Announcing VS2010 / .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate (RC)
Today I’m pleased to announce we have shipped the RC for Visual Studio 2010 / .NET Framework 4! MSDN subscribers can download the bits immediately from this location. The RC will be made available to the public on Wednesday February 10.
We got a lot of invaluable feedback on Beta 2 through Connect as well as your survey responses. In particular many of you pointed out areas of performance where we were not at parity with VS2008 and it was impacting your ability to adopt the product. Some of those areas of feedback included general UI responsiveness (including painting, menus, remote desktop and VMs), editing (typing, scrolling, and Intelisense), designers (Silverlight and WPF in particular), improved memory usage, debugging (stepping, managed / native interop), build times, and solution/project load.
Since then Brian and I have been doing daily stand up meetings with the team working through the feedback. We’ve conducted several private CTP’s with people who reported issues in order to validate the direction of the work. In December we made the hard call to extend the Beta 2 period to continue to drive improvements into the product. I had a chance to discuss the things we found and the work we did with the Channel 9 guys:
At this point we have sought out and tested all the projects we could lay our hands on. We’re making the RC build widely available so you can try it out with your projects as well. You can report your feedback through our survey site and any issues through Connect:
In addition to taking any final feedback from you, we are working closely with 3rd party companies that have popular Visual Studio add-ins (such as Resharper, CodeRush, Whole Tomato, etc) to make sure the environment works well. We’ve still got more work to do here but are making great progress.
Let us know what you think!
Comments
Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Wow great. I always loved VS 2010 Beta 2 and will be testing this RC Still there is no IronPython support(Everyone needs it).Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Is there a table somewhere which describes the feature differences between the Visual Studio 2010 Express editions and the Professional/Premium/Ultimate editions? What about the features that used to be present in Standard but not in Professional - have these all migrated to Express (with the obvious exception of smart device development)? Apologies in advance if the answer to this question is obvious and I somehow missed it.Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Expecting Feb 10th to happen immediatly for downloading and trying out RC VS2010. Kudos to VS team, I hope the memory issues are resolved, and we dont' want yet another Vista version in VS, else no IT managers would dare to buy VS 2010 cos, no one wnat their Devs to spend more time for Dev due to VS perf issues.Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Does the RC require complete removal of Beta 2 to install, or will the installer handle it? As for me, I'm just hoping the frequent crashes on CSS and HTML parsing are a thing of the past :) Congrats, GuyAnonymous
February 08, 2010
Can't wait to get my hands on RC !!! Thanks Jason, Cheers, JomitAnonymous
February 08, 2010
@Guy Thanks for trying out Visual Studio RC. You will need to uninstall Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and then install RC. I just did it on my machine and it worked great. Feel free to let me know if you have any issues in moving to the RC.Anonymous
February 08, 2010
It would be cool if Visual Studio could compile to *nix targets as well as Windows ones, but currently that still isn't possible... Nevertheless, I'll definitely try out the RC when it becomes publicly available...Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Do you have any idea when Silverlight 4 will be available in Visual Studio 2010 RC? I really want to upgrade to the RC edition because of the number of crashed I have every day in the beta 2, but I can't until silverlight 4 is available.Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Hopefully this release will give me some extra intellisense on XAML. Yesterday, I spent 1.5 hours trying to figure out the formatting of a command using a datagrid in VS 2008. Had there been some intellisense when I typed Command=, I would have found it instantly and not wasted time.Anonymous
February 08, 2010
Hi Jason, any word on the availability of the RC version of the Express Editions? I'm creating screencasts for beginners and want to use those instead of Beta 2. Thank you!Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Bob Tabor - We do not plan to release RC versions of the Express Editions since all of the functionality is already available in the other Editions we published yesterday. We haven't made any other substantial changes to Express since Beta2. Hopefully you'll be able to make due without the Express versions until we ship final bits. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause you. JeffAnonymous
February 09, 2010
Yeah, so where's the 64-bit version?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
FYI-- I was out at the MSDN subscriber's site and I noticed that en_.net_framework_4_client_profile_rc_x86_489530.exe and en_.net_framework_4_client_profile_rc_x86_x64_489530.exe are actually the exact same binaries.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
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February 09, 2010
There is a Visual Studio 2010 SDK for this RC? Are plans to?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Tales - Yes, there will be a corresponding Visual Studio SDK build for the RC.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
