Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta

Earlier today we shipped a public beta of our upcoming .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 releases.  These servicing updates provide a roll-up of bug fixes and performance improvements for issues reported since we released the products last November.  They also contain a number of feature additions and enhancements that make building .NET applications better (see below for details on some of them).

We plan to ship the final release of both .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 this summer as free updates.  You can download and install the beta here.

Important: SP1 Beta Installation Notes

The SP1 beta released today is still in beta form - so you should be careful about installing it on critical machines.  There are a few important SP1 Beta installation notes to be aware of:

1) If you are running Windows Vista you should make sure you have Vista SP1 installed before trying to install .NET 3.5 SP1 Beta.  There are some setup issues with .NET 3.5 SP1 when running on the Vista RTM release.  These issues will be fixed for the final .NET 3.5 SP1 release - until then please make sure to have Vista SP1 installed before trying to install .NET 3.5 SP1 beta.

2) If you have installed the VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight 2 Beta1 package on your machine, you must uninstall it - as well as uninstall the KB949325 update for VS 2008 - before installing VS 2008 SP1 Beta (otherwise you will get a setup failure).  You can find more details on the exact steps to follow here (note: you must uninstall two separate things).  It is fine to have the Silverlight 2 runtime on your machine with .NET 3.5 SP1 - the component that needs to be uninstalled is the VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight 2 package.  We will release an updated VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight package in a few weeks that works with the VS 2008 SP1 beta.

3) There is a change in behavior in the .NET 3.5 SP1 beta that causes a problem with the shipping versions of Expression Blend.  This behavior change is being reverted for the final .NET 3.5 SP1 release, at which time all versions of Blend will have no problems running.  Until then, you need to download this recently updated version of Blend 2.5 to work around this issue.

Important Update: If you previously installed a VS 2008 Hotfix, you must run the HotFix Cleanup Utility before installing the VS 2008 SP1 Beta.  Click here to download and run this.

Improvements for Web Development

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 contain a bunch of feature improvements targeted at web application development. 

The VS Web Dev Tools team has more details (including specific bug fix details) on some of the VS specific work here.  Below are more details on some of the work in the web-space:

ASP.NET Data Scaffolding Support (ASP.NET Dynamic Data)

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds support for a rich ASP.NET data "scaffolding" framework that enables you to quickly build functional data-driven web application. With the ASP.NET Dynamic Data feature you can automatically build web UI (with full CRUD - create, read, update, delete - support) against a variety of data object models (including LINQ to SQL, LINQ to Entities, REST Services, and any other ORM or object model with a dynamic data provider).

SP1 adds this new functionality to the existing GridView, ListView, DetailsView and FormView controls in ASP.NET, and enables smart validation and flexible data templating options.  It also delivers new smart filtering server controls, as well as adds support for automatically traversing primary-key/foreign-key relationships and displaying friendly foreign key names - all of which saves you from having to write a ton of code.

You can learn more more about this feature from Scott Hanselman's videos and tutorials here.

ASP.NET Routing Engine (System.Web.Routing)

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes a flexible new URL routing engine that allows you to map incoming URLs to route handlers.  It includes support for both parsing parameters from clean URLs (for example: /Products/Browse/Beverages), as well as support to dynamically calculate and generate new URLs from route registrations.

This new routing engine is used by both ASP.NET Dynamic Data as well as the new ASP.NET MVC framework.  It will support both WebForms and MVC based requests. 

ASP.NET AJAX Back/Forward Button History Support

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds new APIs to ASP.NET AJAX to allow you to better control the history list of a browser (enabling you to control the behavior of the back/forward button of the browser).

You can learn more about this feature in the article here and the screencast here.

ASP.NET AJAX Script Combining Support

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new <CompositeScript> element on the <asp:ScriptManager> server control, which allows you to declaratively define multiple script references within it.  All the script references within the CompositeScript element are combined together on the server and served as a single script to the client, reducing the number of requests to the server and improving page load time for ASP.NET AJAX applications.

The script combining feature supports both path based scripts and assembly resource based scripts, and dynamically serves up the combined scripts using the ScriptResources.axd handler.

Visual Studio 2008 Performance Improvements HTML Designer and HTML Source Editor

In February we released a HotFix roll-up that included a number of performance improvements and bug fixes for the VS 2008 Web Designer.  VS 2008 SP1 includes all of these fixes, as well as a number of additional performance improvements.

Visual Studio 2008 JavaScript Script Formatting and Code Preferences

Visual Studio has for several releases supported rich source code formatting options for VB and C# (spacing, line breaks, brace positions, etc).

VS 2008 SP1 adds richer source code formatting support for JavaScript as well (both inline <script> blocks and .js files).  You can now set your Javascript coding preferences using the Tools->Options dialog:

These preferences will be automatically used as you type new Javascript code in the source editor.  You can also select existing code, right-click, and choose the "Format Selection" option to apply your style preferences to existing JavaScript code.  You can learn more about this new feature here.

Better Visual Studio Javascript Intellisense for Multiple Javascript/AJAX Frameworks

VS 2008 includes Javascript Intellisense support in source view.  The intellisense support with the initial VS 2008 release works well with vanilla JavaScript as well as code written using the ASP.NET AJAX JavaScript type patterns.  JavaScript is a very flexible language, though, and many JavaScript libraries use this flexibility to full advantage to implement their features - sometimes in ways that prevented the intellisense engine from providing completion support.

VS 2008 SP1 adds much better intellisense support for popular Javascript libraries (we specifically did work to support JQuery, Prototype, Scriptaculous, ExtJS, and other popular libraries).  You will get better default intellisense when you reference these libraries.  We are also looking at whether we can maintain additional intellisense hint files that you can download to get even better intellisense and documentation support for some of the more popular libraries.

Below is an example of using a JQuery startup function with the VS 2008 SP1 JavaScript intellisense engine:

Notice below how VS 2008 SP1 can now provide method argument completion even on chained JQuery selectors:

Visual Studio Refactoring Support for WCF Services in ASP.NET Projects

VS 2008 SP1 adds better refactoring support for WCF services included within both ASP.NET Web Site and ASP.NET Web Application Projects.

If you use the refactoring support to rename the class name, interface contract, or namespace of a WCF service, VS 2008 SP1 will now automatically fix up the web.config and SVC file references to it.

Visual Studio Support for Classic ASP Intellisense and Debugging

Previous versions of Visual Studio included support for intellisense and debugging within classic ASP (.asp) pages.  The file and project templates to create classic ASP pages/projects hasn't been in VS for a few releases, though, and with the initial VS 2008 we incorrectly assumed this meant that people weren't still using the classic ASP support.  We heard feedback after we shipped that indeed they were. 

With VS 2008 SP1 this support for classic ASP intellisense and debugging is back:

 

Visual Web Developer Express Edition support for Class Library and Web Application Projects

The Visual Web Developer 2008 Express edition (which is free) is being updated in SP1 to add support for both class library and ASP.NET Web Application project types.  Previous versions of Visual Web Developer Express only supported ASP.NET web-site projects.

Among other benefits, the support of class library and web application projects will enable ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight projects to be built with the free Visual Web Developer 2008 Express.  All of the above JavaScript, Dynamic Data, Classic ASP, and AJAX improvements work with Visual Web Developer Express as well.

Improvements for Client Development

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 contain major performance, deployment, and feature improvements for building client applications. 

Tim Sneath has a great blog post that talks about some of the client improvements here.  Below are more details on them:

Application Startup and Working Set Performance Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes significant performance improvements to the CLR that enable much faster application startup times - in particular with "cold start" scenarios (where no .NET application is already running).  Much of these gains were achieved by changing the layout of blocks within CLR NGEN images, and by significantly optimizing disk IO access patterns.  We also made some nice optimizations to our JIT code generator that allow much better inlining of methods that utilize structs.

We are today measuring up to 40% faster application startup improvements for large .NET client applications with SP1 installed.  These optimizations also have the nice side-effect of improving ASP.NET application request per second throughput by up to 10% in some cases.

New .NET Framework Client Profile Setup Package

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new setup package option for developers building .NET client applications called the ".NET Framework Client Profile".  This provides a new setup installer that enables a smaller, faster, and simpler installation experience for .NET client applications on machines that do not already have the .NET Framework installed.

