I have Visual Studio installed and up to date with .NET desktop development workload. When I go to extensions I cannot find C# Dev Kit nor any of the others listed in the tutorial. Are these no longer available and should I skip this lesson and move on to the next one?

"C# Dev Kit" extension is only for "Visual Studio Code", not Visual Studio. It add support for building, and debugging.net core c# applications. The type of applications it supports depends on the dotnet workloads installed (not to be confused with visual studio workloads). https://code.visualstudio.com/download Visual Studio uses workloads rather than extensions for framework support. The workload installs templates used to create project along with sdk support. the NET desktop development workloads adds support for .net 4.*, C# 7.3 and windows desktop app support. It does not support .net core (.net 6/7/8/9) you don't say which dotnet runtime or sdk you want to use, so we can not tell you the proper workload.

Issue with Install and configure Visual Studio Code for C# development

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Bruce (SqlWork.com) 71,586 Reputation points

2025-02-06T23:07:13.3366667+00:00

"C# Dev Kit" extension is only for "Visual Studio Code", not Visual Studio. It add support for building, and debugging.net core c# applications. The type of applications it supports depends on the dotnet workloads installed (not to be confused with visual studio workloads).

https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Visual Studio uses workloads rather than extensions for framework support. The workload installs templates used to create project along with sdk support.

the NET desktop development workloads adds support for .net 4.*, C# 7.3 and windows desktop app support. It does not support .net core (.net 6/7/8/9)

you don't say which dotnet runtime or sdk you want to use, so we can not tell you the proper workload.
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1 person found this answer helpful.
Mace Wilder 20 Reputation points

2025-02-07T15:45:43.5033333+00:00

Thank you. I did not realize there were two visual studio programs. For the microsoft training I will use visual studio code but I have to ask, "Why two visual studio programs and why use one program over the other?

Bruce (SqlWork.com) 71,586 Reputation points

2025-02-07T21:07:33.32+00:00

visual studio code is an open source code editor that runs on linux, MacOS and windows. it has extensions to support varies programing languages (typically editing, build and debug), but its focus in editing. an extension can be added to compile and debug, but the compiler and debugger are installed separately. the extension typically uses the command line.

visual studio is a windows only IDE. Along with edit and debug, an IDE supports project creation, project modification, deployment, etc. An IDE adds additional focus on the project properties and requirements. You typically do not need to how to edit the project files directly, there is a GUI.

note: MS support of visual studio code is mostly about having a dev tool that runs on a non-windows O/S for .net core development.
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