Windows 10: .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks

Brink · Dec 4, 2018

Today, we are announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 1. It is the first public release of .NET Core 3. We have some exciting new features to share and would love your feedback. You can develop .NET Core 3 applications with Visual Studio 2019 Preview 1, Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio Code.

Download and get started with .NET Core 3 Preview 1 right now on Windows, Mac and Linux.

You can see complete details of the release in the .NET Core 3 Preview 1 release notes. Please report any issues you find in the comments or at dotnet/core #2099.

Visual Studio 2019 will be the release to support building .NET Core 3 applications and the preview was also released today so we also encourage you to check that out.

.NET Core 3 is a major update which adds support for building Windows desktop applications using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Forms, and Entity Framework 6 (EF6). ASP.NET Core 3 enables client-side development with Razor Components. EF Core 3 will have support for Azure Cosmos DB. It will also include support for C# 8 and .NET Standard 2.1 and much more!

.NET Framework 4.8

Before diving into .NET Core 3 let’s take a quick look at .NET Framework. Next year we will ship .NET Framework 4.8. With monitors supporting 4K and 8K resolutions we are adding better support for high DPI to WPF and Windows Forms. Many .NET applications use browser and media controls, which are based on older versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Media player. We are adding new controls that use the latest browser and media players in Windows 10 and support the latest standards. And WPF and Windows Forms applications will have access to Windows UI XAML Library (WinUI) via XAML Islands for modern look and touch support. Visual Studio 2019 is based on .NET Framework and uses many of these features. For more information on .NET Framework 4.8 see our post: Update on .NET Core 3.0 and .NET Framework 4.8.

Windows Desktop Comes to .NET Core

The first two versions of .NET Core focused primarily on supporting web applications, web APIs, IoT and console applications. .NET Core 3 adds support for building Windows desktop applications using WPF and Windows Forms frameworks and modern controls and Fluent styling from the Windows UI XAML Library (WinUI) via XAML Islands.

Many desktop applications today use Entity Framework for data access and so we are supporting Entity Framework 6 on .NET Core 3 as well. These frameworks enable developers building Windows desktop applications to take advantage of the new features in .NET Core such as side by side deployment, self-contained applications (shipping .NET Core inside the application), the latest improvements in CoreFX, and more.

WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI Open Sourced

On November 12, 2014 we announced the open sourcing of .NET Core. It has been a tremendous success. The .NET platform has received over 60,000 community accepted pull requests from more than 3700 companies outside of Microsoft.

Today, we are excited to announce that are open sourcing WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI, so the three major Windows UX technologies will be open sourced. For the first time ever, the community will be able to see the development of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI happen in the open and we will take contributions for these frameworks on .NET Core. The first wave of code will be available in GitHub today and more will appear over the next few months.

WPF and Windows Forms projects are under the stewardship of the .NET Foundation which also announced changes today so that the community will directly guide foundation operations. It is also expanding the current sponsors – Red Hat, JetBrains, Google, Unity, Microsoft and Samsung, by also welcoming Pivotal, Progress Telerik and Insight. This new structure will help the .NET Foundation scale to meet the needs of the growing .NET open source ecosystem.

Truly an exciting time to be a .NET developer!
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Read more: Announcing .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Sourcing Windows Desktop Frameworks | .NET Blog

See also: Announcing Open Source of WPF, Windows Forms, and WinUI - Windows 10 Forums

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Brink · Dec 4, 2018

Update on .NET Core 3.0 and .NET Framework 4.8

In May, we announced .NET Core 3.0, the next major version of .NET Core that adds support for building desktop applications using WinForms, WPF, and Entity Framework 6. We also announced some exciting updates to .NET Framework which enable you to use the new modern controls from UWP in existing WinForms and WPF applications.

Today, Microsoft is sharing a bit more detail on what we’re building and the future of .NET Core and .NET Framework.

.NET Core 3.0 addresses three scenarios our .NET Framework developer community has asked for, including:

Side-by-side versions of .NET that support WinForms and WPF: Today there can only be one version of .NET Framework on a machine. This means that when we update .NET Framework on patch Tuesday or via updates to Windows there is a risk that a security fix, bug fix, or new API can break applications on the machine. With .NET Core, we solve this problem by allowing multiple versions of .NET Core on the same machine. Applications can be locked to one of the versions and can be moved to use a different version when ready and tested.

Embed .NET directly into an application: Today, since there can only be one version of .NET Framework on a machine, if you want to take advantage of the latest framework or language feature you need to install or have IT install a newer version on the machine. With .NET Core, you can ship the framework as part of your application. This enables you to take advantage of the latest version, features, and APIs without having to wait for the framework to be installed.

