14 DAY TRIAL // Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2, and Silverlight 1.0 Release Candidate are the three 'must have' downloads for Windows Vista, and of course that the programs are not limited to Microsoft's latest operating system. Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 have already been made available for download and Microsoft will also deliver Silverlight 1.0 RC in the coming days. Visual Studio 2008 is codenamed Orcas, and Microsoft is already developing the next VS release codenamed Rosario in parallel. Of course all of these downloads are focused on enabling developers to create content for Windows Vista, the Office 2007 System and Windows Server 2008.
"The road to Beta 2 has been an exciting one for me and my team. With our focus on delivering frequent CTP's, we really opened the door for real time feedback from the developer community, and drove the development of this product based on that feedback. With Beta 2 we are feature complete, so now is the time to have your first look if you haven't seen Visual Studio 2008 yet, or evolve your experience if you have been using our Beta 1 or previous CTP's. To add to this, we are also releasing a Go Live license for Visual Studio 2008, the .NET Framework 3.5, and Silverlight 1.0 to make it easier for you to start developing in our next generation of tools," revealed S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.
Visual Studio was initially released in 1997. In fact, 2007 was the program's tenth year anniversary, and Microsoft is delivering a plethora of downloads of Visual Studio 2008 Orcas Beta 2 including Visual Studio 2008 Standard and Professional editions, Visual Studio Team System 2008 - Team Suite, Team Foundation Server, Test Load Agent Beta 2 and the MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. Additionally, there is also the Express edition and two Virtual PC images containing the solution.
"Developers can now use VS2008 and Silverlight 1.0 to build rich interactive applications for the web. With Silverlight 1.0 RC we will also be releasing a CTP for the Silverlight Add-In for Visual Studio 2008. With this add-in, developers can start building Silverlight 1.0 applications from within the Visual Studio 2008 environment and work with their designer counterparts using Expression Blend v2 preview. We expect to deliver the final version of this add-in soon after the final version of Visual Studio 2008," Somasegar added.