The .NET Framework Client Profile setup contains just those assemblies and files in the .NET Framework that are typically used for client application scenarios.  For example: it includes Windows Forms, WPF, and WCF.  It does not include ASP.NET and those libraries and components used primarily for server scenarios.  We expect this setup package to be about 26MB in size, and it can be downloaded and installed much quicker than the full .NET Framework setup package.

The assemblies and APIs in the .NET Framework Client setup package are 100% identical to those in the full .NET Framework setup package (they are literally the same binaries).  This means that applications can target both the client profile and full profile of .NET 3.5 SP1 (no recompilation required).  All .NET applications that work using the .NET Client Profile setup automatically work with the full .NET Framework.

A developer can indicate that the client application they are building supports both the .NET Framework Client Profile and the full .NET Framework by pulling up the project properties page for a client application within VS 2008 SP1.  Within the project properties page they can select a new checkbox that indicates it only requires those assemblies included in the .NET Framework Client Profile:

VS 2008 will then ensure that the project can only reference those assemblies shipped in the client profile setup package (and it will generate a compile error if you try and use a type in an assembly not included in the client redist).  The compiled client application will then run on machines that have both the full .NET Framework installed, as well as machines that only have the .NET Framework Client Profile installed.

If you have a machine that only has the .NET Framework Client Profile installed, and you try and run a .NET application on it that did not mark itself as supporting the .NET Framework Client Profile, then the CLR will refuse to run the application - and will instead prompt the end-user to upgrade to the full .NET Framework package.  This ensures that applications always run correctly - and that developers do not need to worry about missing assembly exceptions at runtime if a user tries to run an application that requires the full .NET Framework on a machine that only has the .NET Framework Client Profile installed.

We believe that a large class of .NET client applications will be able to use this new .NET Client Profile setup to significantly speed up their installation, and enable a much more consumer friendly experience.

New .NET Framework Setup Bootstrapper for Client Applications

.NET 3.5 SP1 introduces a new "bootstrapper" component that you can use with client applications to help automate making sure that the right version of the .NET Framework is installed. 

The bootstrapper component can handle automatically downloading and installing either the .NET Framework Client Profile or the full .NET Framework Setup Package from the Internet if your machine doesn't have either of them installed.  The boostrapper can also automatically handle upgrading machines that have a previous version of the .NET Framework installed.  For example, if your machine already has .NET 3.0 installed, and your application requires .NET 3.5, the bootstrapper can optionally download just the update files needed to upgrade it to .NET 3.5 (and avoid having to download the full .NET Framework setup download).

The setup bootstrapper component can be used with both ClickOnce based setup packages, as well as with third party installer products (like Installshield).  The boostrapper optionally enables fully customized setup branding experiences (splash screens, custom setup wizard steps, etc) and should make it much easier to build optimized client setup experiences.

ClickOnce Client Application Deployment Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes several improvements for ClickOnce deployment of both Windows Forms and WPF applications.  Some of these improvements include:

  • Support for the .NET Framework Client Profile (all ClickOnce features are supported with it)
  • ClickOnce applications can now be programmatically installed through a ‘Setup.exe’ while displaying a customized, branded install UX
  • ClickOnce improvements for generating MSI + ClickOnce application packages
  • ClickOnce error dialog boxes now support links to application specific support sites on the Web
  • ClickOnce now has design-time support for setting up file associations
  • ClickOnce application publishers can now decide to opt out of signing and hashing the ClickOnce manifests as they see appropriate for their scenarios.
  • Enterprises can now choose to run only Clickonce Applications Authenticode signed by ‘Known Publishers’ and block anything else from running
  • FireFox browser extension to support Clickonce installations using FireFox browsers

Windows Forms Controls

SP1 adds several new Windows Forms controls - including new vector shape, Printing, and DataRepeater controls:

 

WPF Performance Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes several significant performance optimizations and improvements to WPF.  Some of the specific graphics improvements include:

  • Smoother animations
  • Hardware accelerated rendering of Blur and DropShadow Bitmap Effects
  • Text Rendering speed improvements - especially with VisualBrish and 3D scenes
  • 2D graphics improvements - especially with z-index scenarios
  • A new WriteableBitmap class that enables real-time and tear-free bitmap updates.  This enables custom "paint"-style applications, data visualizations, charts and graphs that optionally bypass the default WPF 2D graphics APIs.
  • Layered window performance improvements

SP1 also adds support for better data scalability in WPF.  The ListView, ListBox and TreeView controls now support "item container recycling" and "virtualization" support which allows you to easily achieve a 40% performance improvement with scrolling scenarios.  These controls also now optionally support a "deferred scrolling" feature which allows you to avoid scrolling in real time and instead wait until a user releases the scroll thumb (the default scrolling mode in Outlook). This can be useful when scrolling over very large data sets quickly. 

WPF Data Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes several data binding and editing improvements to WPF.  These include:

  • StringFormat support within {{ Binding }} expressions to enable easy formatting of bound values
  • New alternating rows support within controls derived from ItemsControl, which makes it easier to set alternating properties on rows (for example: alternating background colors)
  • Better handling and conversion support for null values in editable controls
  • Item-level validation that applies validation rules to an entire bound item
  • MultiSelector support to handle multi-selection and bulk editing scenarios
  • IEditableCollectionView support to interface data controls to data sources and enable editing/adding/removing items in a transactional way
  • Performance improvements when binding to IEnumerable data sources

WPF also now exposes hooks that enable developers to write custom panels w/ virtualized scrolling.  We'll be using this support together with the above data binding improvements to build the new WPF datagrid that will be shipping later this year.

WPF Extensible Shader Effects

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds support in WPF for a new shader effects architecture and API that allows extremely expressive visual effects to be created and applied to any control or element within WPF.  These shader effects support blending multiple input compositions together.  What makes them particularly powerful is that WPF executes effects (including custom effects you build yourself) using the GPU - giving you fully hardware accelerated graphics performance.  Like almost everything in WPF, you can also use WPF databinding and animation on the properties of an effect (allowing them to be fully integrated into an experience).

Applying an effect onto a Control is super easy - just set a Control's "Effect" property.  For example, to add a hardware accelerated drop-shadow effect on a button you can use the built-in <DropShadowEffect> on it via either code or XAML:

Which will cause the button to render like so:

Because Effects are extensible, developers can create their own custom Effect objects and apply them.  For example, a custom "DirectionalBlurEffect" could be created and added to a ListBox control to change its scroll appearance to use a blur effect if you rapidly scroll across it:

Keep an eye on Greg Schechter's blog to learn more about how the Effects architecture works and to learn how you can both create and apply new effects within your applications (his first set of posts are here). 

Note: In addition to introducing the new Shader Effects API, WPF in SP1 also has updated the existing Blur and DropShadow Bitmap effects already in WPF to be hardware accelerated.

WPF Interoperability with Direct3D

.NET 3.5 SP1 adds support to efficiently integrate Direct3D directly into WPF.  This gives you more direct access to the hardware and to take full advantage of the Direct3D API within WPF applications.  You will be able to treat Direct3D content just like an image within an application, as well as use Direct3D content as textures on WPF controls. 

For example, below are three samples from the Direct3D SDK:

We could either load them in as image surfaces within a WPF application, or map them as textures on WPF controls.  Below is an example of mapping them as textures onto cubes in a WPF 3D application:

Note: the Direct3D integration isn't today's SP1 beta release.  It will appear in the final SP1 release.

VS 2008 for WPF Improvements

VS 2008 SP1 includes several significant improvements for WPF projects and the WPF designer.  These include:

  • Several performance improvements
  • Events tab support within the property browser
  • Ability to sort properties alphabetically in the property browser
  • Margin snaplines which makes form layout much quicker
  • Better designer support for TabControl, Expander, and Grid
  • Code initiated refactoring now updates your XAML (including both control declarations and event declarations in XAML)
  • Go to Definition and Find All References now support things declared in XAML

The debugger has also been updated in SP1 so that runtime errors in XAML markup (for example: referencing styles, datasources and/or other objects that don't exist) will now be better identified within the debugger:

Data Development Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 include a bunch of improvements for data development. Some of them include:

SQL 2008 Support

VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 are being updated to include support for the upcoming SQL 2008 release.  Visual Studio 2008 data designers, projects and wizards now fully supporting connecting and working against SQL 2008 databases. 

ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to Entities:

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes the new ADO.NET Entity Framework, which allows developers to define a higher-level Entity Data Model over their relational data, and then program in terms of this model.  Concepts like inheritance, complex types and relationships (including M:M support) can be modeled using it.  VS 2008 SP1 now includes built-in designer support to help with this modeling:

The ADO.NET Entity Framework and the VS 2008 Entity Framework Designer both support a pluggable provider model that allows them to be used with any database (including Oracle, DB2, MySql, PostgreSQL, SQLite, VistaDB, Informix, Sybase, and others).

Developers can then use LINQ and LINQ to Entities to query, manipulate, and update these entity objects.

ADO.NET Data Services (formerly code-named "Astoria")

.NET 3.5 SP1 includes a flexible framework that enables the creation of REST-based data services.  Formerly code-named "Astoria", the ADO.NET Data Services framework provides support for publishing data through a standard REST URI syntax and using standard HTTP verbs to operate on the data resources.  Developers can easily expose data models created using the ADO.NET Entity Framework, and/or use a pluggable provider model to expose other data models.

In addition to publishing data sources, the framework also adds a client API for working with remote REST services.  Included with this client API is a LINQ library that allows the remote query of REST services.

WCF Development Improvements

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 include several enhancements for WCF development.  Some of these include:

  • Significant scalability improvements (5-10x) in Web-hosted application scenarios
  • Support for using ADO.NET Entity Framework entities in WCF contracts
  • API usability improvements with DataContract Serializers, and with the UriTemplate and WCF web programming models
  • Enhanced TestClient support within VS 2008 SP1
  • New Hosting Wizard in VS 2008 SP1 for WCF Service Projects
  • Improved debugging support in partial trust scenarios

VB and C# Improvements

The VB and C# teams have also added some nice improvements to VS 2008 SP1:

Visual Basic

You can now add "XML to Schema" items to Visual Basic projects.  On adding these project items a wizard will open that allows you to create a XSD schema set from a variety of XML sources.  This schema set is then added to the project and it enables VB XML intellisense. This support was previously available as a web download - you can learn more about it here.

A XSD browser is also now included with VS 2008 SP1 and allows you to browse XSD schema sets.  With the final SP1 release, developers will be able to right-click on XML element names (either in XML properties or XML literals) in the VB code editor and select “Go To XML Schema Definition” - this will open the XSD browser and display the schema set (and select the current element) for the VB project.

C#

The C# code editor now identifies and displays red squiggle errors for many semantic code issues that previously required an explicit compilation to identify.  For example, if you try to declare and use an unknown type in the C# code-editor today you won't see a compile error until you do a build.  Now with SP1 you'll see live red squiggle errors immediately (no explicit compile required):

The debugger in VS 2008 SP1 has also been improved to provide more debugging support for evaluating LINQ expressions and viewing results at debug time:

LINQ enabled data sources now have a "Results View" node show up within the debugger watch window.  Expanding this node will evaluate a LINQ expression and allow you to examine the materialized objects it returns:

Team Foundation Server Improvements

TFS 2008 SP1 includes a ton of improvements.  Please read Brian Harry's Team Foundation Server 2008 SP1 Preview blog post for more details.

Summary

.NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 provide a bunch of bug fixes, performance improvements, and additional feature enhancements that make building all types of .NET applications better.  It will be a fully compatible service pack release. 

We plan to ship the final release of both .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 this summer as free updates.  You can download and use the beta now here.

Hope this helps,

Scott

184 Comments

  • Scott, it's amazing how efficient and successful you guys have become with rolling out new features. It wasn't too long ago when you talked about the new WPF, and here it is.

    One question thought. Do you think some of these shading features (software enhancements and not using hardware) can lead to Silverlight? SL can really use some bitmap boost. The shading would be a great step to adding that 3D look&feel to objects!

    Thank you for great work and waiting for your announcements on SL beta 2!
    ..Ben

  • Holy Fixes! You guys seem to have been extremely busy! Can't wait to try out some of the new features and fixes.

  • Thanks for the info. Are there any more details around the WCF changes in 3.5 SP1? I am particularly interested in the DataContract/DataMember changes and changes around DataContractSerializer.

    Also, if you have any details around the perf improvements that would be great.

    -Scott

  • Good news, Scott!

    But... Is it possible to get full installer, not web downloader?

  • Where can we find a list of the namespaces included in the .NET Framework Client Profile (short of downloading and installing the beta)?

  • So are there any improvements to loading database projects and using dbpro?

  • Awesome news, Scott!

  • Wow! You guys work like robots. I can't believe how much you all have accomplished. Great work. I can't wait to try it out!!!

  • One Question
    Silverlight?

  • "We will release an updated VS 2008 Tools for Silverlight package in a few weeks that works with the VS 2008 SP1 beta." Will it have the Beta 2 of Silverlight 2 or you will release this earlier?

  • I just skimmed this so far (lots of stuff to digest there) but something that did catch my eye was the MVC Routing engine is included. Does this mean .NET 3.5 will be the release of MVC or is it just part of it getting included with MVC itself being a seperate release?

  • Kudos for rolling out incremental improvements in the platforms and tools.

    One question - we've enountered many bugs in WCF's svcutil.exe tool. Has any work been done on that tooling?

  • Please tell me it isn't going to be a "few weeks" for us to be able to use silverlight with ADO.net Entities and stuff?!? That's crazy!!!

    Please, even if it's a ctp, give us something...

  • Wow. fantastic work! There seems to be a lack of Linq to Entities tutorials and the like out there (especially when compared to silverlight or MVC). Any plans on blogging on it anytime soon?

  • After installing SP1, WPF Designer and XAML editing has broken. I keep getting this exception:
    ---------------------
    Loading this assembly would produce a different grant set from other instances. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131401)
    at System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandle& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck)
    at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean fillCache)
    at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean fillCache)
    at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic)
    at System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceImpl(BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
    at System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes)
    at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName, Boolean ignoreCase, BindingFlags bindingAttr, Binder binder, Object[] args, CultureInfo culture, Object[] activationAttributes, Evidence securityInfo, StackCrawlMark& stackMark)
    at System.Activator.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName)
    at System.AppDomain.CreateInstance(String assemblyName, String typeName)
    at System.AppDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(String assemblyName, String typeName)
    at System.AppDomain.CreateInstanceAndUnwrap(String assemblyName, String typeName)
    at MS.Internal.Package.VSIsolationProviderService.CreateIsolationProvider(String identity, AssemblyReferenceProvider assemblyReferences, IEnumerable`1 assemblyFolders)
    at MS.Internal.Providers.VSDesignerContext.GetIsolationProvider(IServiceProvider provider, IVsHierarchy hierarchy, AssemblyReferenceProvider assemblyReferences)
    at MS.Internal.Providers.VSDesignerContext.Initialize(IServiceProvider provider, IVsHierarchy hierarchy, UInt32 itemid, Object docDataObj)
    at MS.Internal.Providers.VSDesignerContext..ctor(IServiceProvider provider, IVsWindowFrame frame, Object docDataObj)
    at MS.Internal.Providers.VSDesignerContext.GetContext(IServiceProvider services, IVsWindowFrame frame, Boolean createIfNotExist)
    at MS.Internal.Designer.DesignerPane.InitializeDesigner()

  • Great! Some great new tools!

  • Thanks for the update Scott. Is there any way we could talk you into giving us the SL2 B2 controls list and a more narrow time of release???

  • Hi Praveen,

    >>>>> After installing SP1, WPF Designer and XAML editing has broken. I keep getting this exception

    Sorry you are running into this. Can you send me an email (scottgu@microsoft.com) with three details:

    1) Did you install the Silverlight Tools on this machine before?
    2) Did you uninstall the Silverlight tools and the separate KB patch that went with them?
    3) What operating system are you running? If you are running Vista have you confirmed that you have Vista SP1 installed?
    4) What version of VS are you running?

    The error you reported looks like it might be a result of one of #1->#3 which is why I'd like to understand better the status of those on your machine.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Wow, congratulations on so many new things ! It hard to keep up with all those changes.

    Are the APIs and features for ASP.NET "Routes", Data Scaffolding, Entity Framework and other additions frozen, meaning that they won't change until the final release ?

    Will the new ASP.NET MVC be included in this SP1, or will it follow afterwards ?

    I am also intrigued by the new .NET Framework Client Profile Setup Package. It smells like a multiplatform CLR is in the works (hey, most of it is already done with Silverlight). This feature would kind of be only useful for users without the .Net framework... Anything news coming for the next PDC ?

