14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is gearing up to release new free downloads of Visual Studio 2010 RTM and Team Foundation Server 2010 RTM next week.
Brian Keller, a Sr. Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management confirmed that new downloads of VS 2010 and TFS 2010 are scheduled to drop in the week of December 6th.
The releases are designed to replace older versions of virtual machines featuring the technology which Microsoft launched following theRTM of its latest development platform.
Essentially, the software giant will provide new versions of Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 RTM virtual machine for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V (here); Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 RTM virtual machine for Windows Virtual PC (here) and Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 RTM virtual machine for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (here).
The current version of the releases mentioned above are scheduled to expire in mid-December 2010.
“If you use the Visual Studio ALM Sample VHD then you should know that it expires on December 15, 2010,” Keller explained.
“This is because of the requirement Microsoft has to ship trial software with such virtual machines, and the fact that the shortest trial length for the suite of software on this machine is 180 days.”
Keller notes that he expects to get all the work necessary for new VS 2010 and TFS 2010 virtual machines done by next week, after which the releases will make their way to the public through the Microsoft Download Center.
A specific release deadline wasn’t provided, but customers will not have to wait that long.
“There is still a lot of work required to get the latest power tools, feature packs, hotfixes, and other fixes and additions done that I want to, then everything has to be bundled up (with three different virtualization stacks), tested, and uploaded to the Microsoft.com download servers,” Keller added.
“I will provide another detailed blog post when everything is ready. The new VHD – when finished – will last until approximately June of 2011.”
For those that are not familiar with the downloads, the virtual machines (VMs) bring to the table copies of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, as well as sample applications and data set up to support the associated hands-on-labs.
Visual Studio 2010 Premium is available for download here.
Visual Studio 2010 Professional is available for download here.
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate is available for download here.
Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 is available for download here.