***UPDATE Nov-28 2012*** Update 1 has now released and the final CTP is no longer available.  See this post for more info: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/11/26/visual-studio-2012-update-1-is-available.aspx

Today we released the final CTP of Visual Studio 2012 Update 1.  You can visit the download page here.  You can also learn more about the this CTP from Chuck’s post on the ALM blog.

This is the first time in a very long time we’ve tried this kind of release cadence for Visual Studio.  It’s been a great journey and we’ve learned a lot about how to turn around a substantial update to Visual Studio update in about 3 months.  Of course, we’ve already started working on the next update and I suspect we’ll get better at it with each one.

I suspect it’s been hard to track all of the improvements so I thought I’d summarize some of the major ones.  It’s a large enough release that I can’t easily pull together a comprehensive list that would contain enough context for it to be useful for you.  In addition to dozens of new features, we’ve fixed hundreds of bugs that we’ve found and you’ve reported.

  • Extend TFS server side path limits from 260 characters to 400 characters
  • Usability improvements for Version Control
    • Associate multiple bugs with a checking at once in the Add by ID field (i.e. comma separated)
    • Toolbar button to show/hide deleted items in the source control explorer
    • Copy the name of a changeset/shelveset from the Changeset/Shelveset Details page
    • Find a Shelveset by name from the Find Shelvesets page
    • Include/exclude all items except those that are selected
    • Know if my detected changes are adds or deletes before clicking the link
    • Navigate to an item in source control explorer from pending changes page
    • Undo changes to a file from the editor context menu
  • Kanban support in TFS Web Access
  • TFS web access usability improvements
    • Drag and drop queries and query folders
    • Drag/drop between User Stories and People in the Taskboard
    • Drag a task to a person to assign it in the Taskboard
    • Expand and Collapse the left navigation pane
    • Remember the state of the splitters
    • Animate Taskboard tiles on drop
    • Next/Previous arrows on WIT form
    • Updated navigation styling
    • Links and Attachments in WIT form shows counts
  • Sharepoint testing improvements
    • Load testing support for SharePoint
    • Unit test emulator for SharePoint
    • Coded UI test support for SharePoint
    • Intellitrace collection plan for SharePoint
  • Manual testing improvements
    • Editing of test cases from inside the test runner
    • Code coverage support for manual testing of web apps
    • Hierarchical query support
    • Pause manual testing session and later resume a test case
    • Deep copy of a test plan to better support release management
    • Publish test results to TFS from command-line
  • Coded UI testing improvements
    • Cross browser testing for coded UI testing (IE, Chrome, Firefox, …)
    • Usability improvements for Coded UI tests
  • SCVMM 2012 SP1 support with Lab Management for Windows 2012 hosts
  • VSUpdate support for Microsoft Test Manager for automatic update notification
  • Unit testing improvements
    • Windows Store C++ unit testing enhancements
    • Windows Store Unit Test library enhancements
    • Traits support for all adapters
    • Unit Test Grouping and Filtering in Test Explorer Window
  • Easier installation of unit test adapters on TFS build machines using Nuget
  • Code Map – Incremental discovery and visualization of your application architecture and dependencies
  • IntelliTrace Integration with System Center
  • Integrate Blend Windows Phone Tooling
  • Multiscale image support for manifest content
  • JavaScript Memory Profiling
  • Mixed Managed/Native Debugging Support for Store Apps
  • ARM Native Dump Debugging Support
  • Enable XP targeting with C++

In addition, we’ve got some significant updates coming in an update to Team Explorer Everywhere.  I haven’t included them here because I wanted to focus this on the Visual Studio oriented products.  I’ll do another post soon on the nice improvements coming to Team Explorer Everywhere too.

Remember that this CTP is just a preview and is not intended for production use.  We will release it shortly, at which point you can use it in production.

Brian