Visual Studio for Mac enables the creation of.NET Core solutions, providing the back-end services to your client solutions. Code, debug, and test these cloud services simultaneously with your client solutions for increased productivity. If you have purchased Visual Studio Enterprise 2017 for Mac for machines without an internet connection, you may continue to use Visual Studio for Mac without activation, but Xamarin Inspector, Xamarin Profiler, and embedded assemblies features will not be available. Visual Studio on a Mac: The Best of Both Worlds With these tweaks, I’ve come to love using Visual Studio on a Mac. The performance is good, and by running Windows in a virtual machine, I get the best of both OS worlds.
Real-time collaboration with Visual Studio Live Share
Whether your team is across the room or across the world, working together is easy with Visual Studio Live Share, installed with Visual Studio 2019. It’s available at the click of a button for many projects, app types, and languages. Invite your teammates to join your development session and fix a bug or collaborate on a quick change.
Support for Azure cloud services
No need for building and maintaining your own infrastructure by taking advantage of support for Docker and Kubernetes containers, microservices architecture with Azure Service Fabric and Service Fabric Mesh, and other PaaS services, including Azure App Service, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Functions.
Advanced debugging and diagnostics features
With Visual Studio Enterprise you get access to advanced debugging and diagnostics features like IntelliTrace, Snapshot Debugger, and Time Travel Debugging. These Enterprise-grade features enable you to spend less time debugging your application by letting Visual Studio help you record specific events, debug production applications in Azure, and re-construct and replay your application’s execution path.
Premium testing tools
Visual Studio Enterprise comes with access to premium testing tools, both in the IDE and as part of Azure Test Plans. With Live Unit Testing, you get immediate insight into what tests are impacted by any code change and even see which tests now fail with the changes made. With access to Azure Test Plans you can improve your code quality using planned and exploratory testing services for your apps.
Visual Studio for Mac provides you with three different subscription levels to choose from, all accessible from one download:
Visual Studio For Mac
- Visual Studio Enterprise for Mac
- Visual Studio Professional for Mac
- Visual Studio Community for Mac
To start using a subscription, log in to Visual Studio for Mac by following the steps in the Signing in to Visual Studio for Mac guide. Signing in activates your subscription, which is displayed in the accounts dialog:
Update expired licenses
If your subscription has expired, you have two options:
Renew your subscription. You can renew your subscription by browsing to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing/.
If you have another account with an active subscription, you can add it to Visual Studio for Mac as detailed in the Adding multiple user accounts article. Visual Studio for Mac will detect the best available license from all accounts that you have added.
Product key usage
Visual Studio 2017 For Mac
Currently, there is no way to utilize a product key to enable Professional or Enterprise entitlements for Visual Studio for Mac. To use Visual Studio Enterprise for Mac or Visual Studio Professional for Mac, you must have a relevant subscription and be signed in to the IDE.
Offline activation
Note
Offline activation is not available for Visual Studio for Mac.To activate your Visual Studio 2019 for Mac Professional or Enterprise subscription, you must be connected to the internet when signing in.
If you have purchased Visual Studio Enterprise 2019 for Mac for machines without an internet connection, you may continue to use Visual Studio for Mac without activation, but Xamarin Inspector, Xamarin Profiler, and embedded assemblies features will not be available.
