How to download and install .NET 8 and C# 12

The long awaited release of .NET 8 and C# 12 has finally happened!

We'll demonstrate how to update Visual Studio, download the .NET 8 SDK and how to start using .NET 8 in a project.

As a bonus, we'll also show how to get a list of all the SDK's installed.

Update Visual Studio 2022

In-order to use .NET 8, Visual Studio 2022 needs to be updated to version 17.8.0 or above.

To do that, go to Help in the top-left hand corner of the screen and go to Check for Updates.

If there is an update available, it will be shown on the screen.

Install the .NET 8 SDK

Updating Visual Studio should automatically install the .NET 8 SDK.

However, users that don't use Visual Studio will need to download the .NET 8 SDK from Microsoft's website.

To check whether the SDK is installed, this command line can be run:

dotnet --list-sdks

This will output all the SDK's installed on the machine. If version 8.0.100 or above appears, .NET 8 is installed.

Using .NET 8 in a Visual Studio project

To create a new .NET 8 project in Visual Studio, go to File, New and Project in the top-left hand corner of the screen.

Select which project to create then go through the steps until the Framework choice appears.

.NET 8 should be selected by default as the framework.

To use .NET 8 in a current project, edit the .csproj file and ensure that the TargetFramework in the PropertyGroup tag is set to net8.0.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    ...
  </PropertyGroup>

  ...

</Project>

.NET 8 and C# 12 features

.NET 8 and C# 12 has many new and exciting features that includes:

• Primary constructors
• Collection expressions
• Keyed services
• Mocking time with TimeProvider
• SSR in Blazor
• Render mode for Server & WebAssembly Blazor components

Watch the video

Watch our video where we demonstrate how to update Visual Studio and how to download the .NET 8 SDK.

As a bonus, we'll also cover how Keyed Services work in .NET 8.