back to article Devs sound alarm after Microsoft subtracts C/C++ extension from VS Code forks

Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) no longer works with derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor – and some developers are crying foul. In early April, programmers using VS Codium, an open-source fork of Microsoft's MIT-licensed VS Code, and Cursor, a commercial AI code assistant built from …

  1. emag
    Trollface

    Oh no!

    Anyway...

  2. captain veg Silver badge

    Sceptic

    I am, in general, sceptical of AI bullshit, especially when applied to coding. But the alarm bells were ringing loud when my younger AI-credulous colleagues started proselytising for Cursor. For some kind of reason it couldn't be installed as an add-in to VS-Code despite being a "fork" of same.

    Now we know why.

    -A.

    1. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Sceptic

      If you embrace a company branded programming language (especially a Microsoft branded language), you will, inevitably, be mule-kicked solidly in the crotch at some point.

      You either accept the odd burst of ball-ache, or you find a more neutral choice that does what you need.

      No-one can express surprise at this latest development. They are consistent AF in all of their product offerings and revoke features and functions as they see fit. You don't matter to them, unless you fail to make your monthly subscription payments. Then they give a damn about your 'relationship.'

      1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

        Re: Sceptic

        You have to wonder why even today people still pick dotnet...

        1. bazza Silver badge

          Re: Sceptic

          Because it’s open source and quite good?

          1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

            Re: Sceptic

            DotNet may be open sourced but the vendor control and lockin any of which can change (this article is an example of a promise that has been broken) is a serious problem.

            1. FIA Silver badge

              Re: Sceptic

              Okay, I'll bite... how is this an example of either a broken promise or being "mule-kicked solidly in the crotch"?

              Microsoft develop a code editor, which they release under a very permissive licence for no monetary cost. They also provide an extension to this editor, which is closed source, but again is available for free so long as you accept the licence terms. (Presumably so they can collect the telemetry in exchange for it's use).

              Those terms, for the last 5 years, have prohibited running the extension against a fork of the editor, but haven't been enforced.

              Additionally, a third party has allegedly been breaching these terms to enhance their own product. I.e. Not only are they taking the code developed by someone else as they're completely entitled to do by the licence that party used, but then they're also trying to have their cake and eat it too by taking the stuff they're not supposed to have, because attempting to profit off others work is fine when it's a big evil corporation??

              So, explain to me how MS is at fault here? They've not removed the source code, or changed the terms of the extension in 5 years. The only 'promise' in effect is the terms of the licence, which they seem to now be enforcing.

              If it was MS and they'd broken the GPL there would be hell to pay, why don't they get the same respect?

              Or is their free software somehow not beholden to the same standards?

              1. TheWeetabix Bronze badge

                Re: Sceptic

                Just to be a pedant, there are several legal precepts that more-or-less state “if you fail to use or enforce these provisions for years, you can lose the right to suddenly enforce them to the detriment of someone else.” Domain squatting comes to mind, as well as patent troll legislation.

                1. FIA Silver badge

                  Re: Sceptic

                  Do you have examples?

                  I always thought this was with things like trade marks, (Tannoy, Hoover, et. al).

                  In this case it's a breach of the contract you've agreed to when using the software. I'm not sure those kind of contractual breaches have a time limit do they?

              2. TReko Silver badge

                Re: Sceptic

                >Microsoft develop a code editor, which they release under a very permissive licence for no monetary cost.

                Yes, but they did this because their code editor was based on the open source Atom editor (MIT licence).

                Microsoft did not develop VS Code from scratch.

                1. FIA Silver badge

                  Re: Sceptic

                  >Microsoft develop a code editor, which they release under a very permissive licence for no monetary cost.

                  Yes, but they did this because their code editor was based on the open source Atom editor (MIT licence).

                  Yes, this is how open source works I think. :)

                  They have also continued to licence it under the MIT licence, something which they do not have to do. (They could've closed sourced their modifications as the licence allows this, much as Apple does with some of their changes to FreeBSD).

                  Microsoft did not develop VS Code from scratch.

