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Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

To allow customers to evaluate and plan for our upcoming "Visual Studio Orcas" release (and to highlight exactly what we have accomplished), we are sharing our Orcas Feature Specifications as soon as features make it out the door – either via a Community Technology Preview (CTP) or, in the future, as part of an Orcas Beta. The March CTP was a big milestone for Visual C++ - almost all our Orcas features are now available via this CTP. So now it is your chance to look over our specifications (and, via our CTP, their implementation) and see what we will be delivering. Please go the ‘Feature Specifications for Visual Studio and .NET Framework "Orcas" webpage’ and scrolled down to the Visual C++ section to see just what we have been up to (or look at the other sections to see what everyone else has been doing too!)

Online, you can now get specifications for:

You will need an XPS viewer to read these files, downloadable at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx


 

 

There are also some channel 9 videos on some of these new features (and other aspects of the work we are currently doing):

There are two more videos in the pipeline too. And you can also find out more about our Orcas features via team member posts on this blog, for example:

Let us know what you think!

 

Thanks,

Damien Watkins
Published Tuesday, April 10, 2007 2:50 PM by vcblog

Comments

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 8:57 PM by Kris

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Is there an XPS Viewer available?

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 9:20 PM by Name required

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Exactly. XPS viewers are available for .Net 3. .Net 3 requires XP and up. I am stuck on Windows 2000 at work. This makes it very difficult to read those documents.

How about a plain text version? Or an HTML? Or even a PDF? Or heaven forbid, a Word document would still be viewable.

Personally, I really do like XPS. However, the lack of available viewers is a real letdown.

Viewer:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 10:47 PM by Ben Anderson

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:59 AM by Brian

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Using XPS at this stage is just simply arrogant, use either html or even pdf (defacto).

...

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:04 AM by Bob

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Can't help but feel that the rate of change is just to fast to be properly assimilated by real world applications. For example we have just launched a new major product using VS6 with MFC and product works fine on all platforms. Another product using VS2005 .net  was a nightmare for support + resistance from users to use a .net application (we stopped calling it .net application which helped!.

Change the tools yes (more efficiency is great) changing run times is not so good (.net is great from a programmers point of view but bad from an application perspective - but that’s another story).

Or put it another way change for changes sake  is not always desirable in software, for example Vista creates more user support problems than XP (ask our tech support  people for them Vista is a honorary 4 letter word!).  What was required was an improved XP that looked and felt the same!

Bob

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:24 AM by Artem

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

+1 against XPS. XPS software says it is release candidate and XPS viewer installer fails on my fully patched Windows XP (and no, log does not help).

Brian is right, "arrogant" is exactly the word.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:29 AM by Mike

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Hey Bob, I agree .net great for programmers, bad for apps. How about using the .net framework sort of like a ODBC driver? Like ODBC you code for the driver, but on first call of the app it gets converted to native on the machine running it, and future calls use the native version? You have platform independence with native code speed.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 5:56 PM by Ed

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Being one of the supporters of MS in our shop I'm getting close to the end of the rope.  I'm still on W2K and XPS doesn't even install on it.  WTF!  Now tell me honestly if these details were just to complex to put on a simple HTML page or if you are just trying to make sure all of us contribute a little more $ to MS.  I've moved clients to MS for years.  This is just plain and simple arrogance as stated above.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 6:13 PM by Scott

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Why remove ISAPI support from MFC?  

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 6:15 PM by Karl

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

The links to FriendTemplates and STLCLR don't work on my XP Pro (Automatic updated to the hilt) IE7 box. Presumably that means that the specs aren't much good either.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:42 PM by vcblog

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Hello

They both just worked for me - first question do you have a XPS reader installed?

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx

Thanks

Damien

Visual C++

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:54 PM by vcblog

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Hello

So the distribution format is a hard decision (and for conformity the format used is shared across all product groups when they publish their Orcas specifications at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa948851.aspx.) Over the course of Orcas we have used HTML then PDF and now XPS – all have pluses and minuses for sure and no one format is clearly the best in all circumstances. I hope the current format is acceptable to the majority without causing too many headaches for others.

Thanks

Damien

Visual C++

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 8:53 PM by Name

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Damien,

I too am stuck on a Windows 2000 system. XPS viewers require Windows XP or later.

I can view HTML on basically any platform. PDF viewers exist at least back to Windows 95.

Microsoft needs to provide XPS viewers for older platforms. Until then, how do you expect me to view them?

I unzipped one of the XPS files (archive). In it are 11 folders and 56 files. I am attempting to read the raw XML, but navigating the structure is not very pleasant.

If HTML is too difficult, then how about just plain text? As great a format as XPS may be, I can not read it.