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February 09, 2010
@Brian Here is a table for feature comparisons between the different SKUs: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010/default.mspx#compareAnonymous
February 09, 2010
This feels like a big vote of no confidence for Silverlight development. Did I miss the prior notice that SL4 would be excluded. We were expecting significant improvements and a go-live license. I hope that ours is not the only development team to make a strategic decision towards SL for business apps. Could we get a better explanation and possibly some reassurance? Some of us (I) may get called to the mat for this.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Brian Here is an update: There were no features in Standard that were not in Pro. Standard was a complete subset with a simplified setup. The express SKU comparison can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Charts/VisualStudio-Express-2010-Feature-Chart.aspxAnonymous
February 09, 2010
How much do we owe to Rico Mariani for this speed improvement?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
uninstalling beta 2 right now, got my evening plans in place!Anonymous
February 09, 2010
This is a great news. Thanks!Anonymous
February 09, 2010
What time is the RC being released wednesday? Tuesday at 12am?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
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February 09, 2010
Will the release install over the RC, without need for an uninstall?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Richa / Jason: Thanks for the links. I misspoke in my original question - I meant to ask about the features that used to be present in Standard but not in Express. From the links you've given me, I'm still not sure what features are in Express versus those in Professional. Is there a unified comparison chart? Thanks!Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Jasonz removing beta 2 and will install the RC. Would have been nice if you guys could include a simple error reporting tool a-la Office 2010's Sen-a-Smile :)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Guy I've created instructions for how to upgrade from Beta2 to RC without formatting your machine, see http://bit.ly/cvmPUp. @Mike Gale - The upgrade from RC to RTM will also require users to uninstall the RC and then install the RTM product.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
today is 10th Feb in india how i can download RC version of VS.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Great News. I have to try this out....Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Will blurry text stay in RTM? (Yes, text is still blurry, and most importantly the bluriness is different from the rest of windows, so you can't possibly adjust it in any way, you can only turn it off in whole windows, etc. etc., same as in beta 2).Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Wow! I was disappointed (very) in the Beta2 performance (5 second lag between me typing and the letters appearing on screen), but the RC is blazing. Ridiculously so. If this thing could natively edit VS2008 solutions, I'd be using it day-to-day in the office (2008's a bit of a nightmare for the solution I've got at work)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
When will RC be available to public? It is already February 10, 11:38am in Belgium :)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
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February 09, 2010
MS VS.net web site still shows Beta 2!!! Pl update the page to RC.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Maybe they found a terrible bug and is the public RC delayed ?Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Where are the Mobile development projects for this RC? How can it be almost complete without them, don't forget about us mobile developers.Anonymous
February 09, 2010
Good to see the excitement around the release. Our plan is to open up the RC today in Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8) for general download. There is no change in its from Monday to Wednesday. As part of the drop process we need to update all the pages and sites before we give the all clear. At that time we will also update the microsoft.com/visualstudio site as well (we keep it pegged to the last published version available to everyone). Stay tuned...Anonymous
February 09, 2010
when is the public release of the RC ? can't wait !Anonymous
February 09, 2010
"Our plan is to open up the RC today in Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8) for general download." It's very considerate of you to specify so precisely the time zone...but what TIME? ;-)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Bob, somewhere above Jasonz says 12PM pacific time. @Jasonz, will there be a WebDeployment tool available for VS2010 (just like we had in 2005/2008). This is really needed when one develops website-projects instead of web-applications. (and no I don't wanna use Web-Apps, because the edit and continue feature is not as great as in website projects)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
In Nukualofa it is already 11th Feb ;)Anonymous
February 09, 2010
@Leon, thanks, I missed that. I thought the post I quoted was the first one addressing the time. Sorry, Jason! 4 hours and 8 minutes to go...Anonymous
February 10, 2010
Bob, 12PM is midnight not midday isn't it?Anonymous
February 10, 2010
@Brian, "In the United States, noon is often called '12:00 p.m.' and midnight '12:00 a.m.' With this convention, thinking of '12' as '0' makes the system logical." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock) 3 hours and 30 min to go...Anonymous