                  I didn't mean to imply they did, I'm sorry if I gave this impression.

                  It still doesn't change that Codium are breaking the licence terms though.

              3. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

                Re: Sceptic

                FIA: So, explain to me how MS is at fault here? They've not removed the source code, or changed the terms of the extension in 5 years. The only 'promise' in effect is the terms of the licence, which they seem to now be enforcing.

                cow: This is simply untrue, the article says something quite different.

                From the opening paragraph.

                > Microsoft's C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code (VS Code) no longer works with derivative products such as VS Codium and Cursor – and some developers are crying foul.

                1. FIA Silver badge

                  Re: Sceptic

                  From paragraph 6:

                  Microsoft has forbidden the use of its extensions outside of its own software products since at least September 2020, when the current licensing terms were published. But it hasn't enforced those terms in its C/C++ extension with an environment check in its binaries until now.

                  (Emphasis mine).

                  You are correct though, I said 5 years, when I should've said 4 and a half. Apologies. :)

          2. hohumladida

            Re: Sceptic

            Ah it's open source but C# is only supported on Microshaft's own IDE VS code which is also open source.

        2. Steve Channell
          Windows

          Re: Sceptic

          The language in question is C++, since you ask.. people use dotnet because of speed, productivity, and cost.. yes cost, JOOQ (A Java copy of LINQ) reminds me how expensive J2EE was

          1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

            Re: Sceptic

            Wasnt aware Visual Studio, MSSQL Server and Azure were free

            1. FIA Silver badge

              Re: Sceptic

              Visual Studio Community is free for individuals to develop commercial applications, and small companies (less than 250 PCs) can use up to 5 editions of it for free.

              SQL Server express is free and usable in production. (I expect there's limitations, but I've not looked further).

              I'm not sure why you'd expect Azure to be free, altough it does offer (like Amazon) a free tier for experimentation.

  3. sarusa Silver badge
    Devil

    Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

    MS want to be the only ones in town providing shitty AI code helpers (and not inconsequentially sucking up all your code to feed into its LLMs), so kill the competition!

    And man, remember when Nadella was a breath of fresh air after Ballmer? At this point, with him helming Win11 turning to complete shit and all this AI bullcrap, I fully expect to see him up on a stage soon, dancing and sweating like a pig while screaming 'AI developers! AI developers! AI developers!'

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

      Yup AI is Satya's Ballmer moment. The guy just can't stop banging on about it in every interview he gives. It's really obnoxious to listen to him at this point.

      Source: PhD in Data Science.

      1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        What else did you expect from a CEO ?

        Satya has no technical merit, his only virtue is his ability to spew lies.

        1. Sandtitz Silver badge

          Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

          "Satya has no technical merit, his only virtue is his ability to spew lies."

          According to Wiki he has BA in electrical engineering and Master's degree in computer science.

          1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

            Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

            Electrical engineer has little to do with software engineering and he has never written a line of code professionally, but dont believe me read his wiki. Lots of management type roles and none about writing code.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Nadella

            1. Sandtitz Silver badge
              FAIL

              Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

              and he has never written a line of code professionally

              Well, you are wrong.

              https://www.economicclub.org/sites/default/files/transcripts/Economic_Club_Satya_Nadella_Transcript.pdf

              "MR. NADELLA: I was a developer at Sun. I worked on, interestingly enough, a lot of their – when I joined Sun in the – in 1990, the ambition there was to be a desktop computer business. And so I worked, in fact, at Sun. I even spent a summer at Lotus doing a bunch of their software for the Sun workstations."

              1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

                Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

                sand:

                I even spent a summer at Lotus doing a bunch of their software for the Sun workstations.

                cow:

                Like ?

                Names, technologies, etc

              2. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

                Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

                Show me his github..

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

      No idea why people went mad for VSC. MS already have a paid IDE, the only reason to for them to give it away was it was a huge trojan horse for something. Those who didn't take the bait are in the happy position of not being embraced and extended to be an AI datapoint. Those who did take the bait wilfully ignored years of MS history.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        The short answer? It didn't smell like Microsoft, because they didn't make it. And Microsoft's marketing of being pro open source wireless on people who naively saw it as a contribution. Managers jumped on it too, and it was marketed to them as a way to keep developers on Windows.

