Visual Studio 2010 SP1

Last week we shipped Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2010 and the Visual Studio Express Tools. 

In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, SP1 includes a number of feature enhancements.  This includes improved local help support, IntelliTrace support for 64-bit applications and SharePoint, built-in Silverlight 4 Tooling support in the box, unit testing support when targeting .NET 3.5, a new performance wizard for Silverlight, IIS Express and SQL CE Tooling support for web projects, HTML5 Intellisense for ASP.NET, and more. 

TFS 2010 SP1 was also released last week, together with a new TFS Project Server Integration Pack and Load Test Feature Pack.  Brian Harry has a good blog post about the TFS updates here.

VS 2010 SP1 Download

Click here to download and install SP1 for all versions of Visual Studio (including express). 

This installer examines what you have installed on your machine, and only downloads the servicing downloads necessary to update them to SP1.  The time it takes to download and update will consequently depend on what all you have installed.  Jon Galloway has a good blog post on tips to speed up the SP1 install by uninstalling unused components.

Web Platform Installer Bundles

In addition to the core VS 2010 SP1 installer, we have also put together two Web Platform Installer (WebPI) bundles that automate installing SP1 together with additional web-specific components:

The above WebPI bundles automate installing:

  • VS 2010/VWD 2010 SP1
  • ASP.NET MVC 3 (runtime + tools support)
  • IIS 7.5 Express
  • SQL Server Compact Edition 4.0 (runtime + tools support)
  • Web Deployment 2.0

Only the components that are not already installed on your machine will be downloaded when you use the above WebPI bundles.  This means that you can run the WebPI bundle at any time (even if you have already installed SP1 or ASP.NET MVC 3) and not have to worry about wasting time downloading/installing these components again.

Earlier this year I did two posts that discussed how to use IIS Express and SQL CE with ASP.NET projects in SP1.  Read the below posts to learn more about how to use them after you run the above bundles:

The above feature additions work with any web project type – including both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC.

Additional SP1 Notes

Two additional notes about VS 2010 SP1:

1) One change we made between RTM and SP1 is that by default Visual Studio now uses software rendering instead of hardware acceleration when running on Windows XP.  We made this change because we’ve seen reports of (often inconsistent) performance issues caused by older video drivers.  Running in software mode eliminates these and delivers consistent speeds.  You can optionally re-enable hardware acceleration with SP1 using Visual Studio’s Tools->Options menu command – we did not remove support for HW acceleration on XP, we simply changed the default setting for it.  Jason Zander has written more details on the change and how to re-enable HW acceleration inside VS here.

2) We have discovered an issue where installing SP1 can cause TSQL intellisense within SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 to stop working (typing still works – but intellisense doesn’t show up).  The SQL team is investigating this now and I’ll post an update on how to fix this once more details are known. 

Hope this helps,

Scott

P.S. I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

43 Comments

  • Great post as usual, Scott. Thanks a lot.

    Good to know the SQL intellisene issue is caused by VS2010 SP1. Was quite puzzled in the last days on a new machine setup wondering what's wrong!! Hope it to be fixed soon.

  • I noticed that SP1 uses up about 5GB while installing, is that right? Just thought it might be worthwhile putting that in the system requirements section on the download page. It probably mentions it when installing, so I may have missed it :-) Thinking about it, does the installer create a System Restore point?

    Also, I did notice that; even though the installation completed successfully (verified through About), it said it was rolling back the installation for the whole 45 minutes it took to install. Strange :-s

  • Scott, is now Async CTP compatible with ASP.NET MVC?

  • Glad to see HTML5 intellisence, thanks for the post, Scott!

  • @Kev,

    >>>>>> I noticed that SP1 uses up about 5GB while installing, is that right?

    I don't think it actually needs that much - often the installers are odd about what they claim they need. Even if it needs it on disk it shouldn't leave that behind.

    >>>>>> Also, I did notice that; even though the installation completed successfully (verified through About), it said it was rolling back the installation for the whole 45 minutes it took to install.

    Yeah - this is another odd thing about the installer. It rolls back some existing patches before installing the latest, which is why that message displays. Sorry about that!

    Scott

  • @allanfagner

    >>>>> Scott, is now Async CTP compatible with ASP.NET MVC?

    Not yet but soon. The Async CTP doesn't work yet with SP1 (or MVC3). We plan to release an update next month that will work with it.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Should client side WPF applications follow SP1 and disable hardware acceleration on Windows XP?
    Our application is likely to be run on older machines with out of date video drivers.

  • Hi Scott,

    I'd like to know if a third party editor could bundle its application with WebPI (like you do with VS 2010 SP1).

    If so, how?

    Thanks,
    Olivier

  • Should the sql ce tooling work inside the Visual 2010 Shell ? It doesn't appear to.