Take advantage of .NET Core features: .NET Core is the fast-moving, open source version of .NET. Its side-by-side nature enables us to quickly introduce new innovative APIs and BCL (Base Class Library) improvements without the risk of breaking compatibility. Now WinForms and WPF applications on Windows can take advantage of the latest .NET Core features, which also includes more fundamental fixes for an even better high-DPI support.

.NET Framework 4.8 addresses three scenarios our .NET Framework developer community has asked for, including:

Modern browser and modern media controls: Today, .NET desktop applications use Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player for showing HTML and playing media files. Since these legacy controls don’t show the latest HTML or play the latest media files, we are adding new controls that take advantage of Microsoft Edge and newer media players to support the latest standards.

Access to touch and UWP Controls: UWP (Universal Windows Platform) contains new controls that take advantage of the latest Windows features and touch displays. You won’t have to rewrite your applications to use these new features and controls. We are going to make them available to WinForms and WPF so that you can take advantage of these new features in your existing code.

High DPI improvements: The resolution of displays is steadily increasing to 4K and now even 8K resolutions. We want to make sure your existing WinForms and WPF applications can look great on these displays.

Given these updates, we’re hearing a few common questions, such as “What does this mean for the future of .NET Framework?” and “Do I have to move off .NET Framework to remain supported?” While we’ll provide detailed answers below, the key takeaway is that we will continue to move forward and support the .NET Framework, albeit at a slower pace.

How Do We Think of .NET Framework and .NET Core Moving Forward?

.NET Framework is the implementation of .NET that’s installed on over one billion machines and thus needs to remain as compatible as possible. Because of this, it moves at a slower pace than .NET Core. I mentioned above that even security and bug fixes can cause breaks in applications because applications depend on the previous behavior. We will make sure that .NET Framework always supports the latest networking protocols, security standards, and Windows features.

.NET Core is the open source, cross-platform, and fast-moving version of .NET. Because of its side-by-side nature it can take changes that we can’t risk applying back to .NET Framework. This means that .NET Core will get new APIs and language features over time that .NET Framework cannot. At Build I did a demo showing how the file APIs were faster on .NET Core. If we put those same changes into .NET Framework we could break existing applications, and we don’t want to do that.

We will continue to make it easier to move applications to .NET Core. .NET Core 3.0 takes a huge step by adding WPF, WinForms and Entity Framework 6 support, and we will keep porting APIs and features to help close the gap and make migration easier for those who chose to do so.

If you have existing .NET Framework applications, you should not feel pressured to move to .NET Core. Both .NET Framework and .NET Core will move forward, and both will be fully supported, .NET Framework will always be a part of Windows. But moving forward they will contain somewhat different features. Even inside of Microsoft we have many large product lines that are based on .NET Framework and will remain on .NET Framework.

In conclusion, this is an amazing time to be a .NET developer. We are continuing to advance the .NET Framework with some exciting new features in 4.8 to make your desktop applications more modern. .NET Core is expanding into new areas like Desktop, IoT and Machine Learning. And we are making it easier and easier to share code between all the .NET’s with .NET Standard.

Scott Hunter,
Director of Program Management for .NET
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Source: Update on .NET Core 3.0 and .NET Framework 4.8 | .NET Blog

Brink · Dec 4, 2018

.NET Core 3 and Support for Windows Desktop Applications

At Microsoft Build Live today, we are sharing a first look at our plans for .NET Core 3. The highlight of .NET Core 3 is support for Windows desktop applications, specifically Windows Forms, Windows Presentation Framework (WPF), and UWP XAML. You will be able to run new and existing Windows desktop applications on .NET Core and enjoy all the benefits that .NET Core has to offer.

We are planning on releasing a first preview of .NET Core 3 later this year and the final version in 2019. We will be looking for developers to partner with us, to give us feedback, and to release versions of your applications in the same timeframe as our releases. We think that .NET Core 3.0 will be one of the most exciting .NET releases we’ve ever released.

ASP.NET Core will continue to move forward in parallel and will have a release with .NET Core 3.0. Our commitment to web and cloud applications remains unchanged. At the same time, it’s time to add Windows desktop applications as another supported workload for .NET Core. We have heard many requests for desktop applications with .NET Core and are now sharing our plan to deliver on that. Let’s take a look at that.

Benefits of .NET Core for Desktop

There are many benefits with .NET Core that are great for desktop apps. There are a few that are worth calling out explicitly:

Performance improvements and other runtime updates that will delight your users

Super easy to use or test a new version of .NET Core for just one app on a machine

Enables both machine-global and application-local deployment

Support for the .NET Core CLI tools and SDK-style projects in Visual Studio

We’re also announcing a set of improvements that we’ll be adding to both .NET Core 3.0 and .NET Framework 4.8:

Access to the full Windows 10 (AKA “WinRT”) API.

