Microsoft's developer tools are getting another big boost this week, adding new exciting features and functionality on board. The company on Wednesday announced the general availability of the new Microsoft Visual Studio 2017. The software giant made the huge announcement this week.

According to PCWorld, the Redmond-based software company this week has released the newly upgraded version of the company's integrated development environment (IDE) - for public download, providing new capabilities for developers to build any type of applications for the cloud, mobile platforms and more. The entire development suite is currently available for public download from Microsoft Visual Studio website.
Additionally, as mentioned earlier by Thurrott, Microsoft also has special offer that gives early adopters free 60 days access to Xamarin University, which provides tutorials and lives classes for learning web and apps

Billed as the most productive Visual Studio version yet, Microsoft emphasizes capabilities of the new IDE to help any developers create any modern type of application on any platform. As previously announced by Microsoft, the newly released Visual Studio 2017 comes with several new features on board, including support for Mac, Linux, and other platforms.

For companies and organizations embracing DevOps, Microsoft has streamlined the developer tool, to include Xamarin integration, which speeds up development of mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms. The tool features a whole new kind of installation experience that is lightweight and modular, which allows developers to easily adopt modern DevOps practices and even collaborate with other development teams to better adapt to market changes.

The new Visual Studio 2017 is said to feature a complete overhaul and speed up installation and load time (which said to be three times faster than the previous Visual Studio 2015), new language improvements and enhanced navigation with new features.

Some of the highlights of the new Visual Studio 2017 include support for F#4.1 language, CMake support for C++, Xamarin Form Previewer, Linux support for C++, extended support for Microsoft Visual Basic and C#7.0, an Enhanced Visual Studio Feedback Workflow, NuGet support, Inclusion of ASP.NET Core and.NET Core libraries, Xamarin 4.3 support, Azure SDK for .NET, Office Developer tools for Visual Studio, Developer Command Prompt, Installation Nickname and other IDE enhancements, Live Testing Unit, and Git Features.

For those developers who still want or need to use the old Visual Studio 2015 version can still continue to run it alongside the new Visual Studio 2017. People who have beta versions of the new IDE tool will need to update their software to the new version. The new Visual Studio 2017 installer comes with a new Upgrade button that provides quick access for those people who already have a beta version of the new IDE on their PCs.

In addition to the general availability of the Visual Studio 2017, Microsoft also announced the next beta version of Visual Studio for Mac, a new update for Visual Studio Mobile Center, and a major update to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2017. Microsoft also has a word on the preview of the Python IDE tools for the Visual Studio 2017, but the new version of the Visual Studio 2017 doesn't include them. Instead, the Python IDE tools are said to arrive later as an update to the company's newly released Microsoft Visual Studio 2017.

As for the pricing and availability, Microsoft announces that the pricing for the different editions of Visual Studio 2017 will remain the same as the previously released Visual Studio 2015. The software company also offer a free community edition for individual developers and small development team.