Visual Studio 2015 is being killed off soon, here is what you need to know

October 14, 2025, is a fateful day for many Microsoft products. Not only is Windows 10 losing support, but so are Windows 10 2015 LTSC, and Enterprise, Education, and IoT variations of Windows 10, version 22H2. Now, Microsoft has shared an advisory indicating that Visual Studio 2015 is set to be killed off on the same date as well.

While most are familiar with Visual Studio Code due to the fact that it's a lightweight but powerful code editor, it is actually Visual Studio, which is Microsoft's flagship integrated development environment (IDE). Although Visual Studio 2022 is the latest edition of the popular IDE, Microsoft still supports other versions, including Visual Studio 2015, 2017, and 2019.

On October 14, 2025, Microsoft is ending extended support for Visual Studio 2015. This version was released on July 20, 2015, and remained in mainstream support until October 13, 2020. After that, it entered extended support, which will end on the aforementioned 2025 date.

In terms of what end of support means, Visual Studio 2015 and its associated components, runtimes, and products will no longer receive security updates. This includes Visual Studio 2015 Community, Enterprise, Professional, Shell, SDK, Team Foundation Server (TFS), MSVC Tools v140, and more.

Microsoft has recommended upgrading to a supported version of Visual Studio as soon as possible. As a reminder, Visual Studio 2017 version 15.9 will receive security updates only under extended support, which lasts till April 13, 2027. Meanwhile, Visual Studio 2019 version 16.11 will receive extended security updates through April 10, 2029. And finally, Visual Studio 2022 version 17.4 is currently in mainstream support but will enjoy extended support starting on January 12, 2027, and ending on January 13, 2032.

Of course, Microsoft has insisted that customers transition to Visual Studio 2022 as it includes Copilot integration, built-in support for Git, and .NET enhancements.