Ability to host UWP XAML controls in WPF and Windows Forms applications.

Ability to host UWP browser and media controls, enabling modern browser and media content and standards.

.NET Framework 4.8

We’re also announcing our plans for .NET Framework 4.8. after shipping .NET Framework 4.7.2 only a week ago. We expect the next version to be 4.8 and for it to ship in about 12 months. Like the past few releases, the new release will include a set of targeted improvements, including the features you see listed above.

Visualizing .NET Core 3

Let’s take a look at .NET Core 3 in pictorial form.

Support for Windows desktop will be added as a set of “Windows Desktop Packs”, which will only work on Windows. .NET Core isn’t changing architecturally with this new version. We’ll continue to offer a great cross-platform product, focused on the cloud. We have lots of improvements planned for those scenarios that we’ll share later.

From a 1000-meter view, you can think of WPF as a rich layer over DirectX and Windows Forms as thinner layer over GDI Plus. WPF and Windows Forms do a great job of exposing and exercising much of the desktop application functionality in Windows. It’s the C# code in Windows Forms and WPF that we’ll include as a set of libraries with .NET Core 3. Windows functionality, like GDI Plus and DirectX, will remain in Windows.

We’ll also be releasing a new version of .NET Standard at the same time. Naturally, all new .NET Standard APIs will be part of .NET Core 3.0. We have not yet added Span<T>, for example, to the standard. We’ll be doing that in the next version.

C#, F# and VB already work with .NET Core 2.0. You will be able to build desktop applications with any of those three languages with .NET Core 3.

Side-by-side and App-local Deployment

The .NET Core deployment model is one the biggest benefits that Windows desktop developers will experience with .NET Core 3. In short, you can install .NET Core in pretty much any way you want. It comes with a lot of deployment flexibility.

The ability to globally install .NET Core provides much of the same central installation and servicing benefits of .NET Framework, while not requiring in-place updates.

When a new .NET Core version is released, you can update one app on a machine at a time without any concern for affecting other applications. New .NET Core versions are installed in new directories and are not used by existing applications.

For cases where the maximum isolation is required, you can deploy .NET Core with your application. We’re working on new build tools that will bundle your app and .NET Core together as in a single executable, as a new option.

We’ve had requests for deployment options like this for many years, but were never able to deliver those with the .NET Framework. The much more modular architecture used by .NET Core makes these flexible deployment options possible.

Using .NET Core 3 for an Existing Desktop Application

For new desktop applications, we’ll guide everyone to start with .NET Core 3. The more interesting question is what the experience will be like to move existing applications, particularly big ones, to .NET Core 3. We want the experience to be straightforward enough that moving to .NET Core 3 is an easy choice for you, for any application that is in active development. Applications that are not getting much investment and don’t require much change should stay on .NET Framework 4.8.

Quick explanation of our plan:

Desktop applications will need to target .NET Core 3 and recompile.

Project files will need to be updated to target .NET Core 3.

Dependencies will not need to retarget and recompile. There will be additional benefits if you update dependencies.

We intend to provide compatible APIs for desktop applications. We plan to make WPF and Windows Forms side-by-side capable, but otherwise as-is, and make them work on .NET Core. In fact, we have already done this with a number of our own apps and others we have access to.

We have a version of Paint.NET running in our lab. In fact, we didn’t have access to Paint.NET source code. We got the existing Paint.NET binaries working on .NET Core. We didn’t have a special build of WPF available, so we just used the WPF binaries in the .NET Framework directory on our lab machine. As an aside, this exercise uncovered an otherwise unknown bug in threading in .NET Core, which was fixed for .NET Core 2.1. Nice work, Paint.NET!

We haven’t done any optimization yet, but we found that Paint.NET has faster startup on .NET Core. This was a nice surprise.

Similarly, EF6 will be updated to work on .NET Core 3.0, to provide a simple path forward for existing applications using EF6. But we don’t plan to add any major new features to EF6. EF Core will be extended with new features and will remain the recommended data stack for all types of new applications. We will advise that you port to EF Core if you want to take advantage of the new features and improved performance.

There are many design decisions ahead, but the early signs are very good. We know that compatibility will be very important to everyone moving existing desktop applications to .NET Core 3. We will continue to test applications and add more functionality to .NET Core to support them. We will post about any APIs that are hard to support, so that we can get your feedback.

