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Happy 1st Birthday, Visual Studio 2010!

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Today marks the one year birthday of Visual Studio 2010!

It seems not long ago that we had the world-wide launch celebrating the largest developer tool release from Microsoft in many years. I spoke then about the ability to target platforms like Windows 7, Windows Azure, and Windows Phone 7, about features and updates that enable developers to be more productive, and about the strong improvements we made in Application Lifecycle Management tools for teams. You responded, and within six months of launch, Visual Studio 2010 usage had surpassed all previous versions. Now, one year later, I'm proud to say that we didn't stop there and continued to add more value to the product. Today, seven million downloads later, here is a brief history highlighting some of our developer tool updates since April 2010 for both our MSDN subscribers and non-MSDN users. These are just some of the highlights of what we've made available for Visual Studio users since its launch a year ago.

For All Visual Studio 2010 users:

  • Since the launch of Visual Studio 2010, we have continued to support the platform innovations made across Microsoft. We advanced mobile development with the release of Windows Phone 7 developer tools, including new templates to take full advantage of the WP7 design system and enhanced debugging to seamlessly test mobile applications both locally in an emulator as well as on a device. We continue to provide support to Visual Studio Azure Tools in sync with Windows Azure and released three updates over the past year to ensure Visual Studio cloud developers can access the latest platform functionality. Learn more about Windows Phone 7 development and Windows Azure development .

  • We also continued our initiatives to embrace new software development trends and to help developers be more productive. We released Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2010, which aggregate many straightforward and useful features that help developers perform everyday tasks in Visual Studio more efficiently. The features concentrate on editing, navigation, and other common tasks used while constructing your code. Based on strong demand from our Agile users, we released Visual Studio Scrum, built specifically for Scrum teams with the help from thought leaders in the Agile community. Find Visual Studio Power Tools here . You can find Visual Studio Scrum and many other extensions on the Visual Studio Gallery .

  • We continued to advance our concurrent programming and data access technologies. In the fall we released the Visual Studio Async CTP, starting the conversation about delivering a lightweight asynchronous development experience, enabling developers to write responsive client apps and scalable server apps quickly. The Async CTP also now supports Visual Studio 2010 SP1. Today I'm happy to announce the release of ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1, which continues to be our recommended data access technology and whose latest version provides support for "Code First" development patterns. Learn more and download the Visual Studio Async CTP , and get the new version of ADO.NET Entity Framework 4.1 .

  • We created a new member of the Visual Studio family: Visual Studio LightSwitch. LightSwitch offers line-of-business application builders the simplest way to build business applications for the desktop, web, and cloud. Visual Studio LightSwitch is now available in beta 2 .

  • Finally, we spent a great deal of time during the last twelve months listening to customers and responding to your feedback. We received feedback from our Server Core customers on support for .NET 4, and now with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, that support has arrived. We also received feedback from customers on Visual Studio 2010, and spent most of the winter addressing those issues, completing high-priority scenarios, and improving the overall experience with the spring release of Visual Studio 2010 SP1. You can download Visual Studio 2010 SP1 now.

For Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN subscribers:

  • With the launch of Visual Studio 2010, we introduced a new benefit concept for our MSDN subscribers: the Feature Pack. Feature Pack releases represent ideas we intend to incorporate into future versions of Visual Studio, but make available early using extensibility. There are now five feature packs available to Ultimate subscribers, delivering new capabilities in code visualization and modeling, test lab management, load testing, project management and more. Learn more about Visual Studio Feature Packs for MSDN subscribers here .
  • We launched Expression 4 early in the summer of 2010, bringing professional design tools for building immersive user experiences to developers and designers alike. Since then we've made Expression Studio 4 available to our Premium and Ultimate MSDN subscribers for download as part of their benefits.
  • We strive to provide our MSDN subscribers with our latest software early to help them stay ahead of software development trends and be more competitive. Releases of Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and Visual Studio LightSwitch were both made available early to MSDN subscribers. With the release of Windows Azure, we instituted a benefit providing complementary Azure hours to MSDN subscribers. In celebration of Visual Studio 2010's one year birthday, I have a birthday gift for MSDN subscribers: we're increasing your complementary Azure hours! See the new list of Azure hour benefits for MSDN subscribers.

Although we've been busy over the past year, it seems you, our partners and users, have been busier! More than 1,600 Visual Studio 2010 extensions have been submitted to the Visual Studio Gallery, with over 4 million extension downloads by users. Our partners continue to be able to build businesses around Visual Studio, and over the past year, partners have generated over $400 million in revenue from Visual Studio-based extensions. And many customers have been using Visual Studio 2010 to meet their business goals. Today there are nearly 200 examples of real customers involving Visual Studio 2010 on the Microsoft Case Studies site. Learn more about our Visual Studio partners (including how to become one) here, and read some of the Visual Studio 2010 case studies on the Microsoft Case Studies site.

