Community.exe file.
If you receive a user control prompt and click the Yes button, Visual Studio Window will open, and then click the Continue button.
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Now, start to initialize the setup.
You have to choose the required workloads, as per the screenshot given below. In my case, I have selected .NET Desktop development and Web development workloads. I have continued the default location for the installation. Click Install button.
Visual Studio Products Window will open and start to download as well as install at the same time, as shown below in the screenshot. ![]()
After successfully installing Visual Studio 2017 Community 2017 RC, click Launch button.
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Now, Visual Studio is getting ready.
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Microsoft account Window will open, you can give your Microsoft account credentials and log in the screen, mentioned below.
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Lets prepare for the first use.
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Visual Studio Community 2017 RC's first look is shown below.
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How to modify components on Visual Studio 2017
If you want to know how to modify the development component to Visual Studio 2017 in your PC/Laptop, you can see the step by step guidelines, as shown below.
Go to Start -> you can find Microsoft Visual Studio Installer. Click Microsoft Visual Studio Installer. Afterwards, you will receive a user control prompt and click Yes button.
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Visual Studio products Window will open and click Modify button.
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Additionally, I have selected a Game development with Unity workloads. I have continued the default location for the installation. Subsequently, click Modify button.
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After successfully modifying Visual Studio 2017 Community 2017 RC, click Launch button.
How to Uninstall or Repair Visual Studio 2017
If you want to know how to uninstall Visual Studio 2017 to your PC/Laptop, you can see the step by step guidelines, as shown below.
Go to Start -> you can find Microsoft Visual Studio Installer. Afterwards, click Microsoft Visual Studio Installer. Afterwards, you will receive a user control prompt and click Yes button.
Visual Studio products Window will open and click Options. You can choose repair or uninstall Visual Studio 2017.![]()
What’s new in Visual Studio 2017 RC?
If you want to know what are all the things that are new features or improvements for Visual Studio 2017 RC, then with this release, you can see the list of features, as shown below.
- New Installation Experience
- Enhanced Visual Studio Feeback Workflow
- Visual Studio IDE
- Live Architecture Dependency Validation
- Live Unit Testing
- Developer Command Prompt
- Debugging and Diagnostics
- Visual C++
- C# and Visual Basic
- F#
- Python
- R
- JavaScript and TypeScript
- Tools for XAML Apps
- Tools for Universal Windows App Development
- Viusal Studio Tools for Apache Cordova
- Xamarin Preview
- NuGet
- Developer Analytics Tools
- Team Explorer
- SQL Server Data Tools
- Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio
- Visual Studio Software Development Kit
- Azure SDK for .NET
- Node.js Tools for Visual Studio
- Visual Studio Tools for Unity
- .NET Core and Docker Preview
As we see the list of features mentioned above, we will discuss a few of the recent features in detail with an experience, as shown below.
New Installation Experience (My Experience of Visual Studio 2017)
I am feeling awesome since the new announcement of Visual Studio 2017 yesterday. In general, I am eager to learn new things such as a way I tried to install the new release version of Visual Studio in my laptop. I had a great experience and shared my end user experience with others.
- You can easy and quickly install, modify and uninstall cleanly
- You can select required workloads (development platform) and install it.
Visual Studio IDE
As far as overall, the improvements for Visual Studio 2017 RC are as given below.
- Github extension for Visual Studio can be selected in Visual Studio installer.
- Visual Studio has been optimized to reduce the startup and solution loading time.
- Visual Studio will now monitor extension performance, the impact startup, solution load or editing. You will be alerted about poorly performing extensions via the Notification bar in the IDE.
- File globbing capabilities for .NET Core and ASP.NET Core project have been enhanced.
- You are now automatically taken to the folder view of your repository after cloning. You can view the files or open solutions with new solution selection list in Solution Explorer.
- Pre-release license expiration message more clearly communicates the current license state.
Python
It is an available Python workload to develop the scripts and Web Application. The changes or improvements mentioned below are made for the release, as mentioned below.
- Install options are provided for either Python or Anaconda from Continuum Analytics.
- Use Ctrl + Enter to send the current line or code cell to the interactive Window.
- Create as many interactive Windows as you like with the same or different version of Python.
- Define the custom scripts to automatically run when you start an interactive session.
R
It is an available Data Science workload for an analytical solution. The changes, mentioned below, are made for the release.
- Multiple data table viewer + sorting per column.
- Delete vars from Variable Explorer.
- Intellisense, Peek in RMarkdown.
- Search web (StackOverflow) for current token under cursor.
- Integrated Microsoft R Client.
Conclusion
I hope you understood Visual Studio 2017 installation, uninstall or repair, modifying steps, prerequisites, list of features and so on. I have covered all the required things. If you find anything which I missed in this article, please let me know. Please share your valuable feedback or comments and suggestions to improve future articles.