February 10, 2010
I have tested beta 1, beta 2. Waiting for general access of rc. I hope rc would be much faster. :)Anonymous
February 10, 2010
It's 12:00 PM and RC is not yet available for public download. Do you know if this date has been changed?Anonymous
February 10, 2010
It's not 12:00 PM in Redmond for another 2.5 hours: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=1244Anonymous
February 10, 2010
Its after 12:00pm, do you know where your rc is?Anonymous
February 10, 2010
Its available here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspxAnonymous
February 10, 2010
Hmm, there is no link there to downloadAnonymous
February 10, 2010
@Boyd Please select which RC SKU you want to download from the links under "Visual Studio" which is under "Downloads".Anonymous
February 10, 2010
@Muntyan Could you please contact me (richap@microsoft.com) with more information on your experience with the blurry text? Thank you for trying out the RC!Anonymous
February 10, 2010
An update is required to support the targeted version of Silverlight. Download the Visual Studio at some url. Any hints?Anonymous
February 10, 2010
@Andy Microsoft is committed to making Visual Studio a great development tool for the mobile device developer, and will deliver mobile device tools for Visual Studio 2010, but cannot share details now. For more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sa69he4t(VS.100).aspxAnonymous
February 10, 2010
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February 11, 2010
@Ian You can use Connect to log bugs: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio Also, please feel free to directly contact me (richap@microsoft.com) for the conversion issue you are facing; my team owns that scenario.Anonymous
February 11, 2010
@Leon. We fixed an issue that affected extended properties like Table Rows. If you are still seeing a problem, please let me know. Or if you can give me some more details, we'd like to check.Anonymous
February 11, 2010
Hi Matt, This bug has indeed been fixed in the RC. (the bug was when you have a web-app project and you have an table with rows and cells, you could only call the row in the codebehind, when the table and cell did not have a runat=server. Giving the table or cell an ID with runat, caused the tablerow with ID and runat to disappear in the designer.cs)Anonymous
February 12, 2010
Thanks for clarifying that. I was having this problem too with the previous version.Anonymous
February 15, 2010
@Leon, we are working on an updated release of Web Deployment Projects for VS2010. I don't have the details on availability just yet. I'd be interested in learning more about how you use WDP today. Feel free to contact me directly at bradleyb@microsoft.com.Anonymous
February 16, 2010
Please, clarify the status of SL4: will it be a part of VS2010/.NET4.0 release or not? Thank youAnonymous
February 16, 2010
Is it faster than VS2008? If it's just "on par" with 2008 i'll be dissapointed. Many operations freeze the UI and refactoring is very slow (e.g. why search the entire solution for references to a private var?!?). I want that and far better/faster search functionality. Gimme please!!!Anonymous
February 16, 2010
Having tried both beta 2 and the RC, I am very disappointed that text in the RC is very blurry not matter what setting I try for "TextSharp" or what font I use. I was really hoping for something better TBH. It is much faster and more stable though.Anonymous
February 16, 2010
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February 21, 2010
I am trying to eveluate VS2010 pro RC in windowsXP SP3, i am using older version of office is it mandatory to have office 2003 to install VS2010, Also i tried to install the custom setup removing Microsoft Tools for office & share point and in vain. describe.Anonymous
February 23, 2010
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February 28, 2010
ok I fell into the trap and installed release candidate only to my horror find out that there is no support of silverlight 4. Ok my bad but for not reading the fine print and I would like to reinstall beta 2 but where are the installers gone for beta 2! Am I stuck in never-never land till the official releaseAnonymous
February 28, 2010
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March 01, 2010
@Kathirvel - I'm unsure of your question. It sounds like you might be having problems installing the product or you are trying to use VS2010 with Office 2003 (which is not a supported version for this release). Feel free to send me mail directly using the Contact link with details. @Leon - I talked with the Asp.NET team which owns the VS integration and they are aware of your issue and understand why not having this power tool is very painful. Stay tuned for a solution... @John - sorry you are having issues with the release. I updated the general avialability post to explain lack of SL4 support (http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2010/02/10/visual-studio-2010-net-framework-4-rc-ready-for-general-download.aspx). SL4 is not a released product at this time and the schedules for SL4 and VS2010 are not aligned which can give you this kind of gap. The Silverlight team is doing private testing of SL4 / VS2010 RC tooling support right now so you should expect something in the near future.Anonymous
March 01, 2010
It's unbelievable, but I have installed VS2010 again. The speed compared to VS2008 is amazingly fast. The speed wins it against not having the deploy tool of vs2008. For the time being I've written an application that compiles and deploys my web-app.