Now that Visual Studio 2008 is available, the question arises what has changed for Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals in the 2008 edition?

Not much is the answer. Since our first release was done completely out-of-band while other teams were actively working on the Visual Studio 2008 release, our main goal was to integrate in to main Visual Studio 2008 (aka. Orcas) code base. However we did make some changes that you should be aware of. 

What changed:

• First of all we have a new name, the official new name is "Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition". This creates a new dilemma, what is the shortest way to indicate our product, because VSDE refers to the Visual Studio Team System Developer Edition. VSDB seems an appropriate alternative to use.
• No more additional setup. In Visual Studio Team System 2008, we are completely integrated in the standard setup, so no more additional downloads. All you have to do is to make sure the Team Database Edition option is checked.
  
• The Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition is based on the v1.0 functionality plus the Service Release 1 functionality; this means that database references, file groups and SQLCMD variables support is part of the standard product.
• We fixed 71 defects. 
• Eight of the issues were reported through Microsoft Connect:
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=276424
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=279363
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=288678
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=295427
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=295434
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=295481
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=296031
• http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=296758
• Besides that we fixed 13 other user reported defects. The remainder were internally found issues.
• One of the main defects addressed in this release has to do with automatically updating the underlying schema model when changes are made to the underlying source code representation, outside the direct control of the project system. A common example is when you are performing a sync operation from source code control. I discussed the issue in an earlier blog name "External Changes". 
  This change adds a check box to the Tools->Options->Database Tools->Design-time Validation Database options page. By default the option will be checked indicating you want to automatically update the schema model when changes occur.
• Solution Explorer performance improvements, the Visual Studio Core team has been making some great improvements that will improve your overall performance, especially when your project has large number of objects stored under a single node instead Solution Explorer.

What did not change:

• The database project functionality is only available in two of the Visual Studio Team System SKU's
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite (including the trial edition)
• The functionality that was made available through Power Tools for 2005, remains inside the Power Tools for the 2008 release, we are trying to release a new Power Tools release targeting 2008 later this month.

What is next?

Now that we are done with Visual Studio 2008, we are all working on our next big deliverable which is Visual Studio Team System Code Name "Rosario".

Thanks,
-GertD