Give the next Visual Studio (Orcas) a Try - Jan 07 CTP
The January Customer Technology Preview of Visual Studio Orcas is now available as a "lock and load" VPC. No need to install anything or worry about killing your existing development environment. Load the VPC and you're ready to go.
The next VS has some powerful new features. My favorites:
- LINQ -
What's LINQ? Check out my talk with Wee Hyong (MVP) as he shows us language integrated query: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=252457
- Runtime and design support of Office 2007 -
OBA now even easier to build!
- ASP.NET 2.0 Login/Logout, Role Mgmt and Profiles Support now for SmartApps (WinForms) -
If you love the login controls, role management and profile tools introduced in ASP.NET 2.0... you now have them for WinForm / SmartApps!
- JScript Intellisence Support -
This is awesome if you're using ASP.NET AJAX
- Support for Very Very Very Large Numbers -
> Int64. Not like I have any use for it but hey... good to know its there.
Installation process:
- Download the Base Image (aka differencing image's parent image). This forms the base of the VHD.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/4/9/5499b008-8ae7-46f0-89ae-aeeb18df67ae/VSCTPBase.exe
- Download the differencing VHD containing the CTP. This is in 8 parts.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1FF0B35D-0C4A-40B4-915A-5331E11C39E6&displaylang=en
- Load the CTP image (the thing you downloaded in #2) then reference the parent image. You can download VirtualPC for free from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D58729D-DFA8-40BF-AFAF-20BCB7F01CD1&displaylang=en
More detailed information about what's in Orcas can be found here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa948851.aspx