Top 19 Microsoft Visual Studio Interview Questions You Must Prepare 19.Mar.2024

Refactoring is the process of improving your code after it has been written. Refactoring changes the internal structure of the code without changing its behavior.

  • Code clones are separate fragments of code that are very similar. They are a common phenomenon in an application that has been under development for some time. Clones make it hard to change your application because you have to find and update more than one fragment.
  • Visual Studio Enterprise can help you find code clones so that you can refactor them.
  • You can either find the clones of a specific fragment, or find all clones in your solution. In addition to discovering direct copies, the clone analysis tool can find fragments which differ in the names of variables and parameters, and in which some statements have been rearranged.
  • The code clone analyzer searches for duplicate code in Visual C# and Visual Basic projects throughout your Visual Studio solution.

Use Architecture Explorer in Visual Studio to find specific code.

Browser Link is a new feature in Visual Studio 2013 that creates a communication channel between the development environment and one or more web browsers. You can use Browser Link to refresh your web application in several browsers at once, which is useful for cross-browser testing.

To visualize how the code implements a particular method, create a sequence diagram from that method in Visual Studio Ultimate. The sequence diagram shows the interaction between objects as a series of lifelines and messages.

Lifelines represent instances of objects, and messages represent method calls between those objects. You can generate sequence diagrams from Visual C# .NET or Visual Basic .NET code, but not from projects that share code across multiple apps.

Keyboard: CTRL + , D

Menu: View -> Code Definition Window

Command: View.Code Definition Window

Versions: 2008, 2010

Ever want to just click on a reference and see the definition as you go? Well it’s time to get reintroduced to the Code Definition Window.

Solution Explorer shows you a graphical representation of the hierarchy of files and folders in your project, solution, or code folder. You can browse the hierarchy and navigate to a file in Solution Explorer.

New features available in Visual Studio 2017:

  • Unparalleled productivity for any dev, any app, and any platform.
  • Use Visual Studio 2017 to develop apps for Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, web, and cloud.
  • Code fast, debug and diagnose with ease, test often, and release with confidence.
  • You can also extend and customize Visual Studio by building your own extensions.
  • Use version control, be agile, and collaborate efficiently.

New features available in Visual Studio 2015 – 2017:

Redefined fundamentals – A new setup experience me that you can install more quickly and install what you want when you need it.

Performance and productivity – More focused on new and modern mobile, cloud, and desktop development capabilities.

Cloud app development with Azure – A built-in suite of Azure tools enables you to easily create cloud-first apps powered by Microsoft Azure.

Windows app development – Use the UWP templates in Visual Studio 2017 to create a single project for all Windows 10 devices – PC, tablet, phone, Xbox, HoloLens, Surface Hub, and more.

Mobile app development – In Visual Studio 2017, you can innovate and get results fast with Xamarin, which unifies your multi-platform mobile requirements by using one core codebase and set of skills.

Cross-platform development – Seamlessly deliver software to any targeted platform. Extend DevOps processes to SQL Server through Red gate Data Tools and safely automate database deployments from Visual Studio.

Games development – With Visual Studio Tools for Unity (VSTU), you can use Visual Studio to write game and editor scripts in C# and then use its powerful debugger to find and fix errors.

AI development – With Visual Studio Tools for AI (new in 15.5), you can use the productivity features of Visual Studio to accelerate AI innovation. Build, test, and deploy Deep Learning / AI solutions that seamlessly integrate with Azure Machine Learning.

Visual Studio supports multiple programming languages like:

C# – A modern object-oriented programming language with functional programming capabilities for building any application on the .NET platform.

Visual Basic – A modern, easy to learn, the object-oriented programming language for the .NET platform, focused on easily creating Windows applications.

C++ – A powerful and flexible programming language and development environment for creating applications for Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.

F# – A modern functional programming language with object-oriented capabilities for the .NET platform, focused on making Functional Programming easier for any task.

JavaScript – A lightweight, cross-platform, scripting language often used to help make web pages more interactive.

TypeScript – A superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript and enables you to create more scalable code.

Python – A dynamic object-oriented, high-level programming language often used for rapid application development.

R – An extensible programming language typically used for statistical computing and graphics.

Namespaces are logical groupings of names used within a program. There may be multiple namespaces in a single application code, grouped based on the identifiers’ use. The name of any given identifier must appear only once in its namespace.

The Azure Functions Tools provides the following benefits:

  • Edit, build, and run functions on your local development computer.
  • Publish your Azure Functions project directly to Azure.
  • Use Web Jobs attributes to declare function bindings directly in the C# code instead of maintaining a separate function. Json for binding definitions.
  • Develop and deploy precompiled C# functions.
  • Precompiled functions provide a better cold-start performance than C# script-based functions. Code your functions in C# while having all of the benefits of Visual Studio development.

