Visual Studio 2010 enhancements
Today, I have the privilege of keynoting TechEd Middle East in Dubai for the second year in a row.
TechEd Middle East debuted last year, and this year the event has grown significantly. TechEd provides a nice opportunity to show off some of the cool work that teams at Microsoft do. I love connecting with customers and hearing how they're using our products, and for me, TechEd is a great way to get that.
I'm sharing several pieces of news with the live audience in Dubai that I want to share with you as well.
Visual Studio 2010 SP1
Visual Studio 2010 shipped about 11 months ago, and we continue to work on it and respond to customer feedback received through Visual Studio Connect. This feedback has guided our focus to improve several areas, including IntelliTrace, unit testing, and Silverlight profiling.
You can learn more about how we're improving Visual Studio 2010 on Jason Zander's blog later today. On March 8th, MSDN subscribers will be able to download and install Visual Studio 2010 SP1 from their subscriber downloads. If you're not an MSDN subscriber, you can get the update on Thursday, March 10th.
TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack
Also available for Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN subscribers via Download Center today is the TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack. Integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server enables teams to work more effectively together using Visual Studio, Project, and SharePoint and coordinates development between teams using disparate methodologies, such as waterfall and agile, via common data and metrics.
Visual Studio Load Test Feature Pack
We know that ensuring your applications perform continuously at peak levels at all times is central to your success. Yet load and performance testing often happen late in the application lifecycle. And fixing defects and detecting architectural and design issues later in the application lifecycle is more expensive than defects caught earlier in development. This is why we've built load and performance testing capabilities into the Visual Studio IDE itself.
Today, we're introducing a new benefit - Visual Studio 2010 Load Test Feature Pack - available to all Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers. With this feature pack, you can simulate as many virtual users as you need without having to purchase additional Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010 licenses. For more information regarding this new Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN benefit, visit the Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010 page.
Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2
Visual Studio LightSwitch offers a simple way to develop line of business applications for the desktop and cloud. Since the launch of Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 1, we have seen over 100,000 downloads of the tool and a lot of developer excitement. In the coming weeks, we will make available Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2. With this second beta, we will also enable you to build line of business applications that target Windows Azure and SQL Azure.
In the meantime you can learn more about LightSwitch and follow the @VisualStudio Twitter account for announcements.
Namaste!
Comments
Anonymous
March 07, 2011
do you happen to know if the sp will also be published via wsus, and if so if on the 10th or lateron?Anonymous
March 07, 2011
VS 2010 SP1 not available for download on MSDN Subscription as of now (9:55 Eastern). Will check back later. I was waiting for this to be released for a long time. Thanks for all the new features especially support for IIS Express and SQL CE 4.0Anonymous
March 08, 2011
11:27 est and still waiting...Anonymous
March 08, 2011
Is there a difference between the "load test feature pack" and the "virtual user pack"? The link on this blog post doesn't say anything about a "load test feature pack"...Anonymous
March 08, 2011
Does SP1 enable true 64bit debugging for web apps or just WOW64 which is limited to 2GB of RAM? This MS page implies that IIS Express won't be capable of true 64bit operation. learn.iis.net/.../iis-75-express-readme We need to debug MVC web applications running in true 64bit (not WOW) mode. This need arises because the applications use over 2GB of ram. Currently, our options are to manually configure full IIS on local host or to use a 64bit build of CassiniDev ( cassinidev.codeplex.com ). At our company, we like the drop in replacement Cassini because it "just works" and projects don't require any special settings to get true 64bit debugging with Visual Studio. We always found it odd that we had to go create this build rather than it being built into VS 2010 and were hoping to see something like this become part of the SP1 release. IIS Express seems to be the new preferred debugger, which seems neat since it is more like production IIS than Cassini. However, lack of 64bit support is a deal breaker, and we are concerned that upgrading to VS 2010 - SP1 will break our 64 bit Cassini projects and require a manual fix for each project. You may also reach me directly via our contact info at http://maplarge.com for more details.Anonymous
March 08, 2011
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March 08, 2011
Dear GT, you compare development IDE and browser - what those have in common that you are comparing them??? )))Anonymous
March 08, 2011
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March 08, 2011
@SAM, Nice propaganda :-) “or as Quadaffi will say, zinga zinga :-)” , good luck developing a large application that works on multiple computers using .Net and let’s say WPF :-) @Kibonster open Google Chrome development tools and play with them (they are not fully completed yet, but working very well) then compare them to SLOZALEX tm (VS.NET), from less than one second in Chrome to hours in VS.NET (Microsoft: do less with more) It is pointless to write here, I had to download VS.NET SP1 for the current project, and I remembered all my VS development problems, my next project is not based on VS.NET anyway. Good luckAnonymous
March 08, 2011
@GT: What issues did you have with Visual Studio? What language did you use? I still don't quite understand your comparison of Chrome and .NET. They are two different animals. Can you build reliable LOB with web technologies and Chrome?Anonymous
March 08, 2011
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March 08, 2011
Do you know if the LightSwitch Beta 2 will work in combination with the Visual Studio SP1?Anonymous
March 09, 2011
@GT and @Mark I completely am in agreement with both of you! @Sam how much Microsoft stock do you own?Anonymous
March 09, 2011
March 10 over here in NZ, I guess we have to wait until the US wakes up, as usual :)Anonymous
March 09, 2011
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March 09, 2011
- Why isn't there a full .NET 4.0 SP1 being released along VS 2010 SP1?
