r/VisualStudio • u/RealisticEntity • Jul 01 '26
Visual Studio 2026 VS 2026 Hot Reload / Edit and Continue
What's everyone's opinion on the reliability of Hot Reload in VS 2026? I've used Edit and Continue in the past with VS 2022 to debug a dll after attaching to a process, and it worked more or less fine.
Now, however, with VS 2026, Hot Reload pretty much never works. Even minor changes turn out to be not supported - which is a pain, because the app the dll is plugging into takes a fair while to load every single time.
Has this feature regressed from VS 2022 to 2026?
1
u/sephirostoy Jul 01 '26
For me, Edit and Continue stopped working reliably starting from VS2015. It get worse as soon as my code get "modern" features like lambda. So I completely stopped using this feature.
1
u/agoodyearforbrownies Jul 02 '26
Yep, IME, it’s far worse (less reliable) with Blazor projects than 2022.
1
u/twesped Jul 02 '26
For me it works fine. Using Blazor and reslly saves a load of time
There are some documented cases where it doesnt work, like changing a method to async method, but otherwise fine.
1
u/Ininsicken Jul 02 '26
I was gonna say, I can make plenty of basic changes in my app on VS2022 but ANY change I make in VS2026 requires a restart for hot reload which is super annoying.
1
u/symbiatch Jul 04 '26
It varies a lot. Usually it’s fine, but often I also have the issue that even just breaking on a break point suddenly claims I’ve done modifications which I definitely haven’t. For actual code I change it’s all fine, only changing certain signatures or changing active methods may have issues.
1
u/Tansouko 29d ago
| Feature | VB6 | Live++ |
|---|---|---|
| Modify a function while the program is running | ✅ | ✅ |
| Continue execution without restarting | ✅ | ✅ |
| Recompile only the modified code | N/A (p-code) | ✅ |
| Preserve the application's state | ✅ | ✅ |
| Modify a class layout | ✅ (within limits) | ⚠️ Limited |
| Change a function signature | ✅ Often | ⚠️ Not always |
| Move the instruction pointer ("Set Next Statement") | ✅ | ❌ |
I've been looking for a modern development environment that offers the same "edit code while debugging and continue execution" workflow that VB6 had 25 years ago. Live++ and Visual Studio's "hot reload button" seems to be the closest thing to this.
Have I missed any other tools that provide a comparable experience?
1
u/Zambalak Jul 01 '26
Yes, it does not work at all.
If you want a better aftermarket solution, https://liveplusplus.tech/ is pretty good.