Visual Studio 2026 Professional v18.2.1

Visual Studio 2026 Professional is Microsoft's full-featured IDE for .NET, C++, Python, JavaScript and game development. The editor, debugger, profiler, test explorer and Git tooling live in one shell, with per-monitor DPI support and multi-repository handling built in.

This release adds AI-assisted completions and commit message generation, a faster search index across large solutions and an improved hot-reload pipeline for .NET and C++ projects. The installer is workload-based, so only the desktop, web, mobile, data or game components you actually need are pulled in.

What's inside

• Workload-based installation (desktop, web, mobile, data, game)
• Debugger, profiler and unit test explorer in one shell
• AI-assisted completions and inline code explanations
• Git and GitHub integration with multi-repository support
• Hot reload for .NET and C++ projects
• Live Share collaboration sessions

How to install

1. Unpack the archive and run the bootstrapper as Administrator
2. Select the workloads you need, for example .NET desktop or ASP.NET
3. Choose the installation drive and let setup finish
4. Sign in with your Visual Studio account on first launch
5. Register the product under Help - Register Product to unlock the subscription

System requirements

Windows 10 22H2 / 11 x64, quad-core CPU, 16 GB RAM (8 GB minimum), SSD with 64 GB free space