Microsoft has just released the first Beta builds of its next generation of development platform and tools as public downloads. At the same time, the Redmond company is also providing the necessary resources for developers to get started using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 1. On the heels of the Beta 1 bits becoming available, Walkthroughs for both the next iterations of Visual Studio and .NET Framework went live, and are available through MSDN.

The featured walkthroughs cover a range of aspects including Core Coding Experience in Managed Languages, Office Development in Visual Studio 2010, Multi-targeting, Parallel Computing and Workflow Foundation. In total, Microsoft is offering developers no less than 12 walkthroughs accompanied with libraries and forum links, just for the successor of Visual Studio 2010.

There are an additional five walkthroughs for .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1: .NET Framework 4 Application Compatibility, Windows Communication Foundation and Workflow Foundation, Creating a Basic Web Package, Mapping Table-per-Hierarchy Inheritance and Filtering Data in a Web Page Using Declarative Syntax. Resources are also offered for Visual Studio Team System 2010: No More Parallel Development Pain; No More Planning Black Box; No More Late Surprises; and Functional UI Testing.

Microsoft started offering Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 and .NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 to MSDN subscribers on May 18. As of May 20 the two components of the company's development platform are up for grabs for the public. “Visual Studio 2010 is the next gen of next-gen applications. Download the Visual Studio 2010 Professional and Team System Betas and see for yourself how they’ve been designed inside and out to give you every advantage in creating groundbreaking applications — faster and easier than ever,” Microsoft reveals.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is available for download here.
.NET Framework 4.0 Beta 1 is available for download here.