New SKUs and a Release Date for Visual Studio 2010

[brad jones]

With recent (or near future) releases of Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, and Silverlight, it is no surprise that a new release of Visual Studio is coming soon. According to The Register, Visual Studio 2010 will release on March 22, 2010. They reported that Beta 2 will be available to MSDN subscribers today (it was not there at the time I wrote this), and that it would be publicly available on October 21st to everyone else.

Also reported was the reduction in the number of different editions of Visual Studio 2010. The plan is to reduce the number to four: Visual Studio 2010 Professional Edition without MSDN, Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN, Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN, and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate.



More...

[Cander]

Awesome. I haven't been this excited for a new Visual Studio since the first release of .NET. I am in love with the new IDE.

But I wonder about the reduction of versions. Which version(s) will include Team Foundation support?

Edit: Beta 2 is up now. It looks like the are breaking the Team stuff out into a seperate product. Not sure what the deal with that is going to be.

[Cander]

Install attempt 1:

Failed when installing the Silverlight 3 SDK saying it is already installed. Ran the IDE but I cannot view code for anything. Trying a repair with Silverlight un-installed as perhaps there was something that is in the list of stuff to install after that that is causing the issue

Attempt 2:

Same issue. Anyone else with the same problem? It says Invalid Pointer when you try to View code.

[RobDog888]

Actually VS 2010 RTM is scheduled to "launch" on 03.22.2010 which is different then a "Release". So one could determine that it will RTM sometime before the 22nd.

Also, Microsoft will announce Visual Studio 2010 will officially launch on March 22, 2010.

Microsoft Press Release

[RobDog888]

Install attempt 1:

Failed when installing the Silverlight 3 SDK saying it is already installed. Ran the IDE but I cannot view code for anything. Trying a repair with Silverlight un-installed as perhaps there was something that is in the list of stuff to install after that that is causing the issue

Attempt 2:

Same issue. Anyone else with the same problem? It says Invalid Pointer when you try to View code.

What OS and bit version you running Cander?

[RobDog888]

Hey Cander, this may help to debug any setup issues.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[chris128]

Wow that is pretty soon, I thought it would be like july/august sort of time next year. I also wasnt expecting BETA 2 anytime soon (very eager to try that as they said they would fix the WPF blurry text issue for this BETA!) so I'm happy

So no more Standard Edition then? I guess that is good in a way because it sucks as a lot of the things I want to do seem to only be supported in Professional Edition but at the same time the reason I have got Standard Edition is because it was cheaper - I wonder if Professional Edition will be a bit cheaper because it is now the lowest entry?

[DeanMc]

It better be, I have already forgone 1 birthday and one Christmas so i can get it!

[Cander]

Hey Cander, this may help to debug any setup issues.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

Thanks. Will try that tonight. To answer your other question. I am on Windows 7 64.

I tried using the /log switch when running devenv but that didn't do anything. No log gets created.

I also just read someone on MSDN with the same issue and it wsa suggested to reset all settings. Since it imported old customized editor color settings, it would make sense that that may be the problem. Will try it when I get home.

[RobDog888]

Oh also found out last night that the Silverlight error "may" be causes by a localization version if you are not running the English version. So I dont want to assume but you are running the English version of 7?

[Cander]

Got it working. I went to Tools > Import Export Settings then Reset all settings. Works fine now. woot

[gep13]

For some reason, I can't get into MSDN yesterday, and it still isn't working today.

I will have to wait until later on today, when it is freely available

[chris128]

Yeah I wonder when it will actually be available to us mere mortals. It says October 21st but its October 21st now and it still isnt available - I guess we have to wait for those lazy Americans to get out of bed

[gep13]

Hey,

Yeah, that is what I was thinking as well. Only a couple hours though

Gary

[Cander]

Yeah I wonder when it will actually be available to us mere mortals. It says October 21st but its October 21st now and it still isnt available - I guess we have to wait for those lazy Americans to get out of bed

It is those Seattleites. They are always last to get up. Darn plaid wearing grungy hippies.

[chris128]

You can download it now from: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudi...0/default.mspx

[gep13]

Sweet!! Thanks for the link!!

[BadgerBadger]

Thanks, Chris!

Is it recommended that you remove the older version of 2010 BETA before installing this one?

[gep13]

Hey,

I would have thought you would have had to uninstall BETA 1 first. That is what I was planning on doing anyway.

Here is some more information about the second BETA:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archi...-0-beta-2.aspx

Gary

[BadgerBadger]

Thanks, Gary!

I'm going to uninstall the previous BETA now. I hope the newer version is more stable because BETA 1 seemed to hang quite a bit for me (mainly on start-up and when creating new projects).

Oh, I just found a comment posted by the article's author Scott:

You'll want to completely uninstall VS 2010 Beta1 before installing Beta2.

[gep13]

Hey,

Really? Which OS are you using? I haven't had had any problems at all. I am using Windows 7.

Gary

[BadgerBadger]

I'm using Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Perhaps it was interfering with VS2008 or something since that is the only reason I can think of.