    Thanks ;)

  • Does Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1 Beta currently support ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight projects? In particular wondering if Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK and Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 are supported.

    Thanks,
    --Brian

  • Is there any hope to have Winforms designer support for generic forms/usercontrols?

  • Hi Brian,

    >>>>>>>> Does Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1 Beta currently support ASP.NET MVC and Silverlight projects? In particular wondering if Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK and Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 are supported.

    Today's SP1 Beta doesn't support MVC and Silverlight just yet. But the next MVC release later this month will support Express. I need to double check the timeframe for when Silverlight tooks are enabled on express. It is definitly happening, I just need to check to see whether it is with the next refresh drop or the one after that.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • This is great news!!!

  • Hi Esbe8,

    >>>>>> Are the APIs and features for ASP.NET "Routes", Data Scaffolding, Entity Framework and other additions frozen, meaning that they won't change until the final release ?

    Yes - the APIs should be pretty frozen. There might be one or two minor tweaks, but in general everything is pretty locked down (all of the above features have had several CTPs and private betas to get feedback well before today's beta).

    >>>>>>> Will the new ASP.NET MVC be included in this SP1, or will it follow afterwards ?

    ASP.NET MVC will be a separate download for its first release. It can use either the .NET 3.5 SP1 routing engine, or alternatively it also ships with a private copy of it - so that it can work on .NET 3.5 (non-SP1).

    >>>>>>>> I am also intrigued by the new .NET Framework Client Profile Setup Package. It smells like a multiplatform CLR is in the works (hey, most of it is already done with Silverlight). This feature would kind of be only useful for users without the .Net framework... Anything news coming for the next PDC ?

    The client profile is more focused on Windows desktop applications today. It gives a much nicer deployment story for Windows Forms and WPF applications.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Thanks for the update Scott. Can we get a SL2 B2 control lists and a more narrowed down time frame.

  • Is that all? :-)

    Wow, you guys are amazing. Nice work.

  • Hi Scott,

    >>>>>> Thanks for the info. Are there any more details around the WCF changes in 3.5 SP1? I am particularly interested in the DataContract/DataMember changes and changes around DataContractSerializer. Also, if you have any details around the perf improvements that would be great.

    I just sent mail off to the WCF team to try and some URLs that provide more content on this. I believe one of the improvements is that the DatacontractSerialization now works better for plain old objects, and no longer require explict attributes to be on the objects to use this.

    I'll let you know when I hear back more on details.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Jack,

    >>>>>>>> Where can we find a list of the namespaces included in the .NET Framework Client Profile (short of downloading and installing the beta)?

    I'm trying to find a blog post that lists the specific assemblies that are included. I'll post a pointer once I track down a blog post that includes this.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Scott,

    Great news.

    Are the entity framework providers (oracle, mysql, etc) going to be available out of the box?

    Anything new concerning workflow foundation?

  • Sounds great - lots of new things to take a look at.

  • Scott, will SP1 include a WPF-based ribbon UI control or only a MFC-based one? Most folks are seeking the former.

  • Since I installed this, on one PC VS 2008 is crashing as soon as I open it. I need to figure out what the deal is. Perhaps something with Silverlight is still causing an issue. The VS 2008 beta installed OK, but something is amiss.

  • Hi John,

    >>>>>>> Since I installed this, on one PC VS 2008 is crashing as soon as I open it. I need to figure out what the deal is. Perhaps something with Silverlight is still causing an issue. The VS 2008 beta installed OK, but something is amiss.

    If you can send me an email (scottgu@microsoft.com) with details on the machine (OS version, what else is installed, etc) I can have someone help investigate to figure out what the issue is.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Great work! You guys must work really hard... :-) It's great to see how big achievements are MS technologies doing these years! Please keep it up! ;-)
    I'm really looking forward to using ASP.NET MVC, Entities Framework, Silverlight 2, WPF itself and other of these exciting technologies!

  • Following up ... the Error when VS.NET crashes is
    ".NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3031 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (70DEF16D) (80131506)"

  • Hi Scott;

    As I was reading Tim's blog I noticed the following line:

    "I do not recommend installing this beta release on your main development machine. Due to some complex build timing issues, this release is incompatible with Silverlight 2 Beta 1; it will, however be compatible with Beta 2 when it ships in a few weeks' time."

    Are we still "FEW" weeks away from SL beta 2?

    Thanks!
    ..Ben

  • Where is the schema designer I've read about?

  • Nice work. I hope the folks working on VSeWSS for Visual Studio 2008 take note of the progress made on SP1 for VS 2008/.Net 3.5 and get a version out sooner than the end of July. To paraphrase the famous lines from the battle of Leyte gulf in WWII: "Where is [VSeWSS for VS 2008]? The world wonders.".

  • And what about WPF DateTimePicker control?

  • Has anyone been able to get ADO.NET Data Services working with AdventureWorks 2008? I can get it to pick up some tables (Person.EmailAddress, Production.Product, etc.), but not others (Person.Person, etc.) I haven't discovered a pattern yet, but hoping someone out there has an idea what's going on here. I had assumed before that this was an issue that would be resolved with .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1. Any ideas? Thanks.

  • Fantastic to see class library and Web App projects supported in Visual Web Developer Express. Nice work

  • I found another thing that needed to be uninstalled on my system - KB944899 (Hotfix for VS2008 Team Dveloper Edition). My setup failed and the log indicated this had to be uninstalled.

  • I am really happy to see improvements for WPF. This is one are where Visual Studio has a long way to go. Good on you!

  • So, no update to LINQ to SQL for many to many support, you need to use entity framework for that?
    And what's up with drag and drop in Ajax? I would expect that to be in this release finally, it's been in the futures way too long. Did they stop developing that?

    Anyway, it's a long list of updates, but to not see the things I was hoping for most, still makes me disappointed with the release...

    Where should I go to 'vote' for new features I want to see?

  • Well...nice things, but, whats the difference? what we have now? is still beta, ADO.NET entities still beta, and Silverlight 2 still Beta 1..it suppose that for may we could expect SL2 beta 2 (with the set of visual controls and new improvments) Scott...may be Microsoft is not listening (again) what is needed...please I think you guys must focus on Silverlight, think with me, the development world likes Microsoft, even JAVA has been defeated in some way, what's next?....Browser development, and Silverlight is powerfull enough to beat some other products that we now (flex, javafx, etc) please...somebody needs to see this, thanks Scott, and focus on SL.

  • Nothing for Silverlight? Only uninstallations.. I will wait for tools ;)

  • Hi Scott,

    >>>> >>>>>> Thanks for the info. Are there any more details around the WCF changes in 3.5 SP1? I am particularly interested in the DataContract/DataMember changes and changes around DataContractSerializer. Also, if you have any details around the perf improvements that would be great.

    Here are some more updates on the WCF work: http://blogs.thinktecture.com/cweyer/archive/2008/05/12/415145.aspx and http://www.gazitt.com/blog/PermaLink,guid,dd5a7066-d288-48ef-91a8-af895fecbe8c.aspx

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Is there an install to get VS updates without framework updates? I'm working soley on MS MVC preview 2 and don't care much about 3.5 beta items :)

    The javascript part is where I'm most interested, I do most my development with jQuery and ASP.NET MVC nowdays (good riddance webforms!)

  • Nevermind, I just cant read! Thanks for the info!

    " We'll be using this support together with the above data binding improvements to build the new WPF datagrid that will be shipping later this year"

  • Scott,

    Are the plans for a nice upgrade path when the final version is RTM'd or will we be stuck uninstalling the beta to install the final bits?

    Keep up the fantastic work.

    JT

  • Ok, another thing, sorry to be nagging but is the omission of System.Data.Linq from the "Client Only Framework Subset" Intentional? A bug on my machine? If it was not included then that is huge.

  • I realize that I'm posting comment number 1 million and 4, but... very nice job dude! I'm seriously blown away (and I knew about most of this stuff anyway), but the "secrety stuff" (things I didn't know about due to not working at MS), amazing.

    Scotty-Goo for President!

  • Thanks a lot.
    That would be a great news!

  • Awesome, many improvement I like!

