Happy new year everyone!

I just updated the Developer Division Feedback Center with a new look and feel. It should be much easier to navigate through the site with the new navigation on top:

Please check it out and provide any feedback you might have.

I will continue to update the homepage and this blog with new announcements regarding the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 release as they become available.

Do not forget to point other .NET developers to the Developer Division Feedback Center to provide feedback on both released and pre-released versions of our developer technologies.

In case you don’t know, you can submit Silverlight Bugs and Suggestions through the main Developer Division Connect site. These Connect issues are sent to the Silverlight team so they can review them and make a decision on their resolution.

Most teams across the division are tracking their work items in a TFS project which is being used for the Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 release. When the previous release was shipped, we migrated all the open and postponed issues (which were reactivated) to this new TFS project(including Connect issues). When the migration occurred, the Silverlight team was in the middle of their 2.0 release so it did not make sense to have them go through a migration of their work items in the middle of the lifecycle. As a result, the Silverlight team is not tracking their work items in the same database than the rest of the division.

The main Developer Division Connect site is configured so that new Connect issues filed through the site are opened in the main TFS project used by Developer Division product teams. They are then reviewed and targeted to the right product team(by setting the TFS Area Path) by a small team of engineers who then work on trying to reproduce the issue reported. When the product team changes the resolution or the state of the issue, it is reflected back on the public Connect site and it generates an email to the person who submitted it notifying him/her of the change. If the issue needs to be moved to another DevDiv team not tracking their work items in the main TFS project, the issue needs to be copied to the other database used by the other team and a dependent link needs to be created between the two issues. When this happens, the state and resolution you see in the Connect site is that of the primary issue in the new database. At that point, we can resolve and close the original Connect issue opened in the main TFS project as External as it is no longer used for synchronization with the Connect site.

Over the last few weeks, the tool which was used to move issues to the Silverlight team was not working properly: it was closing the issue without properly creating the link with the new issue in the Silverlight database which means that the state and resolution shown on the public Connect site is that of the bug in the main DevDiv database rather than the one in the Silverlight database.

I apologize for the inconvenience. I just fixed the problem so these Silverlight Connect issues should now be synchronized properly and showing the correct status from the Silverlight database.

Final Update(11/2/08 – 6:30p): the Download page was published later during the day on Friday 10/31/08. You can either use the links below from my previous update or go to the Download page: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131310 . The use of a Download manager is highly recommended(See Brian’s Blog post for more information)

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Update(10/31/08 - 2:30pm PST): We are still having trouble getting the Download page created. However, we were able to get the files uploaded to the download center. I recommend using a download manager for getting the files(See this blog post for details). Here are the download packages for the CTP:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part02.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part03.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part04.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part05.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part06.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part07.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part08.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part09.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part10.rar

http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/7/4/97467b12-d04b-463f-b703-0e334c177799/VisualStudio2010CTP_11PartsTotal.part11.rar

Thanks again for your patience! For more information about the CTP, go to the CTP Feedback page and make sure to go to the feedback forums to provide feedback to the product teams on the new scenarios in the CTP.

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Update(10/30/08 - 6:40pm PST): The CTP Download is currently being staged on the Download Center. It will take several hours before the staging phase completes so it might not be until Friday morning PST for the download to be live again. Unfortunately, we had to rebuild the packages which means that if you already downloaded some of the CTP parts, you will have to download the whole thing again. We are truly sorry about the inconvenience.

The good news is that we have reset the operating System expiration date so that activation prompts do not appear for the first 60 days (This was one of the issues we heard from some community members who got the CTP we originally posted).

Thank you for taking the time to evaluate the Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 CTP and for your patience while we work on restoring the CTP on the download center. Teams are very excited about hearing your feedback on the new features you will be able to discover once you get the CTP. Please make sure to engage with the product teams on the CTP Feedback forums once you get it. I will post an update to this blog post once the Download link is live again.

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As you might have seen in my announcement on the CTP Feedback page, the CTP Virtual PC download is temporarily unavailable. The issue started on Wednesday 10/29/08 around 6pm PST. I can guarantee you that the team is doing their best to restore the CTP on the download center as soon as possible so thank you for your patience. I expect the download to be available again later today.

I will update this blog post once the CTP is back online.

As you have probably seen in Soma’s Blog, we have just released the Community technology preview(CTP) for the Visual Studio and the .NET Framework 4.0 as a Virtual PC image. I invite you to review the Overview of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 page to get a high level understanding of some of the pillars of this release.

This release is all about feedback!!!!!! I would like for you to go to the CTP Feedback Page To learn more about the CTP and get a link to the download. Make sure to review the CTP FAQ and head to the CTP Feedback forums to engage in a conversation with the product teams who have been working on this release. If you encounter any issues with the CTP, please visit the CTP Troubleshooting and Support forum.

