09/01/2024
In this blog post I will detail how to setup early preview versions of .NET for development. My findings apply for .NET 9, but the methods should be applicable in general to most versions of .NET (considering version specific details).
While a preview version of .NET can be downloaded at any time from the dotnet website, installing the forthcoming preview version requires somewhat more investment.
The findings of this post are based on ASP.NET Core, which uses a similar, but more complex approach in its restore.cmd
command. This blog post will focus on the key components to have the latest SDK or a custom runtime available.
The preview versions of .NET can heavily change. Features may get added, removed, changed, or their performance might significantly improve. It is always suggested to choose and use an LTS or STS release for production applications. However, in certain cases a developer might want to test the latest preview features, in which case the methods described in this blog post will help.
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