Available right here

Oct 22, 2009 16:39 GMT  ·  By

One day ahead of the General Availability of Windows 7, Microsoft opened up the testing program for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. Initially introduced at the start of this week to MSDN subscribers, the second Beta development milestone for Visual Studio 2010 is now available for download even for devs without an MSDN subscription. You will be able to find the download links to the latest product lineup of VS2010 at the bottom of this article. All downloads are free, but only because Visual Studio 2010 is still in development. Come March 22, 2010, when Microsoft will release the final version of VS2010 to customers, the product will come with various price tags in accordance with the editions offered by the company.

Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform, explains that Microsoft has worked to simplify the Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) strategy for Visual Studio 2010. Guthrie notes that the new editions will also add value to developers with MSDN subscriptions. The software giant will continue to deliver the free Visual Studio Express.

In addition, Microsoft will offer:

“•Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN: Professional development tools as you are used to today with the addition of source control integration, bug tracking, build automation, and more. It also includes 50 hours/month of Azure cloud computing. •Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN: Premium has everything in Professional plus advanced development tools (including richer profiling and debugging, code coverage, code analysis and testing prioritization), advanced database support, UI testing, and more. Rather than buying multiple “Team” SKUs like you would with VS 2008, you can now get this combination of features in one box with VS 2010. It also includes 100 hours/month of Azure cloud computing. •Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN: Ultimate has everything in Premium plus additional advanced features for developers, testers, and architects including features like Intellitrace (formerly Historical Debugging), the new architecture tools (UML, discovery), test lab management, etc. It also includes 250 hours/month of Azure cloud computing,” Guthrie added.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional Beta 2 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 are available for download via this link.