      2. abend0c4 Silver badge

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        They also give away their paid IDE, for "community" use, but it only runs on Windows. VS Code was part of the strategy of retargeting .NET to Linux and conveniently allowed the unloved stepchild, Visual Studio for Mac, to be booted into the wilderness.

        I've really only used VS Code for Arduino and Pi Pico projects and it seems fine for that purpose, although it does rather remind me of the days of using DEC's Language Sensitive Editor on a VT100 back in the 1980s.

        I'm a bit ambivalent about all-embracing development environments. It may be convenient to have one platform you can use for a whole variety of programming languages and configuration files, but the more generic your IDE becomes, the less well it seems to do individual jobs. Visual Studio seemed to hit a peak about 10 years ago and then started to become buggy and counterintuitive as more and more "productivity" features were shoveled into it. IDEs should be unobtrusive, but the trend, unfortunately, seems to be for them to constantly get in your face to tell you how helpful they are.

        I think, on the whole, I'd prefer them to do less but to do it more reliably and predictably. And preferably with less dependence on a plethora of third-party plugins of unknown origin. While I'm extremely suspicious of AI, I can't help feeling it's no more of a threat than pulling code and tools from random corners of the Internet and hoping for the best.

        Of course, if your code is to any extent important, you already have a plan for the case in which part or all of the development tooling is no longer available or the dependencies are no longer supported, so an event like this is something you simply take in your stride - at the cost of some effort. Right?

      3. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: mad for VSC

        In my case it was because Adobe withdrew Brackets and recommended moving to the conceptually very similar VS Code.

        When Brackets came out it was something of a revelation -- an editor that actually understood JavaScript! (Until then I was using Windows WordPad.) I guess that's not such a unique selling point these days.

        -A.

      4. kmorwath

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        I remember when Eclipse was heralded as the definitve IDE... and then people jumped on VS Code because it was nerwer.

        Meanwhile the market for good IDEs is mostly dead - everything built in Java/Javascript is crap.

        1. Grunchy Silver badge

          Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

          “…everything built in Java/Javascript is crap…”

          I thought repl.it was pretty good. For monkeying around with different ideas. If I do the advent of code puzzles I find it convenient to just use repl.it.

      5. JamesTGrant Silver badge

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        Visual Studio is really great once you’ve set it up and you’re working on the same project and codebase and language (and language version) all the time. Back in the day it was like trying the thread a needle with loads of DLL options and very similar sounding options which all needed to be exactly correct. Maybe it’s better now, but I still fear it! Once you have it set up and it compiles and the stack tracing works you are winning, but it’s a fiddly process. Then switching to a different codebase with different language and different compilers, it’s a ball ache.

        VSCode approaches this differently and in my opinion, is much easier and quicker to load up different languages, interpreters, linters, etc within the same project.

    3. Displacement Activity

      Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

      MS want to be the only ones in town providing shitty AI code helpers (and not inconsequentially sucking up all your code to feed into its LLMs)

      Ok... so now we know why it's a 'shitty AI code helper'. Second-rate devs feed their second-rate code into the LLM. Crap in, crap out. Karma.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

        "Crap in, crap out" = so-so?

        shit in, shit out

  4. JWLong Silver badge

    Goes to Show You

    That the general acceptance of their AI garbage CoPlunk is wayless than expected.

    It seems all they can do today is put a foul smell in the air.

  5. chololennon
    Thumb Down

    The same old behavior

    I've already written my rant about this situation where C++/Python/Typescript/C# extensions (I use all of them) no longer work on VSCode forks (https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2025/04/18/microsoft_copilot_not_wanted/). It is Microsoft at its best... a crappy shitty company with the same old behavior :-(

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. O'Reg Inalsin

    Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

    Some short run profit taking for Microsoft, but in the long run they may lose out as interest grows in open source extensions and alternatives to VS code.

