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There are several different ways to update an installation of Visual Studio. And if you'd like to try out our newest version, consider downloading and installing Visual Studio 2022. We encourage you to update to the most recent release of Visual Studio 2019 so that you always get the latest features, security fixes, and improvements. If you are currently using another instance of Visual Studio, you can either install a new instance of Visual Studio side-by-side to your existing installation, or you can uninstall the previous instance of Visual Studio before installing this new one. To install the current version of Visual Studio from Microsoft hosted servers, go to the Visual Studio downloads page. Visual Studio must first be installed on the machine before you can update it. We highly recommend saving your work before performing an update. Visual Studio must be closed before performing an update. For more information, see User Permissions and Visual Studio. If you are logged in as a typical user and try to perform one of these commands, then you'll get a User Account Control notice prompting you for admin credentials.
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In order to install, update, or modify Visual Studio, the account performing the update must have administrative permissions on the machine and also must have permissions to the source where the product updates are located (either the internet or an internal location). If you are an IT Administrator and want to configure your organization's clients to update from a network layout, refer to the Visual Studio Administrators Guide, particularly the section on manage and update a network installation. For Visual Studio for Mac, see Update Visual Studio for Mac. This topic discusses how to update a client installation of Visual Studio on Windows.
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