Forum Discussion
Visual Studio Lite benefits - without Azure Credits and Keys
New benefits have been released as of February 13, 2026. Partner Blog | Expanded partner benefits are now available: What’s new in February 2026 | Microsoft Community Hub
The team also mentioned:
Refresh went live Feb 13, so any benefits packages that are available to purchase now will reflect that. Note that the changes are retroactive, except for changes to Microsoft Visual Studio.
Some other announcement links in case you find them helpful:
Explore your Visual Studio and GitHub benefits - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program: Key updates to developer benefits and Visual Studio access
Manage Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program benefits - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
Thank you for your feedback as well!
I will add that a part of the work of some Partners is around Modernization or move to cloud (Azure!!) of legacy customer software so then can be deployed on newest Microsoft Platforms. To be able to do so we need keys to 'OBSOLETE" software versions for testing and developing (even old visual studios...). These are not included in the common software benefits. How Microsoft thinks we will be able to modernize applications if they remove these per user old keys from the App Innovation program ?