Honestly, how can Microsoft expect user adoption for a format that is limited to only the newest platforms?  The ideal solution, and a win for all, is to provide viewers for more platforms.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007 10:12 PM by Mike Dunn

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

>>Over the course of Orcas we have used HTML then PDF and now XPS – all have pluses and minuses for sure and no one format is clearly the best in all circumstances.<<

Do tell, what is such a big minus about PDF that caused you not to use it for these documents?

Thursday, April 12, 2007 3:11 AM by Alexei

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Nothing exciting.  Move alone...

Seriously, is this all you have to offer for Orcas?  I would consider these features good for a service pack, but for a new major version?  Well, at least fix all those bugs you introduced with VS2005 SP1.

Thursday, April 12, 2007 4:39 AM by Stephen

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

It would have been nice to see what was in store for us.  A shame we can't read it without breaking our IT policy. Ho hum.

Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:23 AM by .NET o no .NET, esa es la cuestión

# Novedades para C++ y C++/CLI del nuevo Orcas

Antes de ayer el Visual C++ Team publicó en su blog una entrada contándonos las novedades que el futuro

Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:29 AM by James

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Come on people...  Posting stuff in XPS?  Isn't this a WEB site?  That's annoying...  I won't be reading it.

Thursday, April 12, 2007 11:55 AM by reimersc

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

The XPS format is just plain dumb.  Can you please use something different like Word

Thursday, April 12, 2007 7:56 PM by Andy

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

I too use Win2000 at work. It took several days to borrow someone else's XP system just to view these files.

However, even with the XPS viewer, I had trouble opening the documents. The XPS viewer that installs with .Net 3 apparently noted that Firefox was the default browser. So opening the files either via a link or direct from the hard disk attempts to open it in Firefox. Of course Firefox can not handle the .Net viewer. Strangely, the viewer makes Firefox endlessly open tabs in a loop. Fun...

Manually opening the files in IE worked, but it was much, much slower than PDF. HTML would be ideal, followed by plain text.

With all of the problems listed above, you really are making it difficult to read those files.

Friday, April 13, 2007 9:03 AM by Ondra

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Come on folks, we are just test staff for the big M.

Sunday, April 15, 2007 8:47 PM by James

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Quote:

You will need an XPS viewer to read these files, downloadable at: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx

Thanks. However, the viewer is not available for my system: Windows 2000.

Could you not provide the specifications in a common format that all can read? I can understand Microsoft's reluctance to PDF, but how about plain text or HTML? Other's above have expressed similar frustration.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:19 PM by 真 OO无双

# (轉貼) Visual C Orcas Spec (初級) (C )

轉貼自http://blogs.msdn.com/vcblog/archive/2007/04/10/visual-c-orcas-feature-specifications-online.aspx...

Thursday, April 19, 2007 6:45 AM by Eric Nelson - Development for .NET Framework 3.0 for ISVs

# Visual C++ - what are we doing next?

Many of my current ISVs use C# and VB.NET as their main development languages but there remains a huge

Saturday, April 21, 2007 10:40 AM by Daniel

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

I can't see why to change to Orcas if you are using Visual Studio 2005 today for non CLR c++.

Some vista support and Multi-processor builds could be usefull, but TR1 would make the difference. I can't se any reason for not adding it since almost everything will be included in the next standard.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:42 AM by AndyMauer

# re: Visual C++ Orcas Feature Specifications online

Hi, I was wondering about partial types and what about LINQ, WPF, WCF and WF support!?

Wednesday, June 06, 2007 8:27 AM by wfertgtr

# recipes

[url=http://artmam.net/Dir-Chicken_Recipe.htm]easy chicken recipe[/url]

Of The Month One way to boost your fruit intake is to add apples to salads and cooked dishes

instead of eating them solely as snacks. Peak season for apples is September ...

Monday, June 18, 2007 5:10 AM by Fuziness and Cognizance...

# Is Microsoft moving away from VC++?

Finally I am back in office from TechMela. My plans to do live blogging about TechMela did not materialize

Friday, August 24, 2007 7:04 AM by to_be_defined

# Drop XPS

This XPS push is getting really annoying! There are already a ton of formats and viewers out there and I don't need another one.

I have downloaded the XPS viewer for XP and it turns out that now I also need MSXML 6.

NO THANKS! If it is too difficult to use a popular format such as PDF, HTML or even DOC then don't bother publishing these documents, I won't read them.

Friday, April 04, 2008 5:13 AM by chenguoda

# Visual C Q

原文链接：http://herbsutter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2D4327CC297151BB!272.entry

Friday, April 04, 2008 5:36 AM by gudesheng

# Visual C Q

原文链接：http://herbsutter.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2D4327CC297151BB!272.entry

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