Microsoft ships .NET 11 Release Candidate 2 with a go-live license
The update is production-ready for testing and shifts work across runtime, ASP.NET Core, SDK, NuGet, MAUI and Windows Forms without adding new C# features.
Microsoft has shipped .NET 11 Release Candidate 2 with a go-live license, making it available for production testing across the .NET stack. The release spans updates in the libraries, runtime, SDK, NuGet, F#, ASP.NET Core, .NET MAUI, and Windows Forms, but it does not add any new C# language features. On the runtime side, CoreCLR now turns off advisory file locking by default on iOS and tvOS, with an environment variable available to turn it back on, while ASP.NET Core removes IValidationMessageFormatter in favor of FormatMessage and drops the experimental device-bound sessions package. The SDK and NuGet changes include quoted values in file-based program property directives, faster wildcard matching in MSBuild, and a new cooldown option plus restore failure behavior for floating packages. Windows Forms gets updated visual-style handling and new designer-focused analyzers WFO3000 to WFO3002, while .NET MAUI adds a C# app template option, an Avalonia option in the multi-project template, and platform updates including Xcode 27.0 requirements on Apple workloads.
Why it matters
For teams already following .NET 11, this release marks a point where the platform can be tried in production-like use while the stack keeps moving under it. The changes also narrow or replace some older APIs and add designer checks, so code and tools may need review before upgrading. On the app side, the MAUI and Windows Forms updates show where Microsoft is focusing the next round of platform work.
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Sources
- InfoQ