.NET FX 3.0 July CTP...

While I am here, might as well share a headache from last week...

The .NET FX 3.0 July CTP shipped with out "cider" (aka VS Extensions for Orcas)...

why would MS do that ?  Pretty simple: there were huge fixes for Card Space and WCF that needed to go out; so there was plans for the June Refresh

At the same time, the Vista team was releasing a new build ( 5472.5, which rocks!! ) and Cider did not have time to sneak in a re-compile...

OK, so  no Cider does that mean you should skip July CTP?  imho you could if you are *not* in one of these situations:

• You need to run 5472.5 of vista, which ships w/ July CTP.. 
• You are close to shipping a WPF app;  the WPF is tightening up significantly on their builds.. the bar for defects and DCRs is high; if your code is not working on July CTP and you have show stoppers, this is the time to report them; later, it is harder  (not that it is easy now, this boat is sailing) ...  For this scenario, I recommend a test machine where you mostly  compile via MSbuild and test..

So, again if you are not in the two above, stick w/ june it is quite good..  If you are in the second one, use a test machine just to validate your progress but develop in June CTP.. the differences are mostly bug fixes..

If you must ( and lots of you working with me are in this situation ) move to Vista,  then there is a unsupported workaroudn you can try..  I emphasize unsupported; which you can translate as "this is not recommended, you will get burned" ... 

you can try to install the June CTP with the

msiexec /i vsextwfx.msi WRC_INSTALLED_OVERRIDE=1

This will let you install ... It works OK for the most part... I get intellisense and can create new projects (have all the WinFX templates)... but I had to disable Cider ( so using XML editor for xaml) .. and I do notice some issuses with the build system.. I end up having to do a "rebuild all" alot cause if I jusst build and all I had updated were xaml files, these changes are not being picked up .. .

hth,