How to download and install Visual Studio 2022 Preview on Windows 11 ARM-powered devices

The latest Visual Studio 2022 Preview is now available as a native Arm64 application on Windows 11. This Visual Studio version natively supports building and debugging Arm64 apps on ARM-based processors and reduces reliance on x86 emulation.

In this guide, we will walk you through how to download and install Visual Studio 2022 Preview on Windows 11 on Arm64 devices, like the Surface Pro X or the Lenovo ThinkPad x13s.

Arm64 development and workload support

Visual Studio 2022 17.3 preview 2 has the following workloads enabled for developers:

• Desktop development with C++ (for MSBuild-based projects).
• .NET desktop development (WinForms, WPF) using both .NET Framework, and modern .NET.
• NET and Web development.

These workloads will be generally available by the end of 2022 and Microsoft needs developer feedback to enable more tools and experiences. Check the Visual Studio 2022 Roadmap for more information.

Visual Studio versions before 17.3 Preview 2 can run on ARM-powered via x86 emulation, but some other features are not supported. It is not recommended that you run older versions of Visual Studio on devices that use ARM-based processors.

Install Visual Studio 2022 Preview

Here are the prerequisites for downloading and installing Visual Studio 2022 Preview on Arm64 devices.

• An Arm64 device with Windows 11.
• Uninstall any previous versions of Visual Studio 2022 from your device.
• Download Visual Studio 2022 17.3 preview 2

Once you have met these requirements, you can continue to download and install Visual Studio 2022 17.3 preview 2. There is a single installer for both x64 and Arm64 Visual Studio. Once downloaded, double click the installer and it will detect your system architecture, download the appropriate Visual Studio version, and install it to your Arm64 device.

For managed developers

.NET 6 has native Arm64 support already, and this release expands its native Arm64 support to include .NET Framework 4.8.1 runtime and SDK support for building managed desktop applications (Windows Forms and WPF) using both .NET 6+ and .NET Framework 4.8.1.

For native developers

The MSVC Toolset, including the C+_+ compiler, libraries, and runtime, supports Arm64 devices and is constantly working to improve the quality of Arm64 generated code. Visual Studio 2022 Preview brings access to the new native Arm64 MSVC compiler toolset, which includes C++ Code Analysis capabilities.

Conclusion

Making your extension Arm64-compatible is relatively easy if you are familiar with Visual Studio 2022. Leslie Richardson, Program Manager for Visual Studio Extensibility,provides a quick and helpful guide.

If you are just getting started developing Arm64 apps or are thinking about it, keep in mind, most of the C++ libraries you already use natively support Arm64. Vcpkg already runs natively on Arm64 and while some dependent third-party tools will run emulated, you will still be able to build and use 600+ C++ libraries natively in your Arm64 build environment.

Want to help make Visual Studio 2022 be even better on Arm64? Share your feedback with the Visual Studio Developer Community, report any bugs or issues you encounter via report a problem, and make a suggestion on what workloads you want to see in Visual Studio 2022.