    Need one clarification:

    You mentioned better DirectX integration, does this allow for superimposing WPF controls so they look nice on top of the DX content? And if so, will the presumably necessary alphablending of the WPF controls layer/texture be done in hardware? The scenario is to do the 3D with xna and bring in WPF for interface. Performance of the WPF part of the equation isn't as much of a concern as it could just be for rapid prototyping of different mouse driven interfaces for the game.

  • That's great news. I was waiting for a new post on Silverlight to ask if it would be supported on the Web Express edition of Visual Studio, but now I have my answer. Now folks anywhere will be able to develop Silverlight apps without the need to pay for the full Visual Studio 2008 RTM or resort to illegal software.

  • Hi ZZZ,

    >>>>>> Awesome, many improvement I like! Need one clarification: You mentioned better DirectX integration, does this allow for superimposing WPF controls so they look nice on top of the DX content? And if so, will the presumably necessary alphablending of the WPF controls layer/texture be done in hardware? The scenario is to do the 3D with xna and bring in WPF for interface. Performance of the WPF part of the equation isn't as much of a concern as it could just be for rapid prototyping of different mouse driven interfaces for the game.

    I just checked with my team and got back this answer:

    - Yes, superimposing WPF controls in an alpha-blended way over DX content is absolutely supported and is a primary motivating scenario. And it remains fully in hardware, so it’s fast.

    - XNA, however, presents some additional challenges, as getting the raw DX surface out of XNA is trickier. You may be able to craft something yourself to access the DX surface and have it work with DX interop, and this is something on our plate moving forward.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Scott,
    Thanks for the info.Have any plan to release a SP with support for ASP.net MVC?

  • Hi Ben,

    >>>>>> One question thought. Do you think some of these shading features (software enhancements and not using hardware) can lead to Silverlight? SL can really use some bitmap boost. The shading would be a great step to adding that 3D look&feel to objects!

    The nice thing about having the programming model be the same between Silverlight and the full WPF is that we have much greater flexibility in enabling scenarios like this. We don't have specific plans just yet to enable that - but it is something that might happen in the future.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Matt,

    >>>>>> I just skimmed this so far (lots of stuff to digest there) but something that did catch my eye was the MVC Routing engine is included. Does this mean .NET 3.5 will be the release of MVC or is it just part of it getting included with MVC itself being a seperate release?

    ASP.NET MVC will ship as a separate release for its first version (we wanted to be a little more flexible on the schedule so that we didn't have to constrain the feature set to hit a date). ASP.NET MVC will support running on both .NET 3.5 and 3.5 SP1. It has its own private copy of the routing assembly and will use that on .NET 3.5. On .NET 3.5 SP1 it will just use the new routing engine built into that.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Kevin,

    >>>>>>> Kudos for rolling out incremental improvements in the platforms and tools. One question - we've enountered many bugs in WCF's svcutil.exe tool. Has any work been done on that tooling?

    If you can send me details about the bugs you've run into via email I'd be happy to connect you up with the WCF team to verify they are fixed.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi James,

    >>>>>>> Please tell me it isn't going to be a "few weeks" for us to be able to use silverlight with ADO.net Entities and stuff?!? That's crazy!!! Please, even if it's a ctp, give us something...

    We are working on hard on getting the Silverlight tools refresh out that works with SP1. There are a lot of moving trains at the moment, which is why we don't have that available immediately.

    Sorry!

    Scott

  • Hi Paul,

    >>>>>>> Wow. fantastic work! There seems to be a lack of Linq to Entities tutorials and the like out there (especially when compared to silverlight or MVC). Any plans on blogging on it anytime soon?

    I think you'll see more tutorials and articles appear on it soon. I need to dig into it some more myself - and maybe write a post or two myself once I understand it better.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi ShaggyGI,

    >>>>>>> Thanks for the update Scott. Is there any way we could talk you into giving us the SL2 B2 controls list and a more narrow time of release???

    I'll start blogging about that soon. Not far off now. :-)

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi BDion,

    >>>>>>> Are the entity framework providers (oracle, mysql, etc) going to be available out of the box?

    I believe most of these non-MSFT database providers are being done by the actual database vendors (we are partnering with them to help). I think they'll be shipping these themselves.

    >>>>>>> Anything new concerning workflow foundation?

    Workflow is one of the teams I don't run, so unfortunately I'm not up on all of the work they did in SP1. Sorry!

    Scott

  • Hi Sawbill,

    >>>>>>> Are there any special instructions if you have the MVC interim release installed? Do I need to remove it and reinstall after installing SP1 beta, or will just installing the beta work? Or would it be better to wait for the next MVC preview?

    Phil just did a blog post on this here: http://www.haacked.com/archive/2008/05/12/sp1-beta-and-its-effect-on-mvc.aspx

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Paul,

    >>>>>>> Scott, will SP1 include a WPF-based ribbon UI control or only a MFC-based one? Most folks are seeking the former.

    We are working on a ribbon control for WPF - but it will ship later this year (and not in SP1). It will, though, work on top of SP1 (and can be distributed within your application).

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Alexander,

    >>>>>>> Scott, will the 1:1 relationship bug (connect.microsoft.com/.../ViewFeedback.aspx) in LINQ to SQL be fixed in this release?

    I'm not 100% positive, but I believe it is fixed in SP1. Based on the bug comments it sounds like a fix was identified back in Feb - in which case it should be in SP1.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Mike Bosch,

    >>>>>>>> What is that JQuery.Intellisense file? Does it have to be commented to get the intellisense and where can we download that version?

    I'm using the JQuery intellisense hint file that Brad built here: http://weblogs.asp.net/bradvincent/archive/2008/04/28/better-jquery-intellisense-in-vs2008.aspx It includes some additional documentation and code hints that help provide better Intellisense. You can use this to get better intellisense at design-time, and then use the standard JQuery library at runtime.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi IsTalker2,

    >>>>>>>> And what about WPF DateTimePicker control?

    We don't have a DateTimePicker control built-into SP1 for WPF. But it is something we are planning on enabling as a web download in the future.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Mike C,

    >>>>>>> Has anyone been able to get ADO.NET Data Services working with AdventureWorks 2008? I can get it to pick up some tables (Person.EmailAddress, Production.Product, etc.), but not others (Person.Person, etc.) I haven't discovered a pattern yet, but hoping someone out there has an idea what's going on here. I had assumed before that this was an issue that would be resolved with .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1. Any ideas? Thanks.

    I'm not that familiar with this particular issue. If you send me email (scottgu@microsoft.com), though, I can loop you in with the ADO.NET team to have them help.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Mike,

    >>>>>>> So, no update to LINQ to SQL for many to many support, you need to use entity framework for that? And what's up with drag and drop in Ajax? I would expect that to be in this release finally, it's been in the futures way too long. Did they stop developing that? Anyway, it's a long list of updates, but to not see the things I was hoping for most, still makes me disappointed with the release...

    Unfortunatley we weren't able to get all the new features we'd like into SP1. Those particular features, though, are on the list to-do and planned for the future.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Joe,

    >>>>>>>> Is there an install to get VS updates without framework updates? I'm working soley on MS MVC preview 2 and don't care much about 3.5 beta items :) The javascript part is where I'm most interested, I do most my development with jQuery and ASP.NET MVC nowdays

    I believe VS 2008 SP1 requires .NET 3.5 SP1 on the machine - so you can't just install the tools SP without the runtime one.

    Sorry!

    Scott

  • Hi Justin,

    >>>>>>> Are the plans for a nice upgrade path when the final version is RTM'd or will we be stuck uninstalling the beta to install the final bits?

    The plan is for the final SP1 version to support upgrades from the SP1 beta. So fingers crossed the upgrade will be smooth (I sure hope so - since I upgraded my main machine to it ).

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Woodie,

    >>>>>>> Ok, another thing, sorry to be nagging but is the omission of System.Data.Linq from the "Client Only Framework Subset" Intentional? A bug on my machine? If it was not included then that is huge.

    Right now that isn't in the .NET Client Profile (instead we added the support so that the client profile can use web-services to retrieve data from LINQ to SQL or LINQ to Entities and transport it to the client to work with).

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • I have installed .Net 3.5 SP1 and VS2008 SP1 and now my MVC Web Application won't work. I even tried to build a new MVC Web Application and when I try to run it, I get a blank screen. Is there a work around for this?

  • Hi Tony,

    >>>>>>> I have installed .Net 3.5 SP1 and VS2008 SP1 and now my MVC Web Application won't work. I even tried to build a new MVC Web Application and when I try to run it, I get a blank screen. Is there a work around for this?