Thank you as you customer and partner for being a part of Visual Studio's success. Looking forward to more great things.

Namaste!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    Was it a boy or girl?  I am afraid to look under the diaper.. TIA.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    @robertC hahah.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    Will this next version provide the ability to statically link to core MFC without the size bloat from the feature pack?

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    @Kirk: Thanks for the question.  This issue is definitely on our radar and we will act on it appropriately in the upcoming releases of the product.  Unfortunately, we cannot promise anything right now as we need to prioritize this with other features that the team is working on.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    So, of the 5 things you're celebrating (on the first list), three are things you "continued to do" (implying that they are nothing new), and one is "listening and taking feedback" (implying that it doesn't really give your users anything yet) -- then, of course, there's the one where you "strive" to do something. Is it me or do you have very little to say about what you have actually done that benefits your users? It's great that you strive, and it's great that you continue to do a good job, but how is that different from when, say, VS2005 launched? Didn't you "strive to provide MSDN subscribers with the latest software" back then? Didn't you do all the things that, today, you "continue to do"? In fact, you manage to cram the phrase "continued to do..." in there SEVEN times. If you have nothing to say, why bother blogging this at all? I guess what you're trying to say is that a year ago, you started continuing to do what you've done all along. Great job, Microsoft. Great job, DevDiv. Great job, Soma! We knew you had it in you. I'm looking forward to VS11, when you renew your focus on beginning to continue to do what you've done all along.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    I remember reading in some release notes about incompatibility between Visual Studio Async CTP and SP1, so I removed Async when I installed SP1. Now, seeing suggestion to download both in one post - wonder if they fixed and they can be installed together? It would be nice to be able to play with Async again.

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2011
    Still no Intellisense for C++ /clr.  Baahhh humbug.

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    Michael: The Async CTP Refresh with support for VS2010 SP1 was released for download a few minutes ago.  You can get it here: msdn.microsoft.com/.../async.aspx.  Enjoy! Polita Paulus Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    Happy Birthday Visual Studio 2010. Our developers love you and enjoy using our product (Iron Speed) in tandem.  Looks like a bright future ahead!

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    @RobertC - The logo shows purple...not blue or pink...what do you think?

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    I can definitely confirm that SP1 for Visual Studio slows the IDE down.  Please...seriously...please do not let this stagnate and plow on to the next release.  Please issue a SP2 sometime before the next version of studio.  With all the hype you generated when releasing Studio 10, please don't get convenient amnesia about version 10 and start hyping up v.next. Integrity is a word seldom mentioned these days...something to ponder.

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    Happy Birthday Visual Studio 2010!

  • Anonymous
    April 13, 2011
    Indeed beautiful product like VS2010 needs a bash for completing 1 year.. Way to go. Printing with printer name pre-selected and access to just the printer list not the printer properties is one enhancement I am very eagerly looking for in Silverlight 5. We are building a huge LOB which needs printing directly to printer without someone selecting a printer from printer dialog which is mandatory as of now. This is a huge, believe me it is really huge bottleneck for our application as of now. Pooran

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2011
    Happy Birthday Visual Studio 2010 from the MSKB social media program - We share out solutions including tech resources for your product. Cheers, Peter

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2011
    Welcome back, Mark. :) Polita

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2011
    Happy birthday and keep improving! Thanks for many years of good experience. Hopefully awesome is yet to come...

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2011
    Happy bday! Parents don't get too smashed! :)

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2011
    I am of the opinion that visual studi 2010 has feature bloat. Your team spent too much time in adding features, but it is less stable than 2008. What you guys don't realize, that one visual studio restart means waste of 15 minutes at least for the develoepers. This is a product, which is not open source and it should never crash. However, it crashes constantly if you have more than 20 breakpoints. There was much publicized feature of 64 bit debugging for mixed managed/unmanaged code, which will crash your visual studio, if you try to debug. I am surprised to see that you are celebrating the release. I would plead to make it a stable product, rather than a feature rich product. BTW, SP1 is better but still not satisfactory.

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 18, 2011
    Happy birthday Visual Studio! Urban Turtle wishes to celebrate with you. From April 18th to the 30th, Urban Turtle is offering a 15% discount to all Visual Studio users who purchase an Urban Turtle license. Visit urbanturtle.com.

  • Anonymous
    April 18, 2011
    Actually, it's only 1 month old.  The age of Visual Studio should be counted from the release of Service Pack 1.

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2011
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY VIRTUAL STUDIO 2010.I HAVE BEST WISH FOR YOU.

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2011
    happy birthday vs2010

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2011
    Happy Birthday 2 u VS2010, Keep Rocking..

