Visual Studio 2026 version 18.0 is now generally available with significant updates for C++ developers. Key improvements include MSVC Build Tools v14.50 with enhanced C++23 conformance and up to 6% faster runtime performance on Unreal Engine benchmarks, a refreshed UI with 11 themes, improved GitHub Copilot Chat integration with better context awareness and new actions menu, AddressSanitizer support for ARM64 builds, and numerous IDE productivity enhancements like substring searches in Class View, preprocessed output generation, and file encoding controls. The release also brings CMake 4.1.1, expanded clang-tidy configuration options, Diagnostic Tools support for CMake projects, and compatibility with Visual Studio 2022 extensions.
Table of contents
Your feedback matters to us Copy linkRefreshed UI with 11 themes to choose from Copy linkImproved settings UI Copy linkBring your Visual Studio 2022 extensions Copy linkUpgrading existing projects to Visual Studio 2026 Copy linkMicrosoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools v14.50 Copy linkIDE productivity improvements Copy linkGitHub Copilot Chat Copy linkC++ Project Systems Copy linkClang-tidy updates Copy linkDebugging: Set command line arguments for any C++ projects Copy linkMermaid chart rendering Copy linkPodman support in Container Tools Copy linkGit tools Copy linkDownload Visual Studio 2026 Copy linkSort: