One of the announcement made by Microsoft during Build 2013 is the availability of Visual Studio 2013 Preview, right now the version is ready for download so that developers can try it out and experience the changes made by Microsoft with their highly popular developer tools.

For the past few days we have also reported about the details of the next version of Visual Studio. Most of the changes were related to what has become known as DevOps and life cycle management.

Most of the remaining new features of Visual Studio 2013 is related to Windows 8.1 but there is a new version of .NET 4.5.1. It is an in-place update for .NET 4.5. Debugging facilities and efficiency were greatly improved in the latest version of Visual Studio 2013.

Programmers can now view the return values from function even if these are not use, Edit and Continue for 64-bit .NET and view async operations in the Task window.

The async debugging is also available in JavaScript and C++, it also includes more C++11 features including delegating constructors, raw string literals, explicit conversion operators, and variadic templates.

JavaScript support has also been extended, but again mainly with things like IntelliSense and editor improvements. The Expression Blend Studio was already being discontinued but the Blend has been bundled with Visual Studio as a standalone product and is still available in Visual Studio 2013.

Both XAML editors have been improved with better IntelliSense and other small changes. There is also some new controls - AppBar, Hub and Flyout which has been listed as part of the 5000 new APIs available in Windows 8.1.

Watch the Visual Studio 2013 Preview Presentation Video:

For more information regarding the Visual Studio 2013 Preview and to download it, just visit the official Visual Studio Site.