Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2026 Insiders, which is another major version of the flagship development division of this tech giant. It mainly brings faster operation, better integration with AI and new icons and settings. You can try the new IDE for free until January 12 next year. It installs independently of other versions, so the existing version of Visual Studio remains intact.
Previously, beta versions were labeled as Preview, but the marketing department found that this designation was too old-fashioned. It was probably similar with icons, although they were the main draw of the 2022 version, along with running on the x86-64 architecture. The new UI has many round corners compared to this version. The effort to make everything fit harmoniously into the visual identity of Windows 11 is evident from this.
AI integration is modular in Visual Studio 2026. This means that you are no longer dependent only on GitHub Copilot, but can set up your own provider. It is therefore possible to use a local model running through Ollama, so it is possible to use language model suggestions in programming without leaving the source code on the computer.
Another novelty that should not go unnoticed is the Code coverage function. This is no longer just a privilege of the Enterprise edition, but is now part of the Professional and Community editions. It gives you an overview of whether the feature is covered by tests and how those tests turned out.
And finally, the icing on the cake. The status bar now also shows the encoding of an open file. If you click on it, you can easily change this encoding.
