-->
Top of Page
Nov 12, 2015 (For comparison, my host machine is a 15” mid-2015 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB flash drive.) In the remainder of this guide, I’ll detail the steps I took to optimize both Parallels and Visual Studio to run at peak performance. Update 1/1/17: Visual Studio now has a Mac Edition, which can be downloaded and installed instead: vid.
- 1.) Full Time Dev on the Mac with Windows in a VM utilizing 1 machine (a Mac). The benefit of this pattern is that you only have 1 box to work on. The drawback is that you will be utilizing a VM for the Win8/Visual Studio parts and memory/performance is a concern. Only iMac’s and Mac Pro’s get you above 16GB of RAM.
- I'm a software engineering student hoping to buy a macbook pro for my development tasks. Time to time i might have to develop on visual studio which obviously requires windows to be run on my mac. Usually i will be doing web development, mobile app development and occasional java and.net development.
System requirements for the Visual Studio 2015 family of products are listed in the table below. For more information on compatibility, please see Visual Studio 2015 Platform Targeting and Compatibility.For Visual Studio 2017, see Visual Studio 2017 Product Family System Requirements.
To view system requirements for specific products, click on a bookmark below:
Download
You can download Visual Studio 2015 from My.VisualStudio.com. 3d printing programs for mac. My.VisualStudio.com requires a free Dev Essentials subscription, or a Visual Studio Subscription.
For additional information, see How to Install a Specific Release of Visual Studio.
Visual Studio 2015
Requirements | Supported Operating Systems |
Visual Studio Community 2015 with Update 3 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with Update 3 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio Professional 2015 with Update 3 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio 2015 Language Pack Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio Express 2015 for Windows Desktop Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio Express 2015 for Web Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 SP 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio Express 2015 for Windows 10 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 |
More Information | |
|
Team Foundation Server 2015
Requirements | Supported Operating Systems |
Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 3Hardware Requirements
| Server Operating Systems
|
Team Foundation Server Express 2015 Update 3Hardware Requirements
| Server Operating Systems
|
Team Foundation Server Extensions for Project Server 2015 Update 3Additional RequirementsOffice 2013, 2010, or 2007 must be installed on the computer. More InformationFor more information on installing TFS, see Requirements and Compatibility.See the Install, upgrade and administer TFS on-premises page for in-depth information on set up, upgrade, and administration scenarios. | Server Operating Systems
|
Feedback Client for Team Foundation Server 2015Hardware Requirements
| Server Operating Systems
|
Feedback Client for Team Foundation Server 2015 Language PackHardware Requirements
| Server Operating Systems
|
Tools for Visual Studio 2015
Requirements | Supported Operating Systems |
Agents for Visual Studio 2015 with Update 3 Hardware Requirements
Additional Requirements .NET Framework 4.5.2 or later version More Information See the Installing and Configuring Test Agents and Test Controllers page for in-depth information on installation and configuration. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Agents for Visual Studio 2015 Language Pack Hardware Requirements
Additional Requirements Visual Studio Community 2015 or higher Visual Studio 2015 SDK More Information Before you install a Language Pack, install the corresponding version of the product. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Microsoft Build Tools 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
Additional Requirements .NET Framework 4.5.2 or later version More Information Setup requires up to 1 MB across all drives. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Modeling SDK for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
Additional Requirements Visual Studio Community 2015 or higher Visual Studio 2015 SDK | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Release Management for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements (for Release Management client)
Compatible versions of TFS (for Release Management client)
More Information See the System requirements for Release Management server/client for VS 2015 and TFS 2015 page for in-depth information on operating system and hardware requirements. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
More Information For the best experience, use the most recent update of the Remote Tools for your version of Visual Studio. See Downloads and tools for Windows 10 to get the tools you need to build for Windows. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
Additional Requirements .NET Framework 4.5.2 or later version More Information Setup requires up to 4 GB across all drives. | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 Hardware Requirements
More Information Installation on Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 requires Update 2919355 and Update 2919442 (also available from Windows Update). | Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Windows XP Service Pack 3 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP2 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Integrated) Redistributable Package Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Integrated) Language Pack Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Isolated) Language Pack Hardware Requirements
More Information This version of Visual Studio works best with Internet Explorer 10 or later. Some features might not work as expected when it, or a later version, is not installed. Installation on Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 requires Update 2919355 (also available from Windows Update). | Windows 10Windows 8.1 Windows 8 Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 |
.NET Framework
Requirements | Supported Operating Systems |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Anniversary Update Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 Language Pack Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Anniversary Update Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) Windows Server 2008 SP2 (x86 and x64) |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.1 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 8 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.1 Language Pack Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 8 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 Hardware Requirements
| Windows 10 (x86 and x64) Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 8 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Vista SP2 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) Windows Server 2008 SP2 (x86 and x64) |
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 Language Pack Hardware Requirements
| Windows 8.1 (x86 and x64) Windows 8 (x86 and x64) Windows 7 SP1 (x86 and x64) Windows Vista SP2 (x86 and x64) Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) Windows Server 2012 (x64) Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64) Windows Server 2008 SP2 (x86 and x64) |