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Visual Studio Logo Visual Studio Platform Targeting and Compatibility

Visual Studio provides cutting-edge tools and technologies to create apps that take advantage of the latest platform capabilities, whether Windows, Azure, web, Android, iOS, or Linux. Visual Studio also targets earlier platforms so you can create new apps or modernize existing apps that execute on earlier versions of Windows while leveraging the enhanced development tools, quality enablement, and team collaboration capabilities in Visual Studio. For more information, see Managing references in a project and Visual Studio Multi-Targeting Overview.

To install Visual Studio, see Visual Studio Downloads. For more information about everything that's new in this release, see the Visual Studio release notes and What's New in Visual Studio. See also the Visual Studio System Requirements.

Upgrade Projects to Visual Studio

When following the supported upgrade paths, your Visual Studio source, solutions, and project files will continue to work; however, you should expect to make some changes to sources. While we cannot guarantee binary compatibility between releases, we will do our best to document significant changes to assist you with updates.

Note

For details on how to migrate your projects to Visual Studio, see Porting, Migrating, and Upgrading Visual Studio Projects.

Visual Studio Support for Windows Development

The following tables explain the Microsoft Windows platforms for which you can build apps by using Visual Studio.

Build Apps that Run on Windows Clients

Windows client version Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows 11
Windows 10		 Yes
(see notes below)		 Yes
(see notes below)
Windows 10 Team Edition Not applicable Yes
Remote debugging required.
Windows 11 S
Windows 10 S		 Not applicable Yes
Remote debugging required.
Windows 10 LTSC Yes
Remote debugging required.		 Yes
Remote debugging required.
HoloLens No Yes
See the Windows Holographic Dev Center.
Xbox One Not applicable Yes
See the Xbox Dev Center.
Xbox Series S/X Not applicable Yes
See the Xbox Dev Center.
Windows 8.1 No Not available
Windows 8 No Not available
Windows 7 No Not applicable
Windows Vista No Not applicable
Windows XP No Not applicable

Note

  • Universal Windows app development for all target platforms is available when Visual Studio is installed on Windows 11 or Windows 10.
  • Unity, and .NET Multi-platform App UI (.NET MAUI) can also be used for cross-platform development of Universal Windows Apps on Windows 11 or Windows 10.

Build Apps that Run on Windows Server

Windows Server version Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows Server 2025 Yes Yes
(see notes below)
Windows Server 2022 Yes Yes
(see notes below)
Windows Server 2019 Yes Yes
(see notes below)
Windows Server 2016 Yes Yes
(see notes below)
Windows Server 2016, Nano Server Installation Option Yes, for .NET Core and a subset of Win32
See the Nano Server Dev Center.		 No
Windows Server 2012 R2 No No
Windows Server 2012 No No
Windows Server 2008 R2 No Not applicable
Windows Server 2008 No Not applicable
Windows Server 2003 No Not applicable

Note

  • Universal Windows apps can be built from the command line when using Windows Server 2025, 2022, or 2019. UWP development—including designing, editing, and local debugging—is not available on Windows Server. You may deploy these apps to Windows server and debug them remotely.

Build Apps that Run on Windows Embedded Devices

Windows Embedded version Using Tools for Native and Managed Classic Windows Desktop Development Using Tools for UWP App Development
Windows 10 IoT Core Yes, for a subset of Win32 APIs
See the IoT Core API Porting Tool for information.		 Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows 10 IoT Mobile Enterprise No Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center" for additional tools and resources.		 Yes
See the Windows IoT Dev Center for additional tools and resources.
Windows Embedded 8 Standard and 8.1 Industry No No
Windows Embedded Compact 2013 No Not applicable
Windows Embedded 7 (Compact, Standard, and POSReady) No Not applicable
Windows Embedded CE 6.0 and earlier No Not applicable
Windows XP Embedded (Including POSReady 2009, WES 2009, WEPOS) No Not applicable

Visual Studio Support for .NET Development

Visual Studio supports development of apps that use any of the .NET implementations. Among the workloads and project types, you can find support for .NET Framework, .NET Core, Mono, .NET Native for Universal Windows Platform (UWP), C#, F#, and Visual Basic. Visual Studio supports the following .NET implementations:

Note

Visual Studio Support for Android Development

Visual Studio enables you to build native Android apps using .NET and C#. The Visual Studio Tools for Unity and the Unreal Engine enable Android game development. You can also use the .NET MAUI VSCode extension to build Android apps using a Mac.

You can use Visual Studio setup to easily obtain the Android SDK and Android API levels required for Mobile development with .NET MAUI. You can download additional API levels separately using the Android SDK Manager. You can also use Visual Studio Setup to obtain the Android Native Development Kit, Java SE Development Kit, and Apache Ant.

For more information, see Android development with Visual Studio.

Note

For information on .NET development for Android, see Android and iOS with .NET MAUI.

Visual Studio Support for iOS Development

Visual Studio enables you to build and debug apps for iOS by using Unity, or .NET and a Mac configured for iOS development when using remotebuild or the Visual Studio Tools for Unity. .NET supports iOS 15 and higher, and requires Xcode 16.4 or higher and macOS "Sonoma" 15.4 or higher. You can also use the .NET MAUI VSCode extension to build iOS apps using a Mac.

Note

For information on .NET development for iOS, see Android and iOS with .NET MAUI.

Visual Studio Support for Linux Development

Visual Studio enables you to build and debug apps for Linux using C++, Python, and Node.js. Creating C++ apps for Linux requires the Visual C++ for Linux Development extension. Creating apps with Python or Node,js, requires that you enable remote debugging on the target Linux machine. You can also create, build and remote debug .NET Core and ASP.NET Core applications for Linux using modern languages such as C#, VB and F#.

Note

For information on .NET development for Linux, see Install .NET on Linux.

  • CentOS 9, 10
  • Debian 11, 12
  • Fedora 40, 41
  • openSUSE 15.6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, 9
  • Oracle Linux 8, 9
  • Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04, 24.10

Visual Studio Support for macOS Development

Visual Studio enables you to build console applications and ASP.NET applications that target macOS. However, debugging is not supported. For additional macOS development tools choices, try Visual Studio Code. Visual Studio Code provides a streamlined, extensible developer tool experience for macOS. For information on .NET development for MacOS, see Install .NET on macOS.

Other Platforms and Technologies

Visual Studio also supports the following platforms and technologies. For more information, see https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/features/.

Team Explorer, Azure DevOps Server, and Team Foundation Server

For support information and compatible versions see Visual Studio and Team Explorer

Feedback and Support

For support, or to submit feedback on Visual Studio, see:

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