Updating Project Files

With .NET Core projects, we adopted SDK-style projects. One of the key aspects of SDK-style projects is PackageReference, which is a newer way of referencing NuGet packages. PackageReference replaces packages.config. PackageReference also make it possible to reference a whole component area at once, not just a single assembly at a time.

The biggest experience improvements with SDK-style projects are:

Much smaller and cleaner project files

Much friendlier to source control (fewer changes and smaller diffs)

Edit project files in Visual Studio without unloading

NuGet is part of the build and responsive to changes like target framework update

Supports multi-targeting

The first part of adopting .NET Core 3 for desktop projects will be migrating to SDK-style projects. There will be a migration experience in Visual Studio and available at the command line.

An example of an SDK-style project, for ASP.NET Core 2.1, follows. .NET Core 3 project files will look similar.

[table][tr][td][/td] [td]<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] <PropertyGroup>[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] </PropertyGroup>[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] <ItemGroup>[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.App" />[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td] </ItemGroup>[/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr][td][/td] [td]</Project>[/td] [/tr] [/table]

Controls, NuGet Packages, and Existing Assembly References

Desktop applications often have many dependencies, maybe from a control vendor, from NuGet or binaries that don’t have source any more. It’s not like all of that can be updated to .NET Core 3 quickly or maybe not even at all.

As stated above, we intend to support dependencies as-is. If you are at the Build conference, you will see Scott Hunter demo a .NET Core 3 desktop application that uses an existing 3rd-party control. We will continue testing scenarios like that to validate .NET Core 3 compatibility.

Next Steps

We will start doing the following, largely in parallel:

Test .NET Framework desktop application on .NET Core to determine what prevents them from working easily. We will often do this without access to source code.

Enable you to easily and anonymously share dependency data with us so that we can collect broad aggregate data about applications, basically “crowd voting” on the shape of what .NET Core 3 should be.

Publish early designs so that we can get early feedback from you.

We hope that you will work with us along the way to help us make .NET Core 3 a great release.

Closing

We have been asking for feedback on surveys recently. Thanks so much for filling those out. The response has been incredible, resulting in thousands of responses within the first day. With this last survey, we asked a subset of respondents over Skype for feedback on our plans for .NET Core 3 with (unknown to them) our Build conference slides. The response has been very positive. Based on everything we have read and heard, we believe that the .NET Core 3 feature set its characteristics are on the right track.

Todays news demonstrates a large investment and commitment in Windows desktop applications. You can expect two releases from us in 2019, .NET Core 3 and .NET Framework 4.8. A number of the features are shared between the two releases and some others are only available in .NET Core 3. We think the commonality and the differences provide a great set of choices for moving forward and modernizing your desktop applications.

It is an exciting time to be a .NET developer.
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Source: .NET Core 3 and Support for Windows Desktop Applications | .NET Blog

Brink · Dec 4, 2018

Announcing .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3

Today, we are announcing .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3. We have made more improvements to the overall release that we would love to get your feedback on, either in the comments or at dotnet/core #2004.

ASP.NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 and Entity Framework 2.2 Preview 3 were also released today.

You can see more details of the release in the .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 release notes. Related instructions, known issues, and workarounds are included in the releases notes. Please report any issues you find in the comments or at dotnet/core #2004.

Please see the .NET Core 2.2 Preview 2 post to learn more about the new features coming with .NET Core 2.2.
Thanks for everyone that contributed to .NET Core 2.2. You’ve helped make .NET Core a better product!

Download .NET Core 2.2

You can download and get started with .NET Core 2.2, on Windows, macOS, and Linux:

.NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 SDK (includes the runtime)

.NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 Runtime

Docker images are available at microsoft/dotnet for .NET Core and ASP.NET Core.

.NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 can be used with Visual Studio 15.9 Preview 3 (or later), Visual Studio for Mac and Visual Studio Code.

Platform Support

.NET Core 2.2 is supported on the following operating systems:

Windows Client: 7, 8.1, 10 (1607+)

Windows Server: 2008 R2 SP1+

macOS: 10.12+

RHEL: 6+

Fedora: 27+

Ubuntu: 14.04+

Debian: 8+

SLES: 12+

openSUSE: 42.3+

Alpine: 3.7+

Chip support follows:

x64 on Windows, macOS, and Linux

x86 on Windows

ARM32 on Linux (Ubuntu 18.04+, Debian 9+)

Closing

Please download and test .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3. We’re looking for feedback on the release with the intent of shipping the final version later this year.
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Source: Announcing .NET Core 2.2 Preview 3 | .NET Blog

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Windows 10: .NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks

.NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks

.NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks

.NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Source Windows Desktop Frameworks

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