    As for Cursor, sorry I cannot understand how they raised millions in VC money for a closed source fork of VSCode editor with the assumption that MS wouldn't do this. Let's see if some of that VC money starts getting funneled into building open source extensions to break the blockade (I would guess it won't).

    1. Conor Stewart

      Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

      Microsoft is just being Microsoft but this is cursors fault too. If Microsoft have in their license agreement that the extensions can only be used with VSCode then why were cursor finding workarounds and ways to hide that it was their IDE accessing the marketplace? Why are they still looking for workarounds?

      They knew that what they were doing was against the license but in typical AI company fashion they don't care about licensing or copyright, they just do what they want. So yeah what Microsoft did isn't great but it was there in the license all along, it is just them enforcing it now. What cursor did however is to ignore the license and just do what they want whilst trying to hide that it was them and they are continuing to try and find ways to violate the license. I have no sympathy for cursor here.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

        If you haven't noticed yet, none of us care about cursor, it's just the latest example of sharecropping on Microsoft's porch, and it's closed. What we do care about is the impact on the developer community who has heavily adopted VSC for often bad reasons.

      2. Rich 2 Silver badge

        Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

        I don’t think anyone has a right to complain about MS here - and it’s been a VERY long time since I thought that. MS are enforcing their license. Which they are perfectly entitled to do. A license which, by the way, has not suddenly changed recently (at least not in relation to this). If you choose to use a software product that has a license that states quite clearly that this kind of thing might (or is likely to) happen then it is your own fault of things go pear-shaped. You have no right to blame MS. You might not like it and want to stamp your little foot, but you have no right to complain

        As for using VSC, I also don’t “get it”. It’s a bit like the hoards of people that use the Crome browser. Just why??? If you want to edit code, use an editor. And learn how to invoke the compiler in the command line

        1. Paul Herber Silver badge

          Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

          '... this kind of thing ...'

          Down with this kind of thing!

        2. TheWeetabix Bronze badge

          Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

          Repeatedly non-enforcing a license for years can in some jurisdictions be grounds for losing the ability to enforce that license in the future. I agree with you. I am just pointing this out.

      3. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

        If Microsoft have in their license agreement that the extensions can only be used with VSCode then why were cursor finding workarounds and ways to hide that it was their IDE accessing the marketplace?

        This. It feels a lot like burglars complaining someone has fitted better locks.

        I am sure many commentards here will have 'kicked the doors down' when it has suited them to do so, but I don't think many would be so stupid as to build a business reliant upon doing that or expect it to last.

      4. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

        Re: Shouldn't have been unexpectected.

        After 40 years of repeating the same game plan, shame on the people who thought this would ever change. Its hardly the first time , no idea why people would think the leopard has changed its spots.

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    You still don't get it, do you ?

    It is Microsoft's computer, and Microsoft will decide what it lets get done with it.

    In this case, you even got a warning. You should count yourself lucky. Generally, when something gets cut off, you find out after you've installed the latest update.

    1. Georgski

      Re: You still don't get it, do you ?

      Well it is Microsoft's software in this case

      But I can't see what they achieve by closing down free community use of it. Devs can switch more easily than most, it isn't like your projects are locked in.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You still don't get it, do you ?

        Vendor lock-in. And you can bet they timed it based on metrics of vscode adoption in industry. It's also a bait and switch, if anyone can even enforce regulations right now.

  8. Jakester

    I read in a blog years ago ... "Microsoft isn't the solution, Microsoft is the problem". I think there is some merit in that statement.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well that explains why some extensions work/available on Vscode and not Vscodium! Thought it was versioning differences. Well it's not a surprise that a corporation wants to restrict its products and lever usage. I am always suspicious of corporates getting involved in opensource products if they will ultimately damage the "open" or attempt to control.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure about Cursor, tried it and didn't like it. Amazon Q seems to keep getting better and works in both Vscodium & Vscode. I also run open-webui + Ollama locally but not integrated, quicker than searching docs or online etc. Playing with a model called deepcoder at the moment which seems to include decent explanations which is handy if using as a manual / search for examples.

