Today, we are happy to announce the release of Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 RC. This release focuses on stability and on responding to the feedback we’ve received on RTM and Update 2.
For problems, let us know via the Send Feedback option in Visual Studio. For suggestions, let us know through UserVoice.
Download: Visual Studio Update 3 RC
To learn more about other related downloads, see the Downloads page.
What's New?
Visual Studio:
Tools for Apache Cordova
Application Insights and HockeyApp
Debugging and Diagnostics
Visual Studio IDE
Tools for Universal Windows apps
Architecture Tools
Visual C++
Web Developer Tools
C# and Visual Basic
Other Changes
Known Issues
Tools for Apache Cordova
This release includes Tools for Apache Cordova Updates 9 and 10, with the following improvements:
An updated Core Plugins list that includes plugins for enterprise scenarios, such as Intune, Azure engagement, security and SQLite local storage.
The ability to add plugins from the config designer either by the npm package name or by the ID.
The ability to add plugins that require parameters from the config designer.
This release also includes the following changes:
We've added support for Cordova 6.1.1, the default version for new projects.
We've retired the Cordova Plugin Registry that was used in Cordova 4.x, which means that we now require a minimum of Cordova 5.x or later to add plugins.
For more information about this release, see the Tools for Apache Cordova release notes for Update 9 and Update 10. For the latest news about our tools, visit our Developer Blog on GitHub.
Application Insights and HockeyApp
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 RC includes Developer Analytics Tools v7.0.1 (formerly Application Insights Tools for Visual Studio), with the following improvements:
Support for adding Application Insights to ASP.NET Core RC2 projects from Visual Studio.
Diagnostic Tools events for ASP.NET 5 RC1 and ASP.NET Core RC2 projects.
Automatic refreshes of Application Insights Search when detail filters, time ranges, and events are selected.
Go to Code from requests in Search.
Improved “Find telemetry for this…” menu in Search.
Improved HockeyApp sign-in experience.
For more information, see the technical release notes in the Microsoft Azure documentation.
Debugging and Diagnostics
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 RC includes Diagnostic Tools support for applications running on OneCore devices, including HoloLens and IOT.
C++ Edit and Continue improvements:
Better performance and reliability when FASTLINK is enabled.
Successful application of code changes to static libraries no longer produces Stale Code.
C4656 warnings will no longer appear for false positive type changes during recompilation.
Support for adding a new type with the same name crossing multiple compilation units.
XAML UI Debugging improvements:
Whenever the focus changes in your app, the new Track Focus feature in the Live Visual Tree will cause selection in the Live Visual Tree to update to the currently focused element
Visual Studio IDE
Subscriptions and Product keys
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 RC addresses feedback from customers using subscriptions through an online identity or product keys to unlock the IDE, in the following ways:
Users no longer need to visit http://my.visualstudio.com to activate their assigned Visual Studio Cloud subscription. Users can immediately start using the Visual Studio IDE as soon as the subscription is assigned.
We've improved error handling when applying a product key.
All user account and licensing operations are now secured by using HTTPS.
We've made accessibility improvements in the Account Settings dialog for activating a subscription and entering a product key.
Tools for Universal Windows apps
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 comes with a few enhancements to the Tools for Universal Windows apps. One of our key improvements: When you create a package to submit to the Windows Store, you can now sign in with Azure Active Directory credentials for an AAD Store account. Once the project has been associated with the Windows Store, you will no longer need to sign in to create a package to submit to the Store.
Architecture Tools
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 RC addresses feedback from customers about improving performance and reliability.
Domain Specific Graphical designers (including EDMX and DBML)
On Windows 10, when you are opening or attempting to edit large EDMX or DBML diagrams while the on-screen keyboard is displayed, Visual Studio could become unresponsive. We've fixed this.
Code Map
Visual Studio used to crash when trying to "Generate Code Map for Solution" if the solution contained installer projects (.vdproj). It no longer does.
Running a code map command from the code editor and closing the Code Map window as soon as it appears could crash Visual Studio. This is no longer the case.
Layer Validation
Building a solution having a modeling project containing a Layer diagram with a Validate action could lead to a CPU core being used after the build had been completed. We've fixed this.
It was not possible to validate a layer diagram when its parent modeling project was referencing PCL libraries (for instance ODP.Net). This works now.
Web Developer Tools
For ASP.NET Web Application projects, when "Enable Edit and Continue" checkbox is unchecked, the IIS Express process will no longer stop working every time you stop debugging.
C# and Visual Basic
In this release, we invested in the performance of code diagnostics. We’ve improved the performance of running code diagnostics on an entire solution. To learn more about code diagnostic performance enhancements, read the How to: Enable and Disable Full Solution Analysis for Managed Code page on MSDN.
Additional improvements include the following:
An option to add a reference to a NuGet package as a quick fix: plugin-byid
You can enable this option from Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced, under "Using Directives": plugin-byid
Improved support for Portable class libraries targeting the .NET Platform Standard.
Performance improvements to the C# GoTo Implementation and Find All References. You can try these by selecting an object, right-clicking on it and then selecting them from the menu.
When you apply a “fix all” action to document/project/solution we now display a progress bar.
Performance improvements to the C# GoTo Implementation and Find All References. You can try these by selecting an object, right-clicking on it and then selecting them from the menu.
When you apply a “fix all” action to document/project/solution we now display a progress bar.
Known Issues
For a complete description of known issues in this release, see the following MSDN article.
Learn More: Known Issues in Visual Studio Update 3 RC
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/lPFWDAldzQ9ANVCwLyN_4A
