Microsoft recently released its next beta version of Visual Studio 2008. Microsoft has targeted all types of users with the Visual Studio 2008 release by including an updated MSDN Library, Express, Standard, Professional and Enterprise versions of Beta 2. "With this beta release, Visual Studio 2008 is 99 percent complete, according to a Microsoft spokeswoman" (PC WORLD). Below is more information about the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 and where you can download it. PLEASE BE SURE TO READ THE IMPORTANT INSTUCTIONS BEFORE INSTALLING!!!

"VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support

VS 2008 enables you to build applications that target multiple versions of the .NET Framework.  You can learn more about how this works from my blog post here:

• VS 2008 Multi-Targeting Support

VS 2008 Web Designer and CSS Support

VS 2008 includes a significantly improved HTML web designer.  This delivers support for split-view editing, nested master pages, and great CSS integration.  Below are two articles I've written that discuss this more:

• VS 2008 Web Designer and CSS Support
• VS 2008 Nested Master Page Support

ASP.NET also has a new control that I'll be blogging about in the near future.  It delivers very flexible support for data UI scenarios, and allows full customization of the markup emitted.  It works nicely with the new CSS support in VS 2008.

ASP.NET AJAX and JavaScript Support

.NET 3.5 has ASP.NET AJAX built-in (and adds new features like UpdatePanel support with WebParts, WCF support for JSON, and a number of bug fixes and performance improvements).  VS 2008 also has great support for integrating JavaScript and AJAX into your applications:

• VS 2008 JavaScript Intellisense
• VS 2008 JavaScript Debugging

I will be doing a blog post in the next few days that talks more about some of the ASP.NET AJAX specific improvements, as well as how to upgrade existing ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 applications to use them.

Language Improvements and LINQ

The new VB and C# compilers in VS 2008 deliver significant improvements to the languages.  Both add functional programming concepts that enable you to write cleaner, terser, and more expressive code.  These features also enable a new programming model we call LINQ (language integrated query) that makes querying and working with data a first-class programming concept with .NET. 

Below are some of the articles I've written that explore these new language features using C#:

• Automatic Properties, Object Initializer and Collection Initializers
• Extension Methods
• Lambda Expressions
• Query Syntax
• Anonymous Types

Data Access Improvements with LINQ to SQL

LINQ to SQL is a built-in OR/M (object relational mapper) in .NET 3.5.  It enables you to model relational databases using a .NET object model.  You can then query the database using LINQ, as well as update/insert/delete data from it.  LINQ to SQL fully supports transactions, views, and stored procedures.  It also provides an easy way to integrate business logic and validation rules into your data model.  Below are some of the articles I've written that explore how to use it:

• Part 1: Introduction to LINQ to SQL
• Part 2: Defining our Data Model Classes
• Part 3: Querying our Database
• Part 4: Updating our Database
• Part 5: Binding UI using the ASP:LinqDataSource Control

I'll be adding several more articles to my series above in the weeks ahead.  I think you'll find that LINQ to SQL makes it dramatically easier to build much cleaner data models, and write much cleaner data code.

Lots of other improvements

The list above is only a small set of the improvements coming.  For client development VS 2008 includes WPF designer and project support.  ClickOnce and WPF XBAPs now work with FireFox.  WinForms and WPF projects can also now use the ASP.NET Application Services (Membership, Roles, Profile) for roaming user data. Office development is much richer - including support for integrating with the Office 2007 ribbon.  WCF and Workflow projects and designers are included in VS 2008.  Unit testing support is now much faster and included in VS Professional (and no longer just VSTS).  Continuous Integration Support is now built-in with TFS.  AJAX web testing (unit and load) is now supported in the VS Test SKU.  And there is much, much more...

Important Installation Notes - PLEASE READ!

There are two important things you should do immediately after installing VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 Beta2:

1) You should download and run this batch file.  This takes only a few seconds to run, and fixes an issue we found earlier this week with the version policy of System.Web.Extensions.dll - which is the assembly that contains ASP.NET AJAX.  If you don't run this batch file, then existing ASP.NET 2.0 projects built with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 and VS 2005 will end up automatically picking up the new version of ASP.NET AJAX that ships in .NET 3.5 Beta2.  This will work and run fine - but cause you to inadvertently introduce a .NET 3.5 dependency in the applications you build with VS 2005.  Running the batch file will change the version binding policy of the new System.Web.Extensions.dll assembly and ensure that you only use the new .NET 3.5 ASP.NET AJAX version with projects that you are explicitly building for .NET 3.5.

2) If you have ever installed a previous version of "Orcas" or VS 2008 on your machine (either Beta1 or one of the CTP versions), you need to reset your VS 2008 settings after installing Beta2.  If you don't do this, you'll have an odd set of settings configured (some windows will be in the wrong place), and you'll potentially see some IDE performance slowness.  You can reset your settings by typing "DevEnv /resetsettings" on the command-line against the VS 2008 version of the IDE" (Scott Guthrie)

System Requirements needed to run Visual Studio 2008:

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP
• Processor: 1.6GHz Pentium III+
• RAM: 1 GB of available physical RAM

   

Download ( Visual Studio 2008 White Paper )

Download ( Visual Studio 2008 )

Download ( Visual Studio 2008 Express Versions )