What's New in Visual Assist

General Release Build 2026.4 (2615)

Requires active software maintenance through general release date: 2026.06.30

NEW Refreshed installer with a cleaner, modernized look.
NEW Smoother, faster initial parse on first open.
NEW Updated Clang for current language support.
Visual Assist 2026.4 released!

Summary:

Visual Assist 2026.4 cleans up the first thing you see (the installer) and the first thing you wait on when you open a new project (the initial parse).

The installer got a visual and UX refresh. It’s got the same flow and same options, nothing new to learn; We’ve just rebuilt it so that it’s more intuitive, flows more smoothly, and more in line with the modern tools you’re accustomed to today. You'll see it on a fresh install and every time you update, on Windows 10 and newer. Older Windows versions keep the existing installer for compatibility’s sake.

Under the hood, the initial parse is also smoother: the short hangs that intermittently happen while Visual Assist indexed a freshly opened solution are gone, and the parse itself is faster. On top of that, a round of fixes — a debugger crash, an Include Cleaner edge case, a Navigation Bar rendering glitch, and more.

This is a smaller, polish-and-stability release between larger ones. Several bigger efforts are running in parallel, and while we’re excited to share those as soon as we can, we hope all our users find this build useful.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or encounter any errors, please send us a message or start a thread on our Discord.

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed a crash in the debugger that could occur when typing $.
  • Fixed an Include Cleaner code inspection issue where it wouldn't work correctly on the first line of a source file.
  • Fixed a text-rendering issue in the Navigation Bar that could appear with a non-standard environment font.
  • Fixed the About page so copied info matches the format shown elsewhere.

General Release Build 2026.3 (2610)

Requires active software maintenance through general release date: 2026.04.03

Visual Assist 2026.3 released
NEW Change Code (VA Intelligence): Use AI to transform selected code using natural language.
  • Select a block of code and describe the change you want
  • Preview results in a built-in diff view before applying
  • Supports a wide range of transformations (refactoring, optimization, restructuring)
  • Designed for flexible, exploratory workflows
NEW Added support for .hlsli files (HLSL includes)
️NEW Improved Diff View behavior when using AI

Summary:

Visual Assist 2026.3 expands VA Intelligence with Change Code.

This release introduces a major expansion of AI-assisted workflows through a new Change Code function added under VA Intelligence. This allows developers to iteratively modify code using natural language with full diff visibility.

Alongside this, the release also features:

  • Added support for .hlsli (HLSL) includes
  • Performance improvements for Unreal Engine macro parsing and expansion
  • Stability fixes (startup timing, memory leak, plugin compatibility)
  • Small but meaningful UX refinements, particularly around AI interactions and configuration workflows

Overall, this release will set the tone for where we’re taking our AI-assisted workflows. It’s also a stability release, inspired by users who submitted bug reports and issues.

As always, we appreciate everyone sharing feedback. If you haven’t tried it, try our new AI assistant chatbot to get quick answers based on the official documentation, or to get access to the support team.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or encounter any errors, please send us a message or start a thread on our Discord.

Bug fixes:

  • Improved macro expansion performance, especially in Unreal Engine projects
  • Fixed memory leak that could accumulate over time
  • Fixed crash when using TabsStudio alongside Visual Assist
  • Fixed crash caused by early feature access during Visual Studio 2019 startup
  • Fixed issue where fuzzy search could return incorrect results
  • Fixed issue where pressing Ctrl could trigger the legacy options dialog
  • Improved paste behavior in C/C++ Custom Directories:
    • Multi-line paths now correctly create separate entries

General Release Build 2026.2 (2602)

Requires active software maintenance through general release date: 2026.02.06

UPDATE Fixed issue where the installation could fail in some circumstances.
Visual Assist 2026.2 released

Summary:

Visual Assist Build 2026.2 comes early with important fix.

This focused release fixes an installation failure that could occur when installing Visual Assist via its Visual Studio VSIX package. If you experienced installation errors or failures with the previous build, this update resolves that issue.

We recommend all users update to 2026.2 to ensure a smooth installation experience.

As always, we appreciate everyone who reports issues and shares feedback. Your input helps us respond quickly to critical issues like this. If you have any similar concerns or suggestions, please send us a message or start a thread on our Discord.

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed issue where the installation could fail in some circumstances when installing via VSIX.