Anyone using Visual Studio 2022/2026 on Linux through WinApps for daily .NET development?

[ahmad1542]

I’m a .NET developer considering moving to Linux as my main operating system, but Visual Studio 2026 is essential to my workflow.
I’m interested in using WinApps to run Visual Studio inside a Windows VM while displaying its window alongside Linux applications. I understand Windows still runs in the background; I’m wondering how practical this is for everyday development.
My stack includes ASP.NET Core, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Docker, Testcontainers, and Postman. One possible setup would keep Visual Studio, the .NET SDK, and my solution inside the Windows VM, with databases and other services running in Docker on Linux.
For anyone who has actually tried this:
How responsive are editing, IntelliSense, builds, debugging, and running tests?
How reliably can applications running inside the Windows VM connect to PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and other services on the Linux host?
How do you handle Docker integration and Testcontainers from Visual Studio inside the VM?
Any problems with networking, HTTPS development certificates, shared project files, or testing the API from Postman on Linux?
Have you encountered window, keyboard shortcut, scaling, or clipboard issues?
What hardware and VM resource allocation are you using?
I plan to test before committing. If it works well, I’ll make Linux my main OS, with around 370 GB available, and keep Windows only in the VM.
I know Rider and VS Code are alternatives, but I’m specifically looking for firsthand experiences with the full Visual Studio IDE through WinApps. Experiences with WinBoat are welcome too.
Is this comfortable enough for daily work, or does maintaining the integration become frustrating?

[oskardotglobal]

I never tried this, but as a maintainer I can tell you the networking part is going to be annoying. Sharing files shouldn't be too much of an issue, but for window, keyboard and clipboard issues ymmw, depends on whether the FreeRDP gods decide to bless or curse you that day. I don't have a lot of experience with VS, but generally things that overlay windows on top of the main window can cause headaches.

However, since your entire application stack should run on Linux (unless you need to like, build server binaries for Windows), you should probably give VSCode or Rider (I've used Rider and can recommend it a lot) a try. Alternatively, you can also try running VS inside a full windows session, especially when coupled with two displays you can have one display be your Windows desktop with just VS and the other everything else.

Good luck on your Linux journey.

[LDprg]

I have done some .net development on Linux before. I would highly recommend to either use Rider (which I prefer over visual studio on any platform personally) or any code editor with a dotnet plugin (Vscode is the most similar to vsual studio). If you aren't developing specifically for Windows that is my best bet. Especially since it doesn't seem like you have anything that specifically needs windows.

I use the dotnet cli with neovim as editor (although I have use vscode and rider before). However those were mostly platform independent network or gui apps. Note that while I have used visual studio alot, I am personally dislike it.

I wouldn't recommend winapps for this usecase, since networking within the vm would most likely be a real pain (since the vm runs with docker which could cause problems). Running the docker stack will also be much more complicated this way (with rider and vscode you can just use the plugins). If you really need windows you are probably better of with some custom vm (just use virt-manager).

However those are just sughestions/estimates, if you decide to use winapps feel free to post you experience here.

Also about the clipboard issues those are mainly regarding freerdp. This should become better for wayland if the native implementation gets merged (which should be in the near future).

Good luck with our project. And sorry if my response isn't exactly what you were asking.