Arm64 Visual Studio now officially available to entire developer community

Microsoft has been dealing with different projects to help its Windows system better complement Arm64 architecture. One of the company’s feats in the area is the release of Visual Studio 2022 17.4 GA, which now supports Arm64.

“We are happy to announce the first fully supported Arm64 version of Visual Studio that will natively run, allowing building, and debugging Arm64 apps on Arm-based processors,” Mark Downie, Sr. Product Manager at Microsoft, says in a blog post announcing the release. “Seventeen point four (17.4) GA delivers a native Arm64 experience for Visual Studio that eliminates the need for emulation in most developer workflows. While the improved x64 emulator helps the speed and performance of emulated apps on Arm devices, we know that the absolute best Arm developer experiences will be supported by tools that run natively on Arm64.”

It can be recalled that Microsoft first revealed Arm64 support for Visual Studio during Build 2022, and it was released as a preview in June. During that phase, Downie explained that the team only prioritized the most basic and important workloads and components for developers. This official release, nonetheless, will now include a broader set of workloads besides native Arm64 performance for the Windows SDK and Win App SDK. These workloads include .NET desktop development, desktop development with C++, ASP.NET and web development, Universal Windows Platform development, Visual Studio extension development, game development with C++, and node.js development. 

Moreover, the official version can now be used with the recently released Windows Dev Kit 2023 or Project Volterra, which is only available in select markets, including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, China, Canada, and Australia. If you are interested in trying out Arm64 Visual Studio, Microsoft detailed the requirements you need to meet and the process of installing it.