Microsoft has released to web the latest version of ASP.NET MVC. Designed to provide a new Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for the ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 runtime, ASP.NET MVC 2 RTW is currently available via the Microsoft Download Center. At the same time, Microsoft is also offering developers the source code of ASP.NET MVC 2 RTW, as it did with version 1 of the release. Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president, .NET Developer Platform, reminded devs that the source code was available under the Microsoft Source License for ASP.NET Pre-Release Components, which is an OSI-compliant open-source license.

“ASP.NET MVC 2 is the next significant update of ASP.NET MVC. It is a compatible update to ASP.NET MVC 1 – so all the knowledge, skills, code, and extensions you already have with ASP.NET MVC continue to work and apply going forward,” Guthrie explained. “ASP.NET MVC 2 can be installed side-by-side with ASP.NET MVC 1 (meaning you can have some apps built with V1 and others built with V2 on the same machine). Note that VS 2010 has an automated upgrade wizard that can automatically migrate your existing ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2 for you.”

The final release of ASP.NET MVC 2 is designed to integrate seamlessly with the 2008 version of Visual Studio and with ASP.NET 3.5. Developers that have kept up-to-date with the evolution of the latest iteration of Visual Studio 2010 already know that the next-generation Microsoft development platform already contains ASP.NET MVC 2. Both Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer 2010 feature ASP.NET MVC 2 built in by default.

“ASP.NET MVC 2 adds a bunch of new capabilities and features,” Guthrie stated, enumerating:

“•New Strongly Typed HTML Helpers;
•Enhanced Model Validation support across both server and client;
•Auto-Scaffold UI Helpers with Template Customization;
•Support for splitting up large applications into ‘Areas;’
•Asynchronous Controllers support that enables long running tasks in parallel;
•Support for rendering sub-sections of a page/site using Html.RenderAction;
•Lots of new helper functions, utilities, and API enhancements;
•Improved Visual Studio tooling support.”

ASP.NET MVC 2 Released to Web (RTW) is available for download here.