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2011
    Throwing your baby out with the bath water is no way to celebrate a first birthday! The relentless pursuit of V.next after a single service pack is a flawed approach. Birthing another obese, bloated baby should be the least of your concerns. A commitment to get 2010 fit, lean, fast and stable would be a much better way to celebrate its first birthday. But I guess the more kids you have, the more revenue, eh?! Sad.

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2011
    como ´puedo descargar este programa y si es efectivo

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2011
    Annye: Se puede descargar un version gratis de prueba aqui: www.microsoft.com/.../professional Polita Paulus Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2011
    I like Visual Stadio 2010 very much but finally I un-installed it as there is no Intellisense for C++ /clr. and it make it so hard !!!! I returned using Visual stadio 2008 till you fix this issue :) Thanks alot :) Ahmed Kudo , A Microsoft certified C++ Programmer

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2011
    SI LA VIRITE DE TOUS LES VIRITE DOMINI TOUS LES SITUATION

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2011
    Happy Birthday Visual Studio 2010!

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2011
    cheers!!! Happy bday VS2010.... Life runs on code... ;)

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2011
    For those hoping MS releases a SP2 for VS2010...I'm sure Somesgar thinks Visual Studio 2010 SP1 is "Good enough".  Over the years I've heard many like him say that.  It's a shame.  I guess they marching on to 2012.  When they start hyping the next version and flooding the web with news about it...just ask yourself "Did they really care I bought 2010??"

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 26, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2011
    ScottF: I'm sorry to hear this issue is a frustration point for you.  There are a few options for working around this issue that you can find detailed here: blogs.msdn.com/.../resgen-exe-error-an-attempt-was-made-to-load-a-program-with-an-incorrect-format.aspx Perhaps one of the alternate workarounds will work for you.  If this doesn't describe your issue, please mail me personally at phuff <at> microsoft <dot> com so we can connect offline. Polita Paulus Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2011
    Don't forget about the SharePoint 2010 Tools for Visual Studio 2010! Kudos on this release... the sandboxed workflow activities and sandboxed solutions are a breakthrough for SharePoint development. Please keep expanding on the great progress you guys have provided with SharePoint 2010 development. Finish off the server explorer integration with SharePoint, build out a nice entity designer for sharepoint using entity framework and concepts like the DSL extensions, and keep providing more and more depth around the Sandboxed code libraries. This is the progress we have been waiting for! Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2011
    Don't forget about the SharePoint 2010 Tools for Visual Studio 2010! Kudos on this release... the sandboxed workflow activities and sandboxed solutions are a breakthrough for SharePoint development. Please keep expanding on the great progress you guys have provided with SharePoint 2010 development. Finish off the server explorer integration with SharePoint, build out a nice entity designer for sharepoint using entity framework and concepts like the DSL extensions, and keep providing more and more depth around the Sandboxed code libraries. This is the progress we have been waiting for! Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2011
    Happy Birthday. I am always impressed by the creativity coming from Microsoft Developer Division in these years. It is amazing what you have achieved in such a short time, in concepts and in bringing those concepts into the real world. As a programmer, I always reflect if it would be possible to deliver a perfect, bug free software and perfectly safe operating system to run that software and I have become more and more convinced that the conceptual design of the .NET framework, Windows Phone7 and Windows Azure are the steps in the right direction.   Best regards, Marcello

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 06, 2011
    Congrats. Q: Before VS gets pull-up-pants can the VS team please dialog with the Expression team and build the FTP capabilities of Expression Web v4 into VS, pretty please? ;-)

  • Anonymous
    May 20, 2011
    Yes, I've had it for the better part of a year now and still find it virtually useless because if its inferior help system (even with SP1).  I'll continue to work in VS2008.

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2011
    Why are all of the Windows Phone7 Mango samples in C#? Doesn't VB rate any?

  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2011
    @ AirForce9797: Glad to hear you’re looking into Windows Phone Mango development with Visual Basic! Here are some resources you might be interested in:

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2011
    Good to see comments are still censored if you are remotely critical of Microsoft and their pricing practices.

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2011
    SAPaleAle: Comments aren't sensored or moderated. Some comments are filtered out by the MSDN blog spam filter, but that's generally because there are too many links in the content of the comment.  If you're having trouble getting comments to post, please make sure you're signed in.  If you're still having problems commenting, please mail me at phuff <at> microsoft [dot] com. Polita Paulus Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    June 16, 2011
    SAPaleAle is having problems getting this posted, so I'm posting on his behalf: "The post did not contain a single link or swear of any sort. What I did say that I was now happily using a pirated copy of VS2010 Pro without a shred of guilt. I figured since MS was committing daylight robbery with their pricing is Australia (Visual Studio 2010 Pro Upgrade $AUD945 here whereas I could get a copy from the USA for $AUD480 incl shipping) that I may as well act like a robber also and use pirated software (the only pirated software I own)."