In order to help you discover the new functionality in this release, teams have build a set of walkthroughs which are included in the Virtual PC image.  once you set up the CTP, I highly encourage you to follow the steps in each walkthrough and go to the forum corresponding to that walkthrough to give feedback and have a conversation with the product team who has been working on the functionality covered by that walkthrough.

Here is a list of all the walkthroughs grouped by area with the link to the forum feedback conversation about the scenario covered in that walkthrough:

• Visual Studio Editor
  • How to Adapt to the Visual Studio 2010 Editor
  • How to Add Syntax Coloring in the Visual Studio 2010 Editor
  • How to Highlight Text in the Visual Studio 2010 Editor
  • How to Customize the Start Page
  • How to provide Intellisense in the Visual Studio 2010 Editor
  • How to use the Shell Command to Add a Comment Adornment in the Visual Studio 2010 Editor
  • How to Float Document and Tool Windows Outside the IDE
• Core Coding Experience in Visual Basic and Visual C#
  • Call Hierarchy
  • Dynamic Programming in C#
  • TDD Support with the Generate From Usage Feature
  • Office Programmability in C# and Visual Basic
  • Quick Search for Files and Symbols
• Core Coding Experience in Visual C++
  • Using MSBuild to Create a Visual C++ Project
  • Add a Build Event to an MSBuild Project
  • Add a Custom Build Step to an MSBuild Project
  • Add Custom Build Tools to an MSBuild Project
  • How to Create a Custom Platform
  • How to Create Custom Property Pages
  • How to Use the C++ MSBuild Project System
  • Create a Project-to-Project Reference
  • Adding a Task Dialog to an Application
  • Add Support for the Restart Manager
  • Deploying a Visual C++ Application
  • Upgrade from Earlier Versions to Visual C++ 10
• Web Development in Visual Studio
  • Targeting Multiple version of ASP.Net
  • HTML Code Snippets
  • Transforming Web.Config for Deployment
  • Packaging & Deploying a Web Application which uses VS Development Web Server (Cassini)
  • Packaging & Deploying a Web Application which uses IIS
  • Setting Client IDs in ASP.NET Web Server Controls
• Office Development
  • Creating Your First Document-Level Customization for Word
  • Creating Your First Application-Level Add-in for Outlook
  • Creating a Custom Tab by Using the Ribbon Designer (Excel)
• Parallel Computing Platform
  • Parallel Debugging Tool windows in Visual Studio 2010
  • Parallel Programming with the .NET Framework 4.0
  • Parallel Programming with the Concurrency Runtime & the Parallel Pattern Library
  • parallel Profiling views in Visual Studio 2010
• Working with Data in WPF Applications
  • Using the Designer to Bind WPF Controls to Data in a Dataset
  • Using the Designer to Bind WPF Controls to Data in an Entity Data Model
• Building & Deploying Applications
• How to Create an Inline Task
• How to Deploy an Application by Using WiX
• Multi-targeting
• Working with Data and XML
  • Xml Schema Designer Walkthrough
  • The XSLT Profiler Add-in for Visual Studio 2008
  • Synchronizing Peer Databases Using Microsoft Sync Framework
• Charts & Reports
  • Adding a Chart to ASP.NET Web and Windows Forms Applications
• Visual Studio 2010 Team System & TFS
  • Formal 1 - Design, Planning, and Implementation: Designing Your Application at a Logical Level - Application Requirements
  • Formal 1 - Design, Planning, and Implementation: Designing Your Application at a Logical Level - Application Behavior and Structure
  • Formal 1 - Design, Planning, and Implementation: Setting Goals and Creating a Project Plan.
  • Formal 1 - Design, Planning, and Implementation: Exploring Your Existing Application
  • Formal 1 - Design, Planning, and Implementation: Validating Code Changes with the Layer Design.
  • Sprint 1 - Checkpoint Review: Reviewing the Sprint
  • Sprint 1 - Checkpoint Review: Finishing the Sprint
  • Sprint 1 - Checkpoint Review: Do Deeper Analysis of Bugs and Progress
  • Sprint 1 - Checkpoint Review: Holding a Great Sprint Retrospective.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Planning: Agile Iteration Planning.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Generating Interaction Sequences from Existing Code.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Test-Driven Development
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Configuring Code Analysis Using Rule Sets
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Preventing Code Defects using Test Impact Analysis
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Creating Manual Test Cases and Adding to a Test Suite.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Connecting Test Cases to User Stories
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Branch Visualization.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Construction: Checking In With Build Validation.
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Testing: Executing Manual Tests
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Testing: Using the Historical Debugger to Diagnose Test Failures
  • Sprint 2 - Agile Testing: Running Tests to Verify a Fix

I would love to hear about your experience of providing us with feedback on the CTP so please drop me a note and let me know how we can do better in the future.

