Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Updates

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Today, we release the Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Beta. This service pack is particularly important for Visual Studio extenders because they can test it and report any compatibility problems with their extensions.

You can find the downloads are at the following locations:

The download pages:

· Visual Studio:  https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CF99C752-1391-4BC3-BABC-86BC0B9E8E5A&displaylang=en

· .NET Framework:  https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8C36ACA4-E947-4760-9B05-93CAC04C6F87&displaylang=en

· Visual Studio Express:  https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BDB6391C-05CA-4036-9154-6DF4F6DEBD14&displaylang=en

· Team Foundation Server:  https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DCB535BE-C32E-474C-9F64-282A2849ACC5&displaylang=en

For those who are using the VS Shell products, we are making new redistributable packages available for SP1 Beta as well. They can be found here:

· VS Shell (integrated mode) redistributable package: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=945c2c2b-3dae-460d-8c6d-09b5a3c40f0a&DisplayLang=en

· VS Shell (isolated mode) redistributable package: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=fd340c29-2ef8-4984-96ed-f42e441223fd&DisplayLang=en

More about the VS Shell SP1 Beta

So what's new in VS Shell SP1 Beta redist packages? The biggest change is that we have dramatically decreased the size of the redist package by over 130 MB. Instead of including the entire .NET FX 3.5 redistributable, we now include the .NET FX 3.5 web bootstrapper. The bootstrapper will figure out wether the client machine has .NET FX 3.5 installed and does nothing if it's already there. If it's not already there, it will download and install for you. The large download size has been the biggest piece of feedback from VS extenders since RTM and we hope that you will like the work that we have done in SP1.

Upcoming...

In a few days, we will be shipping VS 2008 SDK 1.1 Beta. This release is meant to be the release that matches VS 2008 SP1 Beta. Mostly, it will be minor updates, but it will enable you to develop on the latest platform (even if it's in beta form).

More details to come when the new SDK release becomes available!

 

- James