To build and test Visual F# IDE Tools, install these requirements:

-[Visual Studio 2017](https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/)

- Under the "Windows" workloads, select ".NET desktop development"

- Select "F# language support" under the optional components

- Select "F#desktoplanguage support" under the optional components

- Under the "Other Toolsets" workloads, select "Visual Studio extension development"

Steps to build:

Use``VisualFSharp.sln`` if you're building the Visual F# IDE Tools.

Note on Debug vs Release:``Release`` Configuration has a degraded debugging experience, so if you want to test a change locally, it is recommended to do it in the``Debug`` configuration. For more information seehttps://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/2771 andhttps://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/pull/2773.

Note: if you face this error[#2351](https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/2351):

At time of writing, the Visual F# IDE Tools can only be installed into the latest Visual Studio 2017 RC releases.

The new builds of the Visual F# IDE Tools can no longer be installed into Visual Studio 2015.

You can install Visual Studio 2017 fromhttps://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/.

Because this uses the "RoslynDev" hive you can simultaneously test changes to an appropriate build of Roslyn binaries.

For the brave, you can rapidly deploy incrementally updated versions of Visual F# IDE Tool components such as``FSHarp.Editor.dll`` by copying them directly into the extension directory in your user AppData folder:

-[Windows 8.1 SDK](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bg162891.aspx)

-[Windows 10 SDK](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/windows-10-sdk)

1. The`update.cmd` script adds required strong name validation skips and NGens the compiler and libraries. This requires admin privileges.

The primary technical guide to the core compiler code is[The F# Compiler Technical Guide](http://fsharp.github.io/2015/09/29/fsharp-compiler-guide.html). Please read and contribute to that guide.