While waiting for the CTP to download, I encourage you to visit the Developer Division Connect site to browse the existing feedback, vote to help us prioritize issues and help others by providing workarounds. Also remember that if you have any suggestions or encounter any bugs while using any version of our products(Visual Studio, .Net Framework, VSTS, TFS, Silverlight…), please make sure to always submit them through the Developer Division Connect Site to make sure that the product teams hear your feedback.

Visual Studio SP1 beta is available for Download, it includes hundreds of bug fixes and customer-reported QFEs as well as over 60 new features. You can read more about it on Soma's Blog or ScottGu's Blog.

I went through some of the Top rated Connect bugs which were submitted over the last few months since we shipped the RTM version. Most of the top voted ones were fixed as part of this SP and here are some of them:

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=318702

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=311732

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=309462

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=318702

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=317870

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=327222

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=330500

-          https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=311797

I encourage everyone to download the Visual Studio SP1 beta and give us feedback by submitting bugs & suggestions on this release in the http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio site, the issues you submit on that site are opened directly in our bug tracking database. The product units across Developer Division are closely monitoring the incoming feedback on the SP1 Beta. The next few weeks are the time to have an impact on this release, I therefore encourage you to install the beta ASAP and keep the feedback coming!!!!!!!

For general discussion or questions about the release please use the following forum http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=2136&SiteID=1

The download pages are:

·         Visual Studio SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CF99C752-1391-4BC3-BABC-86BC0B9E8E5A&displaylang=en

-          Read Me Page: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/D/8FD2A9F0-C3D4-4B0A-80AF-88D738DCDDF4/VSReadme.htm

·         .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8C36ACA4-E947-4760-9B05-93CAC04C6F87&displaylang=en

-          Read Me Page:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/D/8FD2A9F0-C3D4-4B0A-80AF-88D738DCDDF4/dotNetReadMe.htm

·         Visual Studio Express SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BDB6391C-05CA-4036-9154-6DF4F6DEBD14&displaylang=en

-          Read Me Page:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/D/8FD2A9F0-C3D4-4B0A-80AF-88D738DCDDF4/ExpressReadme.htm

·         Team Foundation Server SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DCB535BE-C32E-474C-9F64-282A2849ACC5&displaylang=en

If you encounter a setup issue, it is recommended to run the Collector tool to gather the appropriate logs to help us reproduce the issue, you can attach the resulting file with your bug/suggestion submission on the connect site.

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The Japanese community can file feedback about the SP1 Beta on the Japanese connect site: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudioJapan . Below are the Download links as well as the read me links.

Japanese Download Pages:

·         Visual Studio SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CF99C752-1391-4BC3-BABC-86BC0B9E8E5A&displaylang=ja

-          Read Me Page: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/3/ee3aedd2-3ef5-4878-964d-332e6b0e05d1/VSReadme.htm

·         .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=65ADB632-627A-4543-A820-0CEF436A6D07&displaylang=ja

-          Read Me Page: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/3/ee3aedd2-3ef5-4878-964d-332e6b0e05d1/dotNetReadMe.htm

·         Visual Studio Express SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BDB6391C-05CA-4036-9154-6DF4F6DEBD14&displaylang=ja

-          Read Me Page: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/3/ee3aedd2-3ef5-4878-964d-332e6b0e05d1/ExpressReadme.htm

·         Team Foundation Server SP1 Beta:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DCB535BE-C32E-474C-9F64-282A2849ACC5&displaylang=ja

-          Read Me Page: http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/e/3/ee3aedd2-3ef5-4878-964d-332e6b0e05d1/TFSReadme.htm

I have been wanting to write my first blog post for a while and I am finally getting to do it now. My goal from this blog is to be able to engage in a  conversation with the community on the channels for product feedback between the community and the teams in Microsoft Developer Division. I am a Program Manager in the Developer Division Community Connection team and my primary focus is to manage the process and workflow for getting feedback on developer products. The primary channel for filing bugs & suggestions on Visual Studio, .Net Framework, VSTS… is the Visual Studio & .Net Framework Product Feedback Center: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio .

I believe in transparency and partnership between the community and product teams to build the best products. In order for us to be successful, it is important to understand how we can make the process of providing us with feedback more fulfilling to you. It is great to see the number of people who take the time to file a bug or suggestions and your time is greatly appreciated.  

I have heard feedback around how hard it was to browse the site and as you might notice, we have redesigned the portal’s homepage or as a VB MVP called it: “a face lift” to help with this.

I now would like to hear about your thoughts on what your expectations are when filing a bug or suggestion? About responsiveness from Microsoft?... How can we improve? I am interested in hearing what works and what does not work for you? How can we make this a richer experience?

Please take a few minutes to tell us how we can improve the process and experience of filing product feedback by filing the following quick survey: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=5717