  • debug xslt crash visual studio every time on win7 64bit machine. it's quite annoying

  • Install (from the ISO) seemed to hang around the 15-20% mark but mysteriously burst back into life after I killed skype. Unlikely to be related I know but in case your install locks up try killing skype too - maybe it's not a coincidence....

  • I don't know why I couldn't see my yesterday comment. Basically, every time I try to debug xslt via vs2010 with or without sp1, it just crashes my vs2010, almost make me crzy.

  • Hi, I'm interesting in VS2010 SP1 and debug with IIS Express.
    so I installed VS2010 SP1 and lastest version of IIS Express.
    but I can't see words like 'IIS Express'
    right clicked at my web application, it must appeared menu of 'Use IIS Express', but I can't see that.
    thus, go to Tools > Option > Show All checked > Projects and Solutions ... why not showing "WEB PROJECTS"?
    this is not end. right click some web application, click Properties, click WEB tab,
    where is words like 'IIS Express' I can't see that.
    What should I do solve this problem?

    I've get VS2010 Professional Korean from Dreamspark.

    Thanks.

    Yang

  • Hi Scott,

    I apologize for complaining about MVC 3 not installing after applying a SP1 (in comments to your previous blog post abput MVC 3 Videos). This time ( on attempt #4 .. it worked). The only thing that has changed was IE 9 installation before attempting MVC 3 installation (probably it had no meaning .. but I did install IE 9). Also, I downloaded a fresh version of WPI.

    So MVC 3 install after applying a SP1 worked in the end! But, yes, SSMS lost intellisense after applying SP1 to VS.

  • As per the readme file, on march 16 there was suppose to be updated documentation avl but in the help updates it is not showing anything..

    will there be a seperate download link for that ?

  • Is there a link for updation of help content for VS2010 SP1?

  • Friday 10:20, downloaded latest WPI and began the Visual Studio 2010 install (with MVC, IIS express etc).
    Friday 13:20, VS2010 SP1 item 1 of 16 just completed, need to reboot.
    Friday 16:20, Sql Server Client Install Completed, item 5 of 16, need to reboot.
    Friday 18:20, Item 16 of 16 completed.
    ...
    AN 8-HOUR INSTALL, that has to be monitored because of the two reboots!!!
    ...
    The install did complete without any problems, but you guys need to do something about the time it takes.

  • Sounds great, installed quite long

  • Another two issues when you uncheck vs2010 option "Save new projects when created". by default vs2010 use .net framework 4.0 client profile. that's not what I want, it forced me to save project if I switch target to .net framework 4.0-> so what's the project to have that option?

    second issue when I save the project then change the target to 4.0, vs2010 automatically unload the current project. If i try to reload the project, vs said you project has opened. so I have to close the whole solution and re-open it.

  • When I try edit Windows Forms project in graphic mode, Visual Studio stopped working and shut down. It's that a known bug? Before installation SP1 was everything fine.

  • Hi Scott, The link to the SQL CE Tooling download page seems to be down/broken. Is this still a separate download? If yes, can you provide a new link? Thanks.

  • >>2) We have discovered an issue where installing SP1 can cause TSQL intellisense within SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 to stop working
    >> (typing still works – but intellisense doesn’t show up).
    >>>The SQL team is investigating this now and I’ll post an update on how to fix this once more details are known.

    Scott. Any update on this. I've had no intellisense for 2 weeks !!

  • Upgraded to SP1 without any problems but now it crashed when opening a solution. Any ideas?

  • I have reported earlier that after upgrading to SP1 VS10 is crashing when trying to open a solution. Here is some additional info:
    Problem signature:
    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
    Application Name: devenv.exe
    Application Version: 10.0.40219.1
    Application Timestamp: 4d5f2a73
    Fault Module Name: clr.dll
    Fault Module Version: 4.0.30319.225
    Fault Module Timestamp: 4d53688b
    Exception Code: c0000005
    Exception Offset: 001804b5
    OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
    Locale ID: 1033
    Additional Information 1: fdf0
    Additional Information 2: fdf06db631f24cc0396c0a3944abdcd5
    Additional Information 3: 5800
    Additional Information 4: 5800a9fcb37a3826ff3fea65dc5b69d5
    ==============================================================================
    It will also not create a new project, so I am now stuck. I cannot waste any time, so I will now try to uninstall it.

  • congratulations on the release.

    If SP1 going to be available through windows update or is it recommended to download and install like the old days?

  • After I installed the service pack the Xaml(WPF) editor is practically unusable :( When I edit a Grid.Row the CPU goes to 50-60% this for every row in a grid. Argggggggggg

  • Any news on the SQL intellisence patch?