  11. Falmari Silver badge

    Unfair competition - alleging self-preferencing?

    "One such developer who contacted us anonymously told The Register they sent a letter about the situation to the US Federal Trade Commission, asking them to probe Microsoft for unfair competition - alleging self-preferencing, bundling Copilot without a removal option, and blocking rivals like Cursor to lock users into its AI ecosystem."

    Microsoft do not sell VS Code they license it “as-is" and it's free to use. Microsoft also open-sourced the code which allowed Cursor to fork and build their own version of the editor and add their own AI before Microsoft bundled Copilot.

    So if you don't like what Microsoft does with VS Code just fork it and build your own version of VS Code. Also you don't have to use VS Code there are other IDEs out there. There's no unfair competition there.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unfair competition - alleging self-preferencing?

      Microsoft didn't open source the code, the original project was open sourced before they purchased it and they saw a strategic advantage in using this tool to rope in open source developers. It doesn't matter if they don't sell it, as they do control the integration platform.

      If you want to claim this isn't a problem you would also have to grant Google the same leeway on Chrome, which courts have decided not to.

      1. chololennon

        Re: Unfair competition - alleging self-preferencing?

        > Microsoft didn't open source the code, the original project was open sourced before they purchased it

        AFAIK VS Code was developed entirely inside Microsoft, it was not purchased.

  12. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    I like Emacs.

    1. Displacement Activity

      And Eclipse if it doesn't work, and you can stomach installing Java. I have a friend who keeps telling me to use VS Code, but I can't quite understand why.

    2. keithpeter Silver badge
      Windows

      "The breaking change appears to have occurred with the release of v1.24.5 on April 3, 2025."

      Quote from OA, emphasis mine.

      If something like this had occurred in an emacs release, then the journalist would have been able to locate the exact commit that introduced the change, and would have been able to read the huge thread in emacs-devel where the change was argued about for weeks before, during and after the change.

      People have to make their choices and compromises.

  13. joqqy

    Why must Cursor fork VS Code, instead of offering an extension? They are asking for trouble.

    Give a million monkeys Cursor, and surely some may, far off into the future, someday vibe a robust piece of software.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If M$ pull C++ support

    we can always write in crayon,

    1. Paul Herber Silver badge

      Re: If M$ pull C++ support

      Green crayon is for people in the sub class.

  15. glennsills@gmail.com

    This is understandable.

    Microsoft is unable to sell any of its AI products despite exspending an enormous amount of marketing resources. There is like one guy, using an AI code assistant with C/C++. Does anyone really expect Microsoft to give up the one paying customer for C/C++ AI coding assistants without a fight?

    1. Steve Aubrey
      Thumb Up

      Re: This is understandable.

      "exspending" - intentional?

  16. BasicReality

    I hate Microsoft, but it is their product. Find options. I use their garbage at work, but off work, I don't touch a single MS product. Plenty of better options available.

  17. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    Its a wonder why anyone trusts microsoft after 40 years of these games.

    Why would anyone pick dotnet and the associated tooling from a single vendor aka Microsoft after all these moves.?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Pirate

      Lots of suckers, er fan boi gatekeepers, in this world, that's why.

      Not to mention, again, that many companies own investment portfolios have M$ stock.

  18. HMcG

    Duh!

    That’s not the sound of an alarm, it’s just the “Duh!” sound of Captain Obvious landing.

  19. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    I think I see the problem

    "Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code, Azure DevOps, Team Foundation Server, and successor Microsoft products and services to develop and test your applications."

    Nice splintering there.

    I've said it before. M$ doesn't even work with itself.

  20. Jason Hindle

    There will be alternatives

    If I type the name of any language in the LSP manager of my Neovim setup, there is always more than one solution.

  21. Grunchy Silver badge

    VS code is just a fancy notepad

    I tried it briefly before realizing, aw nuts here we go, this is nothing but Emacs all over again.

    I just use notepad or whatever. Nano, from the cli.

    Whatever they do with emacs, I don’t care. Too much clutter.

  22. TheWeetabix Bronze badge

    This is why

    I use vi.

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