Microsoft’s .NET Core 3.1 nears the end

Microsoft’s .NET Core 3.1, a release of Microsoft’s open source, cross-platform software development framework published in December 2019, will no longer be supported as of December 13, 2022.

.NET Core 3.1 reaches end-of-support status that day, with Microsoft discontinuing servicing updates and technical support, the company said. In a bulletin posted earlier this month, Microsoft advised users to move to .NET 6, the current Long-Term Support (LTS) release of the platform, as soon as possible. Those still using .NET Core 3.1 after the end of support will need to update to either .NET 6 or .NET 7, due this November, to continue being supported.

Applications built on .NET Core 3.1 will continue to run after the end-of-support date, but every security fix in .NET 6 is potentially an unpatched, undocumented security vulnerability for those apps, Microsoft warned. End users of apps are advised to reach out to the vendor managing their software to confirm whether an updated version of the software is needed and available.

Beginning with the December 2022 servicing update for Visual Studio 2019 16.11, Visual Studio 2019 17.0, and Visual Studio 2022 17.2, the .NET Core 3.1 component will be changed to out of support and optional. Thusly, workloads in Visual Studio may be installed without installing .NET Core 3.1.