    Phil has a post here that might help: http://www.haacked.com/archive/2008/05/12/sp1-beta-and-its-effect-on-mvc.aspx

    Send me email (scottgu@microsoft.com) if that doesn't work and we can help.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Scott-

    First, I think that this is a great release. I'm surprised at how much you and your team have accomplished in so short a time.

    I have been developing client apps using Windows Forms using SQL Server CE for my db and Sql Server Reporting Services for reporting. I switched to WPF (I starting learning it for Silverlight and loved it) and I have been waiting for the Client Profile because I really didn't want to make customers download all of .NET. The whole new install process is awesome by the way. I can live without LINQ (it's nice, but not necessary). But without WindowsFormsIntegration in the Client Profile is there some other way to use Sql Server Reporting Services with WPF without a full .NET download?

    Thanks again for a great product.

    -Gary

  • hey Scott, those are tons of new features bundled in one package, can't wait to try them out.

  • In the end of installation (so I'am uninstalled everything "bad"):
    "install failed - performing rollback"

    Patch (C:\Users\Alexei\AppData\Local\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta)\VS90sp1-KB945140-X86-ENU.msp;C:\Users\Alexei\AppData\Local\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta)\VC90sp1-KB947888-x86-enu.msp;C:\Users\Alexei\AppData\Local\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta)\VC90sp1-KB948484-x86_x64-enu.msp;C:\Users\Alexei\AppData\Local\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta)\VC90sp1-KB948560-x86_IA64-enu.msp) install failed on product (Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition - ENU). Msi Log: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SP1 (Beta)_20080512_214824875-MSP1.txt

  • wow.. it's really long list of new amazing features.. good work guys.

  • Hello,

    Will there be a .Net Fx 2.0 SP2 with the CLR improvements, especially interested in the Client cold startup improvements.


    R

  • >> "...we incorrectly assumed this meant that people weren't still using the classic ASP support."

    In the UK the hosting prices for ASP.NET are much higher than classic ASP. I would love to abandon classic ASP in favour of ASP.NET but some of my clients can't see the benefit in paying more money for the 'same' website. They don't realise that I could build their site ten times quicker and easier in .NET, and make more money!

    Please Microsoft, put some pressure on UK webhosts to sort .NET pricing out. Otherwise we'll never convert all the PHP users... :-)

  • With so much added functionality, is it not almost considered to be a new version?

  • What a timely post - I'm doing a presentation on 2008 this evening in the UK. One thing which I did not see in SP1 (may be its the language barrier, may be I missed it) When you declare a Linq statement the column order does not seem to be maintained: Ie they come back in alphabetical order - so when you bind a grid - declared column order is lost. The SQL model does not have this issue: column order is irrelevant until the final select when it determins the the column order in the results set and so the order when a grid is bound. I've tried asking a couple of sources but no luck getting an answer on this one.

  • Anything for Sharepoint - MOSS??
    You Dev-Div guys should really take over Sharepoint (tools) development, the SP devs are a bit slow and they don't have an open feedback mechanism

  • this is gonna be a great summer!! good work microsoft!

  • Excellent work guys

  • Hi Scott,

    My list of questions
    1. How will MVC, Dynamic Data and Entities Framework be supported on VS express editions.
    2. How will semantic checking affect VS performance. I've always suspected semantic checks to be the reason Java IDEs are considerably slower than VS. Of course I may be wrong because I have no idea how semantic checks work (i suspect it is similar to non stop compilation)
    3. Any chance that SQL Server db as a data source for LINQ will be present in C# Express (currently only database files are supported and Web Developer has support for SQL Server db)
    4. Are you really planing many to many relationship for LINQ to SQL?

  • I just installed the SP1 beta but I don't see Entity Framework in the list, can you explain why is not showing up ?

  • Like John G. above, I also had to uninstall KB944899. SP1 setup failed the first time through because this was installed.

    Thanks for all the great info, Scott!

  • I'm curious is there any improvements for 64bit dev boxes, edit and continue, a native ide, or an elegant solution to loading 32 bit com components(we have to force our deployment tool into 32bit mode to install or even read version numbers from files com parts)
    thanks for your time the list of updates looks great.

  • I have noticed that if I create a new wpf browser control and set the source property of the URL, and later change it in code VS 2008 crashes spectacularly (it closes up and there's no proof it was ever even open, in a fraction of a second. I think this might be tied to the new XAML designer.. Should bug reports go to the normal places? VS 2008 and Windows doesn't seem to know the crash happened though. It's like VS2008 was never there.. How best do you report something like this..

  • I'm curious is there any improvements for 64bit dev boxes, edit and continue, a native ide, or an elegant solution to loading 32 bit com components(we have to force our deployment tool into 32bit mode to install or even read version numbers from files com parts)
    thanks for your time the list of updates looks great.

  • Thanks Scott. This is good stuff.

  • Whoa! There look to be some outstanding new features and improvements in the pipeline for SP1. Thank you for the extensive update.

    I wondered however if you would consider doing a 'minimal' Client Profile Setup for those of us who do not use the Framework 3.5 goodies like WCF and WPF? To be honest, 25-30MB is still a lot of framework to download for simple client side projects that may only be using 2.0-level features (or even for not so simple apps such as Paint.NET). I realise that WCF and WPF are the team's focus at the moment, but many devs are still one generation behind and do not require these extra DLLs on their target machines.

    I am amazed at how much is in this update. It's always been difficult keeping up with the latest stuff, but this takes it to a new level! It's good to hear that there will be additional resources available in the future to cover all these extras and I look forward to your future posts, which are always well thought out and informative. Thanks again.

  • Hi Scott

    another thing is to uninstall: KB944899. Unfortunately this fix is not in the list of installed programs nor in the list of installed updates. How can I uninstall KB944899?

    My system: Vista x64 with SP1

    Best regards
    Fritz

  • Could you share the VS color scheme you're using, please?

    Thanks.

  • Scott - Does the routing engine work on Windows Server 2003 / IIS6? If so, does it require configuring wildcard URL mapping to do extension-less URLs?

  • Scott - hi - stunning list of new features. I don't imagine for a second we'll be able to use the new DirectX integration + effects in XBAP, but any comments you have about what will and won't work in XBAP would be gratefully received. Thanks for your hard work!

  • Hi Scott,

    I got your last color scheme. But his one seems way cooler. Can you please share it.

    Thanks

    Parvel

  • Cannot wait for "WPF Interoperability with Direct3D". Great news :)

  • ----------------------------------
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:396]: Executing op: ComponentRegister(ComponentId={39A436F1-525F-4D9C-95E5-01D682F0FB25},KeyPath=<\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.AddInAdapter.v9.0,version="9.0.0.0",publicKeyToken="b03f5f7f11d50a3a",processorArchitecture="MSIL",fileVersion="9.0.30428.1",culture="neutral",State=3,ProductKey={8FB53850-246A-3507-8ADE-0060093FFEA6},,SharedDllRefCount=0,BinaryType=0)
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:396]: Executing op: End(Checksum=0,ProgressTotalHDWord=0,ProgressTotalLDWord=0)
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:396]: Error in rollback skipped. Return: 5
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: No System Restore sequence number for this installation.
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: Unlocking Server
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Deleting UpdateStarted property. Its current value is '1'.
    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: Transforming table InstallExecuteSequence.

    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: Transforming table InstallExecuteSequence.

    MSI (s) (88:B8) [09:19:22:426]: Note: 1: 2262 2: InstallExecuteSequence 3: -2147287038
    Action ended 9:19:22: InstallFinalize. Return value 3.
    Action ended 9:19:22: INSTALL. Return value 3.

    Installation failed with error code: (0x80070643), Fatal error during installation.
    --------------------------


    I have no Silver Light installed. =/

  • Looks like a great service pack, I just tried downloading and installing it myself, but I cannot get it installed because I have some unknown hotfix installed on my machine (KB944899). The logs say I need to uninstall it, but nowhere can I find it to uninstall. Anyone else see this problem?

  • Hi Scott,

    I've installed the SP1 beta - but the ADO.NET Entity Framework bits seems to be missing. I had to uninstall the Beta3-preview as well as the Silverlight tools before I was allowed to run the setup.

    --larsw

  • It's sound great. Thanks for the hard work for help us.

