Microsoft Releases .NET 7 Preview 1 with Cloud-Native and Container Improvements

Last week, Microsoft announced the first preview release of .NET 7, alongside ASP.NET Core 7 Preview 1 and Entity Framework 7 Preview 1. The Redmond giant highlighted that this version of its .NET software development platform brings improved support for cloud-native applications and containers.

“Today, we are excited to announce the next milestone in the history of .NET. While celebrating the community and 20 years of innovation, .NET 7 Preview 1 marks the first step forward towards the next 20 years of .NET,” Microsoft’s Senior Program Manager Jeremy Likness explained.

In its announcement, Microsoft explained that .NET 7 builds on the foundation of .NET 6, which was released in November 2021. It brings several new capabilities for developers, including new features that should make it easier to build cloud-native applications. Microsoft added that .Net 7 will streamline the setup and configuration process that should help to provide secure authentication and authorization mechanisms. Moreover, it will bring enhancements for the app startup and runtime execution performance.

.Net 7 makes it easier to upgrade legacy projects

In .Net 7 Preview 1, Microsoft has also added new tools that will help developers upgrade legacy projects as well as work with containers. Other improvements included in this release include:

  • New APIs
  • Annotations to APIs to support nullability
  • Support for more hot reload scenarios
  • Ongoing JIT compiler optimizations

The .NET 7 Preview 1 is currently available to download for Windows, Linux, and macOS, but the company advises developers to use this version with Visual Studio 17.2 Preview 1 for Windows. Meanwhile, Microsoft plans to add support for Visual Studio for Mac in a future release.

.NET 7 is expected to become generally available for everyone worldwide in November this year. Microsoft noted that, unlike the previous version, .NET 7 will be a current release, and it will continue to receive free support and patches for 18 months.