[chris128]

Well I've got it installed and running now - so far not too impressed as images in WPF are still blurry and they seem to have removed the one property that helped make them less blurry! (RenderingOptions.BitmapScalingMode)

Also, when in the WPF XAML editor window, the little icons in intellisense for properties, namespaces etc get more blurry the further down the list they are. The ones at the top of the intellisense window/list are crystal clear but at the bottom they are blurry :S

I like the new start page though and it does seem to be a little bit faster than the previous BETA (not loads though)

[Cander]

Well I've got it installed and running now - so far not too impressed as images in WPF are still blurry and they seem to have removed the one property that helped make them less blurry! (RenderingOptions.BitmapScalingMode)

Well supposedly they have fixed the blurry fonts in this beta. Maybe next beta or RC will fix that

[gep13]

I'm using Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Perhaps it was interfering with VS2008 or something since that is the only reason I can think of.

Hey,

I also have Visual Studio installed, and for that matter Visual Studio 2005, so don't think that this was the problem.

Gary

[BadgerBadger]

Hey,

I also have Visual Studio installed, and for that matter Visual Studio 2005, so don't think that this was the problem.

Gary

OK, thanks, Gary.
It has got me stumped but hopefully this new BETA won't have similar issues with my system. It just finished installing; time to restart!

[gep13]

Good luck, and enjoy!! I am still downloading

[BadgerBadger]

Ah yes, I meant mine had just finished downloading! That damn "web" installer deceived me.
It's currently installing now!

[Cander]

For future reference for anyone who may get the same problem I had that I now fixed, here were the 'steps' I went through that led to the problem.

Had Visual Studio 2008 Team System installed. Made alot of custom changes to the editor colors.
Installed 2010 beta 1. On first run it imported those changes.
Un-installed beta 1.
Installed beta 2. Imported previous settings. Not sure though if it was trying to import from 2008 or if was trying ot pull from the settings folder for beta 1 that may have not been removed during uninstall.

So if anyone went through this same pattern and gets the same problem with not being about to view source code, then the reset settings fix I mentioned earlier is for you.

[BadgerBadger]

Well the install went fine except for one error about not being able to install Silverlight 3/SDK (can't remember which one) after completion, but that didn't bother me that much since I never use Silverlight. Although oddly enough I can still create Silverlight 3 projects in the IDE.

Overall, it is running much smoother than the previous version of the BETA on my system and all is well!

[Cander]

OMG. I can add a reference without waiting 2 minutes for the reference lists to open!!!!

About time they fixed that.

[gep13]

OMG. I can add a reference without waiting 2 minutes for the reference lists to open!!!!

About time they fixed that.

Woot Woot!! That has always been annoying!!

Gary

[BadgerBadger]

OMG. I can add a reference without waiting 2 minutes for the reference lists to open!!!!

About time they fixed that.

I was too scared to try it until now so thanks for the confirmation!

[chris128]

I wonder if they have made "Choose Items" on the toolbox take less time as well then, that takes an age for me even on a quad core machine with 8 GB of memory!

[Cander]

I wonder if they have made "Choose Items" on the toolbox take less time as well then, that takes an age for me even on a quad core machine with 8 GB of memory!

I forgot to try that last night. I hope that is faster now too. I assume it may well be faster.

[BadgerBadger]

My first try caused it to stop responding for a while but it has seemed to become quicker since then.

[chris128]

Just tried it, still takes over 30 seconds the first time but then after that its ok.

[NickThissen]

Just tried it as well. The fonts in menus (like the window when you create a new project for example) seem to be fixed now (not blurry anymore), but the font in the code editor is still not as clear as it used to be. I hope they will improve that further.

Then, they seem to have added all kinds of code editor 'visual enhancements' which do not just slow the thing down, but are also completely pointless in my opinion. For example, when trying to select a single character in some name to remove it (I had a typo and typed a char too many), the whole word is suddenly given a backcolor similar to the selection color, which made me think I was selecting the whole word instead of just the single character. Bit annoying. I don't see the reason for that word highlight at all... What's the point? Are spaces not good enough separators anymore?

All in all I feel the code editor is still too laggy / slow, especially compared to VS2005/8 where the code editor is always lightning fast. Other editors always seem to have trouble with the code editor, it's always slow and buggy, but in VS2005/8 it was perfect. Now, it seems it's also slow and buggy... Syntax highlighting is still sometimes lost (when using auto generated code for example in code snippets or when you let it auto-complete a method override).

The one thing I am annoyed about is: why? What was wrong with the old editor? Can't they just use that? Why did they have to make it in WPF? I can understand that they want to make menus and stuff in WPF as "that's the future", but it just doesn't work properly for the code editor, and it also brings to advantages as far as I can see. It still looks about the same as the old editor except for the small 'visual enhancements' that are annoying anyway...

[chris128]

That word highlighting you mention is actually quite handy - lets say you click a variable amongst a massive block of code, the highlighting lets you easily see everywhere within that block of code that the variable is used. Also if you click the opening block of say a method, property, or If statement etc it will highlight the closing part of that block which I find quite useful in large nested If statements.

[gep13]

This is definitely a nice feature!! I had to install CodeRush Express previously in order to get similar functionality, so I am looking forward to having it built in.

Gary