install-dotnet-preview.sh should install 10.0.0-rc.1 instead of 10.0.0-preview.2

[danielstreba]

install-dotnet-preview.sh should install 10.0.0-rc.1 instead of 10.0.0-preview.2

Visual Studio 2026 Insiders downloads this script as the part of the ".NET Debugging with WSL" component (Microsoft.VisualStudio.WslDebugging) and installs .NET 10 in the user's WSL2 distro if it doesn't have .NET 10 installed.

Since VS2026 ships with RC1, I think this script should install RC1 as well, since it can cause errors like this, where the script installed 10.0.0-preview.2.25163.2, but Visual Studio compiled the application to 10.0.0-rc.1.25451.107

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You may only use the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET/C/C++ Debugger (vsdbg) with
Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio or Visual Studio for Mac software to help you
develop and test your applications.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You must install or update .NET to run this application.

App: /mnt/.../WebApplication1/WebApplication1/bin/Debug/net10.0/WebApplication1.dll
Architecture: x64
Framework: 'Microsoft.NETCore.App', version '10.0.0-rc.1.25451.107' (x64)
.NET location: /usr/share/dotnet/

The following frameworks were found:
  10.0.0-preview.2.25163.2 at [/usr/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App]

Learn more:
https://aka.ms/dotnet/app-launch-failed

To install missing framework, download:
https://aka.ms/dotnet-core-applaunch?framework=Microsoft.NETCore.App&framework_version=10.0.0-rc.1.25451.107&arch=x64&rid=linux-x64&os=ubuntu.24.04
The program 'dotnet' has exited with code 150 (0x96).

[ellahathaway]

[Triage] This script is not owned by the @dotnet/install-scripts-maintainers, so we should update the CODEOWNERS file to reflect this ownership.

@leecow @rbhanda - it is my understanding that the release team owns this script. Is there a standard release or update cadence for this script? Also, can we formally add “update install-dotnet-preview.sh” as a recurring release task? This will help ensure the script stays in sync with the latest .NET versions used by Visual Studio and related tooling.

[leecow]

It was decided to discontinue this file as detectable usage was pretty close to 0. To get us through RC.2 with as little disruption as possible, I can update the script for RC.1 and RC.2 then not offer it for .NET 11.

@danielstreba - can you investigate moving to the dotnet-install.sh after .NET 10 for preview installations?

[danielstreba]

@leecow Hi. Sorry, I don't work for Microsoft, and it seems the ".NET Debugging with WSL" Visual Studio component is not open source, so I don't know how can I help here exactly.

---

Just for reference, details from my initial investigation before I opened this issue.

VS2026 calls this script: <Visual Studio install root>\18\Insiders\Common7\IDE\Extensions\abwt0v3z.wfx\Scripts\InstallDotNetPreview.sh
which downloads and runs install-dotnet-preview.sh:

...
curl -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' -L https://aka.ms/install-dotnet-preview -o install-dotnet-preview.sh
sudo bash install-dotnet-preview.sh
...

Starting from a fresh WSL distro installation, even if I install .NET 10 RC1 using dotnet-install.sh, and configuring my PATH env var correctly, VS2026 still thinks that "ASP.NET Core 10.0 is not installed in the default WSL distribution."

I could solve this on my end by installing .NET 10 RC1 from the Ubuntu .NET Previews PPA

[leecow]

Sorry @danielstreba - bad assumption on my part :-) . I will get the script updated with RC1 today, and chat with the VS folks about updating their acquisition tool.