VSInsider

VS Insider: Get Ready for Visual Studio 2010

• By Dave Mendlen
• 04/01/2010

[Welcome to the new VSInsider column. Each month, a member of the Visual Studio team at Microsoft will provide insight on emerging developer technologies and provide a glimpse inside the developer division. -- Ed.]

This is an exciting month for developers.

As we approach the Visual Studio 2010 launch on April 12, we're working overtime to give developers the information they need to assess and use the product.

One thing the team here understands is the pressure developers face to deliver quick results with limited resources while staying up-to-date on the latest technologies. It can be tricky to build features and applications on a tight deadline. Luckily, Visual Studio 2010 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 can help by empowering you to solve development problems quickly and effectively, while still allowing you to dream big.

Our engineering team has worked hard to create a development experience that incorporates new technologies with the languages and environments you already know and love. Ever since Visual Basic 1.0, Microsoft has aimed to bring developers rich integration support. In Visual Studio 2010, you'll see support for Windows 7, SharePoint 2010, Windows Azure and much, much more. Because Visual Studio is built on the .NET Framework, you'll be able to extend and transfer your existing skills to new technologies, providing flexibility and power. In this next release, we've strived to deliver something for every developer.

As a reader of VSM, you've probably noticed significant improvements to the coding experience. We re-plumbed the environment in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and added multi-monitor support. Now, you can have one monitor with code, another with the UI and yet another with database structure. This is just one of the features we've added in Visual Studio 2010 to make coding fun again.

We've also made sure that functionality in Visual Studio 2010 addresses the latest Microsoft releases, be it support for Windows 7 multi-touch and Ribbon interfaces or the ability to access SharePoint functionality in the Visual Studio IDE. And with Windows Azure Tools, you can quickly and easily develop, debug, test and deploy Web applications within the familiar Visual Studio environment. On the user experience side, Silverlight 4 creates a whole new way for developers to build Windows and Web applications that run inside and outside the browser.

Whether you need to manage a project, maintain source code or find bugs, Visual Studio 2010 includes powerful tools to get the job done. The new IntelliTrace feature -- or the "time machine for testers," as we like to call it -- helps end the scourge of non-reproducible bugs. IntelliTrace records an application's execution history so you can quickly reproduce reported bugs. These IntelliTrace features are just a handful of the hundreds of improvements we've made to help with application lifecycle management.

Throughout the development phase we've taken customer feedback very seriously, and we're excited to deliver a high-quality product on launch day. We now offer three flavors of Visual Studio: Professional, Premium and Ultimate, and each comes with its own MSDN subscription. To see what version will best suit your development needs, click here.

Here at Microsoft, the Visual Studio team is excited to see how developers like you will use this release to build amazing applications. What mind-blowing applications will you create? Download the Visual Studio 2010 trial at Microsoft.com/visualstudio, and start turning your ideas into solutions. And keep the feedback coming -- we're always interested in what you think about our products. In the meantime, sit back, relax and get ready for the launch of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.