Onward and UpwardKeith Ward, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine

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First CTP for Visual Studio 2012 Update 3 Released

Agile is one thing, but this is ridiculous. Less than two weeks after Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 was released, Microsoft already has the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Update 3 ready to go. (Mary Jo Foley reported on the release first, as far as I can tell. )

The Update 3 CTP includes  a few upgrades, but most of the work seems to be focused around fixing various issues. There are several bits of enhanced functionality in Team Foundation Server (TFS), as this KnowledgeBase article details:

  • Build settings can be preserved when you upgrade a TFS 2012 instance.
  • Improvements in the New Build Definition UI for the Continuous Integration (CI) build in Git-based team projects.

Most of the fixes relate to TFS as well. Microsoft lists 13 squashed bugs in CTP 1; they include Kerberos errors, SharePoint URL errors, backup and event log problems and more. Nothing looks too horrific.

With the final release of Update 2 earlier this month, that makes two releases in April. There were CTP releases of Update 2 every month in 2013, and Update 3 has now gotten its first CTP.

Microsoft says it's part of its new effort to push out updates much more regularly, but I'm interested in your feedback on this. Could it be that they're too regular? Do you have time to be updating Visual Studio this often? I know that many found it beneficial when Microsoft moved to a monthly "Patch Tuesday" update schedule years ago. Does the same thing hold for Visual Studio 2012? Let me know in the comments, or email me directly.

You can get Visual Studio 2012 Update 3 here. Remember to not put this on a production server. Doing so could be very bad.

Posted by Keith Ward on 04/17/2013


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