Microsoft today delivered .NET Core 3.1, the latest version of its cross-platform SDK and runtime environment.

“We’re excited to announce the release of .NET Core 3.1,” Microsoft’s Richard Lander writes. “It’s really just a small set of fixes and refinements over .NET Core 3.0, which we released just over two months ago.”

.NET Core 3.1 may be a minor release, but it is also a long-term supported (LTS) release, which means that it will be supported for three years. By comparison, .NET Core 3.0 will reach end-of-life (EOL) in just three months, on March 3, 2020.

Landers says that the additional two months of testing since .NET Core 3.0 shipped allowed the firm to be selective about the handful of improvements it contains while building on what was already a very stable base.

Changes include improvements to Blazor and Windows desktop development, and support for C++/CLI, which Microsoft says has been a regular request for developers targeting Windows. Perhaps most significantly, Microsoft removed several legacy Windows Forms controls from .NET Core in this release, noting that they were long ago replaced by more powerful and modern controls and never should have been included in .NET Core in the first place.

Microsoft .NET Core 3.1 is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Tagged with .NET Core