On behalf of the VS Ecosystem team, I am pleased to announce that we have just shipped the VS SDK v3 RTM release! This is a major milestone as this release will enable many new scenarios for our partners. It is available for immediate download.

We are excited to present some of the new exciting features included in this release:

• DSL Tools V1 RTM
• IronPython web site and web project samples
• Updated contents and samples for TFS extensibility and Team Test extensibility
• Managed parser & lexer generator tools
• Many more IDE integration samples
• 5 new cool PowerToys, including Source Outliner
• Much more!

A couple of other exciting news around this release are:

• Updated License - We have revamped the license and lifted the platform targeting restrictions. This removes a key adoption blocker and enables our partners to build tools inside Visual Studio that target alternative platforms.
• Easy Download - in previous releases, customers needed to register with the VSIP member site before they can download the SDK. We have now made the SDK downloadable without any sort of registration or sign-in, directly from the Microsoft Download Center.
• MSDN Online Documentation – we have also recently put our VS SDK documentation online! Combined with putting the SDK download in the download center, this will greatly extend our reach to potential developers!

Important: Note that although you don't need to register with the VSIP Members site anymore before obtaining the SDK, you still need to register and sign-in at the VSIP Members site to obtain a Package Load Key (PLK). Without a PLK, you will not be able to deploy your packages onto other desktops that do not have the SDK installed.