Now that VSTA has RTM’d (See KD Hallman’s announcement at http://blogs.msdn.com/vsta ) I would like to call out all of the great features of VSTA. You can see some of these features in action today as part of InfoPath 2007. Just install InfoPath 2007, open a form and press Alt-Shift-F12. The VSTA IDE will open and you can easily add your VB or C# macro code behind the form. I can also follow the walkthrough in my MSDN article to learn more about VSTA.

1. Multi-language support – VB and C#
2. Macro Recoding
3. Windows Forms designer
4. IntelliSense & Code Tasks
5. End-user debugging features: breakpoints, watch/auto/locals windows

6. Web services-based development
7. Fully leverages the .NET Framework
8. Running and debugging 32-bit and 64-bit add-ins
9. Running partial trusted add-ins
10. Client and Server programming
11. Common VSTA/VSTO runtime architecture for seamless up-leveling of solutions

12. Low barrier to entry – get started in about two days
13. Add more functionality as desired/needed over time
14. Runs side x side with VBA

15. Simplifies loading and unloading of add-ins
16. Ability to manage application domain creation
17. Host defined discovery and qualification supporting repository based scenarios

18. Redistributable VS based IDE and Runtime
19. Integration tools
20. Help documentation, Samples and walk throughs