Data : VisualStudio2005

Connecting to Pre-Release Versions of SQL Server 2008 – Part Deux

dpblogs — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:26:00 GMT

Since posting on the topic of design-time and runtime connectivity to pre-release versions of SQL Server 2008 on the Data blog in November, the set of affected clients (applications, runtimes, and operating systems) have been officially released: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft .NET Framework v3.5, Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Windows 2008. Runtime connectivity from a client system configured with any of these released products to SQL Server 2008 November CTP or later provides full runtime access to the following features (for design-time functionality, see below):

· Table-Valued Parameters

· New date/time data types

· Large user-defined types

· Support for very large FILESTREAM-attributed column data

Design-Time Connectivity Between Visual Studio and SQL Server 2008

Developers using Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 design tools will receive an error when trying to open a database on any pre-release instance of SQL Server 2008 without installing a Visual Studio patch. Pre-release patches for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2005 enable the following Visual Studio functionality for SQL Server 2008:

· Server Explorer successfully connects to SQL Server 2008, and database objects such as stored procedures and table data can be viewed and edited.

o Note that table schemas still cannot be viewed or edited in this release.

· SQL CLR projects that target SQL Server 2008 can be created and deployed to the server.

· T-SQL and SQL CLR debugging are now enabled for SQL Server 2008.

· Data binding features in Client and Web Projects are enabled.

Pre-release versions of the design-time patches are currently available: the Visual Studio 2008 CTP patch is available for download here and the Visual Studio 2005 CTP patch is available for download here. Final versions of the patches will be available in the near future. For more information please see the "Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008" whitepaper on MSDN.

Debra Dove

Program Manager Lead, Data Programmability

VSLive Keynote - San Francisco

dpblogs — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:29:00 GMT

Britt Johnston, Director, Data Programmability at Microsoft gave a Keynote speech this morning at VSLive in San Francisco. In his presentation, Britt spoke largely about the idea of Conceptual Data Programming and Microsoft's vision for Data Access, raising the level of abstraction around data access to allow developers to be more productive and allow us to write less code.

Britt began by talking about the idea of programming against a Conceptual data model rather than the Logical data model that we currently program to, and ended by delving into the key technoglogies that Microsoft plans to focus on for future innovation including continuing investment in the Entity Framework, an Entity-level services ecosystem (Reporting, Synchronization, etc.), and the Enabling of Dynamic Applications (Conceptual Programming, Integrated Development Experience, Device to Cloud Support, etc.).

Throughout his presentation, Britt went on to showcase 5 short videos or screencasts that demonstrated some of the work, specifically around Tools, that the Data Programmability team has been doing. These videos provide some great information and a preview of the new XML Editor, XSLT Debugger, and EDM Wizard coming in Orcas, as well as a sneak preview of a new XSD Designer and EDM Designer that we can expect to see released after the upcoming Orcas release.

Data Access Virtual Labs

alexbarn — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:59:00 GMT

MSDN Virtual Labs allows customers to quickly evaluate or learn how to build applications through a series of guided, hands-on labs which can be completed in 90 minutes or less.

The best part is, the MSDN Virtual Labs do not require any installation and are available to customers immediately for free.

The MSDN Data Access Virtual Labs offers the following labs to try out right now:

XML Tools in Visual Studio 2005 New!

After completing this lab, you will be better able to:

Work with XML Editor
Work with XML Schemas
Work with XSLT Debugger

ADO.NET vNext August CTP New!

Use the bits released in the ADO.NET vNext August CTP without installing bits on your machine :-)

SQL Server 2005 SQL Server and ADO.NET (Lab A)