Microsoft asked developers still using the long-term support (LTS) release of .NET Core 3.1 to migrate to the latest .NET Core versions until it reaches the end of support (EOS) next month.
The company issued a warning via Windows message center saying that the Microsoft .NET Framework is about to reach its end of service, and it’s imperative that customers upgrade to .NET 6 (LTS) or .NET 7 before December 13, 2022.
If you’re willing to wait, Microsoft will continue to provide security updates for 30 years after the OS release, but without the support employees many relied on in the past.
“If you’ve already written your software for .NET Core 3.1, now is the time to make the switch over to .NET 6 or 7 to stay supported,” said Whittaker.
The good news is that .NET Core 3.1 apps will still run after the EOS crypto hard fork, as they will not be exposed to any vulnerabilities patched within .NET Core 6 since its original release in November 2021.
Whittaker shared detailed steps on how software vendors and developers can upgrade to .NET 6 (LTS) and how to update their development environments.
“If you want to migrate an app from .NET 5 to .NET 6, some breaking changes might affect you. We recommend you to go through the compatibility check,” the Microsoft PM added.
Those who want to upgrade to the latest software release can do so with .NET 7.0, which was released earlier this month on November 8th and will be supported for 18 months.
Microsoft has announced .NET 7, a brand new update for the .NET core. This update brings performance and new features to C# 11/F# 7, .NET MAUI, ASP.NET Core/Blazor, Web APIs, WinForms, WPF and more!
With .NET 7, you can easily containerize your projects, set up CI/CD workflows in GitHub actions, and achieve cloud-native observability.
Microsoft warned .NET developers that it would stop supporting these outdated versions of the Framework around April 26, unless they updated to at least .NET Framework 4.6.2 or later before that date.
These three .NET Framework versions were retired after the switch to SHA-2 signing, because they were digitally signed with certificates whose signatures used the old and less secure SHA-1 cryptographic hashing algorithm.
