Microsoft Visual Studio adds C# 7 preview support and offers $29.97 Pro license

At Microsoft's Build event, a public preview of Visual Studio "15" (the next version of the IDE) was released, enabling developers to turn on experimental C# 7 features—including binary literals, local functions and pattern matching—by adding the __DEMO__ conditional compilation symbol.

Separately, a limited‑time promotion advertises a lifetime license for Visual Studio Professional 2026 at $29.97 through August 9, emphasizing AI‑assisted IntelliCode, cross‑platform development tools and real‑time collaboration features.