  • During install, it says I have KB944899 installed which causes the VS updater to fail, but I can't find where to uninstall that. Any ideas?

  • Scott:

    Is there anything new for Windows Mobile developers?
    We are kinda forgotten and out of the plans for the rest of the products.

  • Hi,

    Is there a changelist of the issues that were fixed for the framework? All I could find on support.microsoft.com was a list of issues fixed in VS2008. Also, .Net Framework 3.0/3.5 are not listed in the developer products section - 1.0 and 2.0 are there, thogh.

    Thanks,
    --J

  • Thank you for continually improving the web development tools inside Visual Studio 2008 - especailly the Javascript formatting/intellisense support. I really appreciate it!

  • Scott,

    If I were to install this beta on my machine and build/deploy a large ASP.NET application to a production system without the .NET 3.5 SP1, will that pose a problem? I obviously don't want beta bits on production systems, but I would like to take advantage of some of the new VS features (JavaScript formatting in particular). I wouldn't be using any of the new features in the framework. Thanks!

  • Anything for SharePoint, x64 support or Workflow? Developing workflows for x64 SharePoint (MS preferred platform) is hell and not supported in vs2008.

  • "These optimizations also have the nice side-effect of improving ASP.NET application request per second throughput by up to 10% in some cases."

    Is that for the first request or all requests?

    Thanks.

  • Hi Scott,
    you mentioned that the Vista SP 1 will only be a requirement for the VS2008 SP1 Beta right? Once it is released the .NET FX 3.5 SP1 and the VS2008 SP1 will both work on Vista machines without the Vista SP1?

    Thanks and regards,
    Andy

  • Hi Scott,

    Thanks a lot, specifically for supporting Visual Web Developer Express edition with class library projects apart from just the web application projects. Without that it was almost impossible to use the VWD Express edition for some serious application development work. So this is great news for individual developers or small shops.

    Expecting more such goodies from MS :)

    Regards,
    Manoj.

  • Scott, how do we actually use Routing now? Hackeed's tutorial for Forms just doesn't work anymore and there are no tutorials online.
    Also is there a tutorial on actually using Entity Frm.? Making entities with integrated queries for when you need several tables mapped into one entity like when you have Categories for Beverages and need a Categories.Name in place of Beverages.FKCategory, not Categories.CategoryID?

  • Scott,

    Any timeline on when the final SP1 is going to be released ?

  • I too, have the dreaded KB944899 installed, and cannot proceed.
    This is not listed under the Windows Updates, but is listed on the INstalled products for Visual Studio 2008.
    Installation failed at this point, and did NOT rollback. I checked the readme, and looked under Uninstall, and found that the installation made it as far as
    7. Update for WebDesigner 2007 (KB945140)
    I uninstalled the rest (8-17) to return to normal.
    I am running Vista 32 with VS 2008 Pro from MSDN.

    Yahoo! for the classic ASP support. We have a pile of legacy code that we maintain. I really look forward to this feature.

  • I couldn't find client-only framework subset option nowhere after I installed the sp1. Where can I find it? and where are the windows forms controls that were supposed to be added to the control library? I can't seem to find them either (not even in the choose items dialog).

    Thanks

  • will clients without the sp1 be able to run my assembly when i use all these new things?
    it would make sense then why you call this just a 'service pack' :)

  • Scott,

    Does/Will there be features to use LINQ to SQL with SQL Report Services? Is seems this would be a nice to query data and allow results to be printed or converted to XML, Excel, etc.???

  • great stuff as always scott :)

  • It doesn't look like wpf-winforms interop is included in the client profile. Is this going to be final?

  • Is there some kind of Go Live license with this framework 3.5 SP1 beta?
    Do we have to wait for the final SP1 version?

    Great stuff coming together, we're very interested in the framework profiling ;)

  • Hi Scott,

    you mentioned that the beta 1 of VS2008 SP1 and .NET FX 3.5 SP1 requires vista sp1 on a vista box but that would be changed when the RTM of VS2008 SP1 and .NET FX 3.5 SP1 will be released. That means we can install the VS2008 SP1 and .NET FX 3.5 SP1 bits on a Vista RTM box? Could you confirm this?

    Regards,
    Andreas

  • Fantastic Scott,

    Just wondering with all the new ways of doing similar thing: Dynamic Data vs Data Services, Entity spaces vs Linq2sql what is the best way to move forward. Could you provide a tech selection matrix to help?

  • Tnaks Scott,
    As you know to make a fast query using LINQ we can use CompiledQuery which provides for compilation and cache of queries for reuse and its Compile method like this:
    CompiledQuery.Compile(Targ0, TArg1, TArg2, TArg3, TResult) Generic Method (Expression(Func(TArg0, TArg1, TArg2, TArg3, TResult)))

    max numner of parameters for this method is 4 now in one my qureis I need to pass 5 parameters to make my chached query. Is there any changes regarding this in SP1?

  • well looking forward to it

  • Wow, I really love VS 2008 SP1.

  • In your previous blogs you mentioned that you will add additional controls to the WPF

    "WPF Control Improvements
    Later this year we are also planning to release a number of new controls for WPF. Included in the list we are working on are DataGrid, Ribbon, and Calendar/DatePicker controls."

    I have not seen anything about new WPF controls in this post for SP1 beta. Are you still planing to have them in SP1?

    Thanks a lot, Vlad.

  • Really interesting especially the direct3D stuff and the shader effect, which simplify making quality interfaces!

  • Scott,
    When I build an Winform app with this new version can I still run it on an clients machine which runs the (old) 3.5 framework?

  • very interesting that all non-topic replies are posted much faster than topic specific replies. makes me wonder

  • Is a DatePicker/Calendar control going to be added along with the other 3 new controls? I realize that there are other DatePicker/Calendar controls out there, but it seems very odd that one isn't provided by default as it is a very standard control.

    Thanks!

  • What is the reasoning behind the SP1 naming convention? it's obvious "you've" added features galore. Shouldn't this be a point increase (3.6) ? Please don't make me and everyone else suffer with calling this .NET 3.5 SP1

  • Hi Scott,

    With the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 beta (or RTM) how could one basically play a video file or extract/retrieve frames using WPF (without developers dealing with DirectX)? For example, say someone wants to extract all frames as JPG/PNG etc from a video file (wmv, mpeg2, mpeg4 etc).

    Is this made simple in WPF? If I asking addressing it to the wrong person could you please point me to someone in the WPF team?

    Thanks,
    Ram

  • Maybe it's just me, but of all the great features/fixes you're adding, what I'm happiest about is the Events dialog for WPF develoment and sorting Properties by name.

    But even without those, great job to you and your team!

  • I think this sp broke the build notification tool. It doesn't seem to work anymore. Anyone else have this issue

  • Scott, any chance that the Script Combining feature has an option to auto combine all scripts on the page? With a ScriptManager on a master page and widely varied scripts needed for content pages it would be great if the combining could just be automated.

  • So cool Scott. I love the updates.

  • Hi John Bailey,

    Can you send me an email (scottgu@microsoft.com) with more details about the debugging issue you are seeing? I can then loop you in with someone on the team to investigate further.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • AWESOME.

    Love the Classic ASP support especially, now I can -almost- uninstall VS2005.

    Any chance the updates include the ability to edit SSIS packages for SQL 2005? That would be the last holdout for me with VS2005.

  • I have a mixed mode site (ASP.NET 2.0 and classic ASP) and I am running on Vista 32 with IIS7 (duh!). I do not get breakpoints to hit either, but the ASP.NET one do break.

  • I've set up a fresh VM with VS08 + 3.5 SP1. I attempted to create a new website with NW, a Data Service (.svc) and call it in default.aspx via javascript. in the prev. releases, one had to add a scriptmanager and reference MicrosoftAjaxDataService.js.
    Now this doesn't seem to work. Any idea why? Do I have to redirect assemblies in my web.config to 3.6?

  • Thanks scott.

    Waiting for your tutorials on LINQ usage in distributed applications scenario and ADO.Net entity framework.

  • Any News about Dynamic Languages Support for IronRuby/IronPython with the Final SP1.

    I was expecting... since both the languages are almost ready.

  • Code below still throws InvalidOperationException is this by design or that's a bug that has not been fixed?

