Features Summary: Visual Studio 2012.2 (or VS 2012 Update 2)

The Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 Release is pretty exciting. It delivers on the product group's commitment to regular updates, fixes, and new functionality, for Visual Studio 2012 users. There's quite a lot of new stuff there, and below is a list of some of the new capabilities that have been added.

The release of Visual Studio Update 2 can be downloaded here:

   https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=273878

 

Here's a good video summarizing this as well:

 

 

Summary of New Features: .

Agile Planning

1. Work Item Filtering     
   • Team Foundation Server Work Item Tagging
2. Kanban Board      
   • Customize columns in the Team Foundation Kanban Board
3. Send Work Items using email     
   • Email work items from query
   • Email work items from backlogs

Quality Enablement (Testing)

1. Windows Store     
   • Windows Store App UI Responsiveness Analyzer (HTML/JavaScript)
   • Improvements in Windows Store Applications Unit Testing
   • Windows App Certification Kit (latest version)
2. Windows Phone     
   • TDD for Windows Phone Unit Tests
3. Coded UI Testing     
   • Extended cross browser support in Coded UI Testing 
   • Coded user interface testing support for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7
4. Web based Test Case Management      
   • Enable adding attachments to test outcomes
   • Enable pausing and resuming test execution
   • Enable adding attachments to test outcomes
   • Enable pausing and resuming test execution
   • Enable editing Test case during Test Execution
   • Inline editing of text of test steps and results in the test execution of the browser based test management  
5. Test Explorer Enhancements     
   • Test Explorer group tests by Class
   • Test Explorer test playlists
   • Test Explorer test details improvements for Coded UI Tests
6. SharePoint     
   • Microsoft SharePoint 2013 support in Coded UI Testing
   • Advanced SharePoint 2010 Load Testing
7. Unit Testing     
   • Fakes now available in Visual Studio Premium
8. Microsoft Test Manager (MTM)      
   • The ability to clone test cases in Microsoft Test Manager

Quality Enablement (Debugging)

1. Code Map     
   • Code Map Debugger Integration and Responsiveness Improvements
2. IntelliTrace      
   • SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint User Profile diagnostics support with IntelliTrace
   • Symbol Loading improvements for IntelliTrace and Profiler

Line of Business (LOB) Application Development

1. LightSwitch      
   • LightSwitch HTML Client - Support for HTML5 and the new SharePoint/0365 Apps Model
2. Blend, SketchFlow & XAML Editors     
   • Blend for Visual Studio once again supports WPF, Silverlight and SketchFlow projects
   • Performance & reliability improvements when using the XAML design surfaces in Visual Studio and Blend and XAML editor in Visual Studio

Developer Experience

1. Web Based Version Control     
   • Web version control Improvements
   • Web based version control Explore and Compare
2. TFS Build      
   • Team Foundation Server 2012 compatibility with 2010 build Servers
3. Team Explorer Enhancements     
   • New Team Explorer Connection dialog display multiple servers, TPCs and projects
4. TFS Upgrades & Availability     
   • TFS Update 2 Offers Settings Preservation for In-Place Upgrades
   • Servicing in High Availability SQL Environments
5. Visual Studio IDE     
   • New Blue Theme for Visual Studio IDE

Web Development

1. ASP.NET & Web Tools 2012.2 (Update 2) is included in Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 (no changes from stand-alone release)

 

Fixes

1. Update 2 contains various fixes, for a complete list please see: https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2797912