An improved 32-bit out-of-process designer should support legacy 32-bit Windows Forms (WinForms) applications. With this modification, Microsoft is trying to solve a problem that arose in November 2021, when the first 64-bit version of Visual Studio 2022 was introduced.
WinForms is a framework for .NET desktop applications and is still widely used by developers, especially for building and maintaining custom enterprise applications. The introduction of the 64-bit Visual Studio 2022 led to the failure of the 32-bit out-of-process designer for WinForms. Because of out-of-process, a component does not run within the same application but is started as a separate application next to it. Due to the designer not functioning correctly, a WinForms .NET Framework project targeting the x86 architecture experienced a “white screen of death” in the designer.
Microsoft has since initiated several fixes, but the desired result has not yet been achieved. An updated out-of-process designer is being introduced for .NET Framework WinForms applications. “If you try top open a WinForms .NET Framework project, which has a reference to a 32-Bit-Component, Visual Studio will automatically bring up a dialog and ask, if you want to open your project with the 32-Bit .NET Framework out-of-process designer,” Microsoft now announces.
Challenge
In the same announcement, Microsoft explains that most of the work is currently going into out-of-process designers. The company sees bridging the architecture gap between 32-bit and 64-bit as a challenging task. Therefore, the updated 32-bit .NET Framework designer will not have a complete match with the old in-process .NET Framework Designer because of the architecture differences.
2 days ago