    SIDDB db = new SIDDB(connectionString);
    KN_TimeZone timeZone = db.KN_TimeZones.FirstOrDefault();
    KN_TimeZoneInterval interval = new KN_TimeZoneInterval();
    timeZone.KN_TimeZoneIntervals.Add(interval);
    ChangeSet set = db.GetChangeSet();
    interval.KN_TimeZone.KN_TimeZoneIntervals.Remove(interval);
    set = db.GetChangeSet(); //InvalidOperationException

  • This looks great!

    I have a question though. How can I find the new "bootstrapper" component (.NET Framework Setup Bootstrapper for Client Applications)?
    And is there more information about how this works somewhere?

    Regards
    Anders

  • BTW why do Americans always talk about important releases in terms of 'summer/fall'?
    It's Northern Hemisphere shovenism, for a start, but why not just say the month name/s?

  • Great optimizations for developers.

    Are there any optimizations for users? especially the user-experience (think iPhone like)?




  • Hi,
    does anybody knows how to install this Service Pack if I have proxy? Where I can setup proxy setting for this installer?

    Thanks,
    Alexander.

  • Will the basic application profiler tool be put into VS 2008 professional? It is only available in the much more expensive VS 2008 team system.

    Visual Studio 6, way back in 1999, included the profiler as a standard feature in all versions.

  • why does the classic asp editor's entire screen flash with each character typed; when vs2008 is used through terminal services-- it did that in vs2005 also--?? any ideas or workarounds for this?

  • It's amazing to see so many enhancements on roll within such a short span of time. I can't wait to try them!

  • Thanks for your blogs! You mentioned that ASP.NET MVC has its own copy of Routing Engine. It's interesting to me if I can use Routing Engine for WinForms having installed only ASP.NET MVC Preview 2 but not SP1 beta?

  • Great news, can't wait!

    Quick question regarding the DirectX support, most of the current work I've done with DirectX (using a 3rd party engine) has required a window handle to let the engine/directx(?) know where to send the output to. Will this still be the case?

    If you are looking for external testers for the dx functionality I'd be very keen to get involved!

  • .Net3.5 SP1 went smooth, but there were 2 problems on SP1 for VS2008 right off the bat:
    1) Installation asks to close a bunch of applications, including "itself"
    2) After installing it, my VS lost my custom configurations.

  • amazing WPF runtime improvements..Cool

  • http://blogcastrepository.com/blogs/wisemx/archive/2008/05/18/visual-studio-sp1-beta-delima.aspx

  • At johnpapa (and others):
    at my pc, it were the powercommands that were causing the exception. Aftere uninstalling powercommands, it all went smooth

  • SO this may be petty, but I noticed that my icon for VS 2k8 has changed to have a little 9 in a box... what gives? Any way to change it back?

  • Hi Scott -

    we have a C# WinForms app that user custom DirectX OCX control (written in C++) that renders video and I was thinking about migrating it into WPF or even into SL... does that mean I'll have to rewrite the control completely using WPF or can I reuse the existing control in the new technology?

    p.s. great blog

  • Hey your working environment looks really nice...
    can u share that ??

  • Will there be a sp2 for .net 2.0 to go along with this? (i.e. to get the improvments to the core of .net that were made like the JITer)

  • Hmm. i keep getting the dialog box asking me to locate 'vs_setup.msi' because a network resource is unavailable. Any info on that topic?

    (running vista with SP1; uninstalled both the KB update and silverlight tools)

  • Are there any planing of Charts controls with Asp.net or silverlight?

  • Hi I have the same problem as once of the readers above:

    Pingback from msi file does not install

    any ideas?

  • Does it work around the issue of not showing solution tasks on the task list when the file is closed (C#)?

    Tim

  • Hi all:

    You can read this post in spanish here:
    http://thinkingindotnet.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/service-pack-1-beta-para-vs-2008-y-net-framework-35/

  • I've found that using ListView and a LinqDataSource you have to click twice on the Edit button to edit the item - is this correct ? :)

  • It takes me a year to download it...

  • What font are you using in those screen shots?

  • When will production version of VS2008 be ready (not Beta)?

  • Hi Scott,

    Could you guys fix the problems in compatibility with Silverlight tools as soon as possible? I think, in a workable SOA environment, there are urgent demands for,

    1. Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2
    2. WCF contracts using ADO.NET Entity Framework entities
    3. ADO.NET data services

    Thanks

  • Install of VS2008 SP1 Beta failed so I tried starting with the Framework 3.5 SP1 beta but it also fails. This is in the log:

    [06/01/08,10:08:32] Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0SP1 (x64) (CBS): [2] Error: Installation failed for component Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0SP1 (x64) (CBS). MSI returned error code 1
    [06/01/08,10:08:48] WapUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0SP1 (x64) (CBS) is not installed.

    I am not sure if the Framework 2.0 SP1 is installed - I think the error may be bogus but I will check.

    I am running Vista Ultimate X64.

    I tried removing the Hotfix rollup for VS2008 and ran the KB cleanup. I don't have the Silverlight beta installed.

    Thanks,
    Gary Davis

  • when will the production version be ready?
    thanks
    Jay

  • Just wondering what I'm doing wrong, but for some reason I can't get the compositescripts feature to combine more than 30 scripts. 30 scripts load just fine, but at 31 I get runtime AJAX errors?

    Thanks

  • Hi, Scott,

    Where are the mobile web form and mobile web control?

    I had a MS support case regarding this issue in Match. I was told that the mobile web form and mobile web control would be in the SP1 for VS 2008. But I do not see them in your above description. Will mobile web form and mobile web control be part of the final release of SP1?

    If SP1 does not contain mobile web form and mobile web control, we just cannot use VS 2008 to upgrade any websites containing mobile web forms. When it comes to develop new mobile web application, we have to use VS 2003 since the functions were taken out by the SP1 for VS 2005.

    Now more and websites have a mobile version. But Microsoft seems give up the mobile web application development in Visual Studio.

  • It to like the background compiling a lot, displaying current errors. But in the web projects it displays errors which aren't errors really. This is mostly happening with code related to User Controls (ascx).

    If you double click such an error, it load the .cs file from the .aspx file, shows redlines under the errors for a brief second and then concludes that these aren't errors and removes them from the error list.

    This is quite unhandy since you get a full list of errors while in fact you might only have 1 or 2, or none ;)

    Anyone else having this?

    Gab

  • Hi Scott.
    After a few weeks of reading I decided to install SP1 Beta but to my surprise it got my VS slower than usual. I know I must be doing something wrong, but I would like to hear from you, first hand, what can I check to improve the performance of VS.

    The issue happened with an ASP.NET app targeting framework 2.0. Is not a big app, about 30 pages, some user controls, the usual stuff...

    Thanks any comment or help.

    Jose Guay

  • Once again Microsoft produces these buzz words with confusing versions. What is the differenece between ASP.NET 3.5 and .NET 3.5? Should they not be the same thing? Is ASP.NET technically a part of the .NET framework? I am looking for hosting providers and some tell me that they support ASP.NET 2.0 with .NET 3.5 which is same as ASP.NET 3.5??? No wonder programmers are always confused.

  • I have installed sp1 beta, and it has broken my ajax stuff. I keep getting an error thrown in the (ScriptResource.axd) MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.debug.js. I am removing it as we speak. In the class/method of Sys.Net.XMLHttpExecutor is where it is thrown.

    Typical.

  • I am not trying this one yet, not gona try anything else but MVC until its a real release lol. and until now I still can't get ajax to run correctly with MVC

  • Scott,
    Just a quick question, I am running the Beta 1 bits and I see something hasn't been fixed yet from RTM. I have the bug in which controls become unavailable, (greyed out or do not appear at all) in the Toolbox when using my Microsoft Wireless Desktop (6000 Series). Google for this and you find this is a very common problem. The fix at this point is unplug the Wireless Desktop receiver, launch, VS08 and then plug it back in. I don't know if this is VS issue or Wireless Desktop Driver issue. But it is very odd. It seems this is only happening with MS hardware, other wireless desktop kits (logitech) seem to work fine. Can you maybe see if this is in the bug list and let the community when and if it will be fixed or loop us into support?

    Thanks
    Brett

  • I installed .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 beta just to find out that my SQL Server 2008 (CTP5 Management Studio SQL) doesn't work any more. Whenever I try to connect to a SQL Server it displays "The Tabular Data Stream (TDS) version 0x730b0003 of the client library used to open the connection is unsupported or unknown. The connection has been closed." error message. Searching on Google didn't help much.

    Any suggestions?

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