14 DAY TRIAL // The next generation development tool from Microsoft is available for download. Visual Studio Code Name Orcas is designed to enable developers to build secure, manageable and reliable applications targeted for Windows Vista and Office 2007.
According to Microsoft, Orcas embodies the Redmond Company's vision of smart client applications. "This new version enables any size organization to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences. By building these new types of applications, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information so that they can make effective business decisions," revealed Microsoft.
The Orcas version made available from Microsoft is the January 2007 Community Technology Preview of Microsoft Visual Studio. The Redmond Company informed that the CTP has been offered in English only.
Microsoft additionally announced that the CTP includes extended data APIs with the ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to ADO.NET, C# 3.0 language support (from Query Expressions to Lambdas bound to Delegates and Expression trees) and many more features. In fact, here is a list of the Orcas' highlights:
- LINQ to Objects API - ClickOnce improvements - Managed classes for Elliptic Curve Diffie Hellman and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm cryptographic functionality - Runtime and design-time support for Office 2007 (including Outlook 2007) - Support for advanced lifetime management of add-ins and their AppDomains - Client service support for Login/Logout, Role management and Profiles - A trace listener that logs event to ETW, event tracing for Windows in Vista - Jscript Intellisense support - A new numeric type that provides support for very large numbers (Beyond the range of In64) - LINQ over XML (XLinq) - SQL Server Compact Edition (SSCE)
Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - January 2007 CTP was tested by Softpedia as being 100% Clean and is available for download here.