Visual Studio 2013 contains all the tools you need to develop killer apps for Windows 8.1, from templates, to designers, to testing, to debugging. Blend now comes with the Visual Studio installation providing rich visual tools for creating Windows store apps using HTML/CSS and XAML. Using these tools, you’ll find everything you need to develop a great app and submit it to the Windows Store.

Visual Studio provides the best possible tools to develop your cloud services. In Visual Studio 2013, you’ll notice cloud tooling improvements including support for distributed caching, new publishing options, new templates, and a lower install footprint. Using Team Foundation Service with Windows Azure, you can now achieve continuous integration and continuous deployment of your software.

If you’re developing in C# or Visual Basic, you can take advantage of the language new features in Visual Studio 2013 and .NET 4.5.1 for asynchronous programming. Using the new async and await keywords, you can write asynchronous code that looks a lot like the synchronous version. The C++ support in Visual Studio 2013 includes the full C++ 11 standard library as well as new language features: stateless lambdas, SCARY iterators, range-based for loops, and scoped enumerations support. Visual C++ 11 also adds seamless access to Windows Runtime components through C++/CX as well as C++ Accelerated Massive Parallelism (C++ AMP), which enables hardware acceleration for the execution of your data-parallel C++ code. If you’re using F#, you’ll enjoy improvements for information-rich programming, which enable you to program directly against data services, and are made possible by F# type providers and LINQ queries.

Visual Studio 2013 introduces a connected IDE experience, enabling you to get started with Visual Studio 2013 more quickly. The user interface includes an updated look and feel, which is consistent with the latest Microsoft products, and designed to focus your attention on the code. The overall environment has been streamlined, including simplified toolbars, a lightweight Find dialog, and less tab clutter by previewing files rather than opening them during debugging. Using Quick Launch, you can now search the IDE for any menu or command.