I don't generally advertise each CTP release from our division, but there are some things that are cool about this one that I wanted to point out. 

1. Thanks to customer feedback we've decided to release this as a VPC image.  Simply download and run in Virtual PC or Virtual Server.

2. It's the first CTP we've made broadly available. You don't have to be an MSDN subscriber to get the full version. Previously most CTPs (outside of express) were only available to MSDN subscribers.

3. Future CTPs will just contain a smaller "difference disk" meaning that beyond this one you'll be able to download a smaller version to upgrade your image to a new CTP.

Huge kudos to the release team for making this possible. Check it out here.


Download

 

The highlights of this CTP include:

  • Improvements on the widely acclaimed Visual Studio 2005 product set
  • Significant investments in improving product quality
  • LINQ to Objects API
  • Partial C# 3.0 Language & IDE Support: This CTP implements some of the new language features of C# 3.0
  • Partial VB 9.0 Language support (Due to differences in feature delivery schedules VB implementations of the above C# features will appear in a future CTP)
  • Device development improvements
    • VSTS integration
    • Access and modify device security configuration from the IDE
  • Enables developers to build and debug a Windows Vista Application
  • Enables Visual Studio Tools for Office developers to build document-level customizations for Word and Excel 2007
  • Enables eMbedded Visual C++ 4.0 developers to use Visual Studio Code Name “Orcas” to build their existing applications
  • NET Framework improvements such as:
    • New managed add-in model enables developers to add a version-resilient extensibility model to their products.
    • Support for time zone conversion, enumeration and serialization, including cases where Daylight Saving Time rules change over time.
    • Reflection in Partial Trust, enabling sand box scenarios for all applications that depend on these features.
    • The ability to control the garbage collector’s latency mode
    • Improved CLR ThreadPool micro-performance and throughput for worker and IO completion