Microsoft has announced the release of the “go-live” version of Visual Studio 2012 Update 3. As was previously reported this update is primarily focused on bug fixes and is expected to be smaller than previous updates. The interesting new detail about this announcement is that it seems this update will be Microsoft's last for VS2012.
Note that while this is marked as a release candidate on the VS2012.3 download page, this is in fact the proper place. As previously promised, the page does allow the user to choose a web-installer or a stand-alone ISO for both TFS and VS2012. Keep in mind that the “go-live” edition is different than a formal release so be wary of installing in a production setting.
The two new features were identified by Microsoft's Charles Sterling was the addition of continuous integration for Team Projects using Git and improvements to the Build Service Configuration wizard. This assists upgrades in retrieving build settings from the previous installations.
Some particularly nasty bugs are being fixed with this update, including:
- Slow debugging in mixed-mode debugging of applications (including those that use C++ and managed C++)
- Better handling of suffix-only files (“.gitignore” for example) by the IDE
- Correcting a bug introduced by Update 2 which broke Windows XP application targeting
- Crashes that may occur when developing a web project
A full list of the bugs fixed with Update 3 are available in this Knowledge Base article (KB 2835600). These affect nearly all areas of VS inlcuding F#, C++, Team Foundation Server, and the Portable Library.
V.Next?
Beyond the announcement of CTP3, the other big piece of information from Microsoft's Brian Harry is the confirmation that Microsoft is moving more fully over to work on V.Next as this third update is expected to be the last for VS2012. A thoughtful response to a customer's question provided insight into Harry's approach to balancing VS' development between new features and bug fixes. Unfortunately it appears that further support for C++11 will wait for V.Next as well as some ongoing performance issues with the IDE.