  • VS2010 SP1 is a crap! I had to do lots of tweaking to install it after getting continuous "rollback installation". After installing it is crashing the IDE every now and then. Its killing my time, energy and everything :(

  • on March 16 I ranted about Installer getting stuck. Inadvertently I had another run at it, by installing latest Azure SDK, this time it worked (still takes a LOT of time). Not sure what went wrong the first time, I did not uninstall the Win 7 SDK.

  • Hi, I also had problems with XAML visual editor (just like Nicolas) and had to roll back the SP. I looked the problem up and found quite a few people experiencing similar slowdowns :(
    I am also quite disappointed with HelpViewer 1.1 - I am working with 2GB RAM machine and running this tool brings additional slowdowns (I know it's cool, but I need it to be fast), as well during uninstall of the SP, the HelpViewer wasn't unistalled automatically :(

  • Hi,

    Thanks for the article.

    After installing SP1 we have an issue with switching between XAML pages in a Silverlight project. If we have XAML page A open and we modify the XAML in that page and try to switch to XAML page B (using the tabs) it takes about 8 seconds ... and the busy mouse-pointer is displayed during that time. We look foward to solution soon ...

    Thanks!

  • Everytime I save (ctrl-s) Javascript file, empty error list is shown. Wtf? Very disturbing behaviour :-/ I expected that SP1 will fix bugs, not make a new ones.
    btw, js warning tab lies.
    1) "Missing '()' invoking a constructor" new SomeConstructorFn; doesnt need '()'
    2) "['removePagelet'] is better written in dot notation." Not in my case, it's google closure compiler syntax. Can be such "unhelpful" warnings disabled somehow?

  • I agree with Mahmudul Haque Azad.

    After spending a few hours trying to install SP1 I ended up with some kind of partial installation and now I am unable to reinstall or uninstall. Visual Studio is now unusable.

    I don't understand how there could be a public beta and a RC, yet the final install does not work. How can this happen?

    Looks like I will be reinstalling VS and then waiting for SP2 or maybe it's finally time to change to Java.

    Anyway, I have sent 5-10 error reports to I expect to see a fix in the next 2 to 4 years.

    Thanks Microsoft.

  • Hi, Daniel Steigerwald. Could you please contact xinqiu at microsoft dot com to give more repro details and sample project files? I have trouble reproduce your problem on VS2010 sp1.

    On a side note, I think this might be possible that one of your extensions caused the problem, especially jslint, since it might produced warning message [{a}] is better written in dot notation (according to http://www.jameswiseman.com/blog/2011/01/17/jslint-messages-expression-is-better-written-in-dot-notation/). To workaround that, please check your extension options or contact the extension provider.

    Thanks

    xinqiu

  • A follow up to my previous message, Daniel contacted me and says chirpy.codeplex.com is the issue source. Uninstalling it fixed the issue.

  • awesome news

  • As C# has evolved it has become obvious a backwards-incompatible rewrite is needed if we are ever to see eye-friendly code again. Meeting the demands of thread-safety, extensibility comes at the cost of bloated, unreadable code.

    Python and Ruby have proven and well-designed syntaxes and semantics that would serve coders very well.

    Yet our great hope in the future of .NET, IronRuby and IronPython, have been seemingly pulled from the visual studio roadmap.

    Is the .NET's future truly as bleak as it looks?

  • Great Info. Thanks a Ton Scott. Now i also try to Comeup with my ideas.

  • Great Info. Thanks a Ton Scott. Now i also try to Comeup with my ideas.

  • Is there any change a SP2 will be released? I'm serious. Even with SP1, VS2010 still really needs quite a bit of work. Whenever I see all the hype surrounding a new release like I'm sure we'll see with the next one...and how it's so great...I just wander if MS really cares we bought 2010?? I actually do like some 2010 in some ways, but truthfully, the quality has gone down-hill.

  • Scott, the latest version of WPI does not recognize that VS SP1 is already installed, even if it was installed by the previous version of WPI. So, it attempts to reinstall SP1.

    Likewise, if you install SP1 using the latest version of WPI, SP1 will be recognized as installed, except for Silverlight Tools which attempts to reinstall SP1 as a pre-requisite.

  • Ok, so SQL2008 R2 SP1 is installed, and still the intellisense is broken... I tried to download and install CU7 for SQL, but the neither of the two passwords given in the email work with the file downloaded... I'm getting a bit frustrated that this great feature in SQL has gone simply because of a visual studio service pack.

  • SP1 totally screwed my VS2010 over. It freezes non stop, as do the uninstallation program when trying to uninstall sp1. I've now uninstalled VS2010 but sp1 is still installed it says. Now trying to install VS2010 all over again and hopefully that will work...

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