- Is there a way to slipstream SP1?
- Will there be SP1-integrated ISO on MSDN, TechNet and DreamSpark?
Anonymous
March 09, 2011
SD- LightSwitch Beta 2 will require SP1 to install. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
March 09, 2011
FZB: VS2010 SP1 will be available on Microsoft Update in the coming months. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
March 09, 2011
Alex Dresko: If you are an active Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscriber, you would already have the unlimited load testing benefit provided by Visual Studio 2010 Load Test Feature Pack. If you are not an active Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscriber (expired subscription or L-only), you would need to purchase Visual Studio Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010. For additional questions, please see: msdn.microsoft.com/.../ff520697.aspx Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
March 09, 2011
Lynwood: SP1 does not contain support for 64-bit IIS Express. We hope to have support for 64-bit IIS Express in the future. For now I would recommend you continue to use 64-bit Cassini or full IIS until we have a 64-bit solution with IIS Express. Polita Paulus MicrosoftAnonymous
March 11, 2011
Thanks for the update on true (not wow) 64bit debugging. We will be excited to see that come out in a future release. Is there anywhere we can comment to up vote the priority on that?Anonymous
March 11, 2011
Lynwood: Your comment on this blog and on Jason's both went to the product team, so consider your voice heard. :) PolitaAnonymous
March 12, 2011
I don't think its right to continue adding new features and enhancements while the old problems are not fixed. I installed the SP1 and the Class Viewer and Object browser still doesn’t show inherited members from base classes. It is not possible to view any member from the base classes either. This feature worked in VS2005 and VS2008. I filed a complaint in Microsoft Connect in the early days of VS2010 beta. I saw other members complaining about this problem as well with no avail. I will appreciate if your team can address and release a fix for this problem.Anonymous
March 12, 2011
How do i link parameter to report?Anonymous
March 13, 2011
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March 14, 2011
@ Marcello Are you seeing this problem in the final release of Visual Studio 2010 SP1 or in the Beta release? I ask because this fix was not included in the Beta release of SP1. The final release of SP1 has a fix for this bug. Also, please make sure to check the ‘Show Inherited Members’ option in the settings for Class View and Object Browser. If you continue to see this problem in the final release of Visual Studio 2010 SP1, please contact me at sumit dot kumar at microsoft dot com. I will work with you to investigate further. Thanks for your feedback.Anonymous
March 14, 2011
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March 15, 2011
Hi @gph, we'd have loved to get C++/CLI IntelliSense fixed in the SP1 timeframe. We recently announced that it's coming for sure in the next major release of Visual Studio. Please check this blog post ( blogs.msdn.com/.../10136696.aspx ) as it answers the fundamental questions about this feature: why has been removed and why takes so long to get it back? We'll keep talking about this one and other news in our blog ( http://blogs.msdn.com/vcblog ).Anonymous
March 18, 2011
@Sumit- I have VS2010 + SP1 and with the class viewer configured to show public members, and inherited members. a) Inherited members from MFC classes are hidden ( when a class is derived from and MFC class). b) Public member functions and variables from base classes past the 2nd level of inheritance are hidden: the class viewer shows only the members from the previous 2 classes. For example: In the Derived3 -> Base1 class members are hidden In the Derived4 -> Base1 and Derived1 class members are hidden. Base1->Derived1->Derived2->Derived3->Derived4Anonymous
March 18, 2011
I found the new Help Viewer 1.1 not as good as the old Document Explorer:
- Search results are displayed in a column not in a new Window that would be easier to read.
- After a search, with the Help Viewer window maximized, it shows about 6.5 hits in the results tab. These results are not easy to read because they are displayed in a newspaper column format. The number of hits is also missing. Compared to searching in the MSDN Library Oct 2001, I got 35 hits, that are nearly 300% more information plus the results include Location and #Rank.
- It is not possible to sort the results by rank, title, etc;
- It is not possible to filter the results by subsets, even MSDN library in the HTmlHelp (Chm) format had that functionality.
- It is not possible to hide / pin the left pane.
Anonymous
March 20, 2011
@Marcello, Thanks for taking time to provide specific and thoughtful feedback on Help Viewer 1.1. The intended benefit of displaying search results alongside help content is that you can iteratively refine your search query without displacing your current topic. The divider is adjustable and lets you widen the search results pane to display more results. I do understand your criticisms of this approach. I will review all of your suggestions – including sorting, filtering and hiding/pinning – with our engineering team for consideration in a future release of the Help Viewer. Thanks, Jeff Braaten, Library Experience Team http://www.thirdblogfromthesun.comAnonymous
March 22, 2011
@ Marcello – reg. the Class View bug Thanks again for your continued feedback via the comments on this blog post and via emails. Regarding the issues you are seeing in SP1 - a)Currently, the members from the base classes in the implicit headers are not shown in the Class View. As you mentioned in your email, this makes the information more readable by scoping it to the contents in your project. And in cases where this is not sufficient, directly including the implicit header files in your project enables showing the members from the base classes in those files. In the future releases we will explore making this feature more flexible by having the ability to include/exclude the implicit headers. b)You are correct, this is a remaining bug that we will address in a future release of Visual Studio. One alternative in the current state is to complete the picture transitively – by expanding the base type nodes in the top pane and observing their members in the bottom pane successively. I sincerely hope that your problems are mitigated and you are unblocked from adopting Visual Studio 2010. Please continue to share your feedback – it really helps us in improving our product. Thanks Sumit KumarAnonymous
October 12, 2011
good