When you are working with a project in Visual Studio, you can set up and quickly commit and publish your code to a Git service. You can also manage your Git repositories by using menu clicks from buttons in the bottom right-hand corner of the IDE.

Visual Studio Debugging Shortcut Keys:

Ctrl-Alt-V: A Displays the Auto window to view the values of variables currently in the scope of the current line of execution within the current procedure.

Ctrl-Alt-Break: Temporarily stops the execution of all processes in a debugging session. Available only in run mode.

Ctrl-Alt-B: Displays the Breakpoints dialog, where you can add and modify breakpoints.

Ctrl-Alt-C: Displays the Call Stack window to display a list of all active procedures or stack frames for the current thread of execution. Available only in break mode.

Ctrl-Shift-F9: Clears all of the breakpoints in the project.

Ctrl-Alt-D: Displays the Disassembly window.

The different refactoring options in visual studio are:

  • Add parameter (from Call Site)
  • Generate overrides
  • Add named argument
  • Add null-check for parameters
  • Insert digit-separators into literals
  • Change base for numeric literals (for example, hex to binary)
  • Convert if-to-switch
  • Remove unused variable

Develop modern web apps using Visual Studio and powerful open tools.

Web and Cloud Applications:

  • Web development – Build web apps with ASP.NET and standards-based technologies like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.
  • Azure development and management – Easily build, test, deploy, and manage scalable apps and services on the Microsoft cloud.
  • Python – Interactive development for Python apps, using familiar frameworks including Django and Flask.
  • Node.js – Build scalable network applications using Node.js, an asynchronous, event-driven JavaScript runtime.
  • Data storage and processing – Tools and frameworks to develop and test data solutions using SQL Server, Azure Data Lake, or Hadoop.
  • Data science and analytical applications – Languages and tooling for creating data science applications, including Python, R, and F#.
  • Office/SharePoint development – Create Office and SharePoint add-ins and solutions using C#, Visual Basic, and JavaScript.

Windows Applications:

Develop apps and games using Visual Studio to reach every device running Windows.

  • Universal Windows Platform development – Develop applications for Windows 10 with the Windows Universal Platform and C#, VB, or C++.
  • .NET Desktop development – Build WPF, Windows Forms, and console applications using the .NET Framework.
  • Windows development with C++ – Build classic Windows-based applications using the power of MFC, ATL, and the Microsoft C++ toolset.

Mobile & Gaming Applications:

Create native or hybrid mobile apps that target Android, iOS, and Windows.

  • Mobile development with .NET – Build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, or Windows using Xamarin.
  • Game development with Unity – Create 2D and 3D games with unity, a powerful cross-platform development environment.
  • Mobile development with JavaScript – Build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, or Windows using the Apache Cordova framework.
  • Mobile development with C++ – Build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, or Windows using C++.
  • Game development with C++ – Use the full power of C++ to build professional games powered by DirectX, Unreal, or Cocos2D.

Other Toolsets:

  • Visual Studio extension development – Create add-ons that extend Visual Studio, such as commands, code analyzers, and tool windows.
  • Linux development with C++ – Create and debug applications running in a Linux environment.
  • .NET Core cross-platform development – Build cross-platform applications using .NET Core, ASP.NET Core, HTML, JavaScript, and container development tools.

Visual Studio supports various activities like developing, build, debug, test, deploy, version control, devops, improve performance, extend and data.

Develop – Write and manage your code using the code editor.
Build – Compile and build your source code.
Debug – Investigate and fix problems with your code.
Test – Organize your testing processes.
Deploy – Share your apps using Web Deploy, Install Shield, and Continuous Integration, and more.
Version Control – Share code using version control technologies such as Git and TFVC.
DevOps – Continuous build and release your apps in the cloud, and implement Agile practices with VSTS.
Improve Performance – Identify bottlenecks and optimize code performance by using diagnostic tools.
Extend – Add your own functionality to the Visual Studio IDE to improve your development experience.
Data – Create data apps that connect to any database or service, and anywhere—local or cloud.

An assembly is a collection of one or more files and one of them (DLL or EXE) contains a special metadata called Assembly Manifest. The manifest is stored as binary data and contains details like versioning requirements for the assembly, the author, security permissions, and list of files forming the assembly.

An assembly is created whenever a DLL is built. The manifest can be viewed programmatically by making use of classes from the System.Reflection namespace. The tool Intermediate Language Disassembler (ILDASM) can be used for this purpose. It can be launched from the command prompt or via Start> Run.

DLL hell is the problem that occurs when an installation of a newer application might break or hinder other applications as newer DLLs are copied into the system and the older applications do not support or are not compatible with them. .NET overcomes this problem by supporting multiple versions of an assembly at any given time. This is also called side-by-side component versioning.

Common Language Runtime (CLR) is a run-time environment that manages the execution of .NET code and provides services like memory management, debugging, security, etc. The CLR is also known as Virtual Execution System (VES).