Introduction

At the moment of writing, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2017 RC (Release Candidate) a week ago. It has been the fourth release of a Visual Studio 2017 “preview” since November 2016.
The final release is planned for the first half of 2017 (source: Redmond Channel Partner website)
Time to see what’s in the box!
And I am especially interested in how will it cooperate with SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT).

Download and installation

Visual Studio 2017 RC1 can be downloaded here. It’s a webinstaller, so during installation it will download the components you have selected.
Installation is quite straightforward.
A quiet install (with my Powershell script) does not work yet, I did not put effort in it to find out why.
I just started the executable for a normal install.
The number of Components you can install is impressive.

Installable parts of Visual Studio 2017 ..

I have selected Data storage and processing and .NET desktop development (for my open source console applications).
After selection they appear in the summary on the right (see picture below).

Installation summary ..

The installation doesn’t take too long; I did not use a stopwatch, but think it took about 10 to 15 minutes.

What draws the attention?

I have choosen the blue color theme, and Visual Studio 2017 looks very similar to Visual Studio 2015.

Choosing the color theme ..

What is new is a Visual Studio Installer shortcut in the “Apps” of Windows.

Visual Studio Installer shortcut ..
You can use it to modify your installation easily.

Visual Studio Installer screen ..

However slightly out of scope, I couldn’t help that I wanted to open one of my console apps, SQLAgentJobStarter, in this version to check if any upgrade or modification would be necessary. And the answer is: no. It just opens.
What draws my attention are features in the editor that in the past could only be achieved with third party tools. For example a code change is suggested, and the preview of the change is shown before you apply it. Useful!

Visual Studio suggests code changes and shows a preview of the change ..

Is SSDT ready for Visual Studio 2017?

No. Sorry.
I downloaded Download SQL Server Data Tools (17.0 RC1), the description says “Includes support for SQL Server vNext CTP1, but not recommended for production use.”.
Apparently it is more related to “SQL Server vNext” (SQL Server 2018?) than to “Visual Studio vNext”.
And it’s just SSDT for Visual Studio 2015.
It’s doesn’t even install, probably because VS 2015 is not installed.

SSDT (17.0 RC1) does not install ..

But is this bad? Again, a no. Just have some patience.
SSDT has a different release cycle than Visual Studio. On Microsoft’s SSDT blog there is no news on any SSDT activity for VS 2017.
I have read on some forum (sorry could not find the link anymore) that it usually takes a few months after a new release of Visual Studio before an update for SSDT will become available.

Conclusion / Wrap up

So, you could already install VS 2017, but for BI projects (SSIS, SSRS, SSAS) you will still have to use SSDT for VS 2015.
Visual Studio 2017 is expected to be released in the first half of 2017, you have to add a few months for SSDT.

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