Visual Studio

Visual Studio is Microsoft's integrated development environment for .NET and C++ on Windows, sold as Community, Professional and Enterprise editions.

Visual Studio gives a developer one workspace to write code, step through it in a debugger, run its unit tests and measure its CPU and memory use. Microsoft builds it as its full IDE for Windows, separate from the Visual Studio Code editor. It handles whole solutions, from Windows 11 desktop apps to C# services that call Azure AI. One installation covers several languages, and each language keeps its own Text Editor settings. Code is written with IntelliSense, which lists the valid members of a type as you type. GitHub Copilot adds AI completions beside it. Extract, Inline, Rename and Move refactorings update every reference in C# and Visual Basic code. Go To Definition, Peek Definition and Find All References move around the solution. The debugger sets breakpoints and inspects variables, and the Parallel Stacks window draws the threads of a running program. Test Explorer runs and re-runs unit tests, and the Performance Profiler reports CPU Usage and Memory usage. Git tools, SQL Server Object Explorer, Live Share, Class Designer and Visual Studio Marketplace extensions round out the workspace. The IDE is built for professional .NET and C++ developers who work on Windows. It also suits teams that already plan, test and ship their work in Azure DevOps and run it on Azure. It comes in three editions, Community, Professional and Enterprise, and a team picks the one whose Azure, testing and support services fit its work. Developers of games and Visual Studio extensions use it as well, since the IDE is made for building any app, game or extension. Teams use Visual Studio to build Windows 11 apps and C# applications that draw on Copilot and Azure AI. A slow request is traced in a diagnostic session, where the CPU report's Top Functions and Hot Path tables point at the code to fix. Changes go to a Git repository through the built-in Git tools, and Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions takes the build from there. Database work stays in the IDE, since SQL Server Object Explorer browses schemas and runs queries against a live database. C++ teams on CMake save their launch settings in launch.vs.json, so every developer debugs the same way. It fits Windows teams whose code, tests and databases all live in the Microsoft toolchain.