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Visual Studio Beta 2 Professional Available For Download

If you'd missed it ... Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Professional was made available for download last Friday.  The marketing blurb about it is below.  Note : if you already have the Windows Mobile 6 SDK or SDK Refresh installed, you'll need to re-install it after you're done with installing the VIsual Studio 2008 Beta 2.

 

Download Link

 

Visual Studio 2008 delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by letting developers quickly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences.  This beta is intended for early adopters of the Microsoft technology, platform, and tools offerings. We designed this release to let developers try out new technology and product changes, but not to build production systems. This limitation is fully covered in the Microsoft Software License Terms that accompany this beta.

 

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is available for download from July 27th 2007 and introduces several new features for mobile developers.

 

New Features for Mobile Developers

·         Unit testing is now available to mobile developers

o   Developers have told us that testing mobile applications is time consuming and costly.  Visual Studio 2008 enables automated functional testing of managed code to reduce that burden.

·         Latest Device Emulator (version 3.0)

o   You can now automate testing scenarios in the device emulator allowing you to simulate real world changes in device state – signal dropoff, battery running dead etc

·         Latest .NET Compact Framework (version 3.5)

o   .NET Compact Framework 3.5 introduces new features like LINQ as well as an implementation of the Windows Communication Foundation enabling device to device and device to server communication over the Exchange Activesync transport

·         Designer support for SQL Server 3.5 Compact Edition

o   You can now build SQL Server 3.5 Compact Edition applications using the Visual Studio 2008 designer experience

 

Mobile developers will need to use Visual Studio 2008 Professional Beta 2 and above to build Windows Mobile applications.

 

Supported Platforms

·         .NET Compact Framework 3.5

·         .NET Compact Framework 2.0

·         .NET Compact Framework 1.0 (projects will be upgraded to 2.0)

·         Windows Mobile 6 (by installing the Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh)

·         Windows Mobile 5.0

·         Pocket PC 2003 (managed and native code)

·         Smartphone 2003 (native code only)

·         Windows Embedded CE 6.0

·         Windows Embedded CE 5.0

Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007 6:01 PM by jamespr
Filed under:

Comments

Alex Kac said:

Why no unit testing for us Native C++ developers?

# July 30, 2007 11:22 PM

Matt Ellis said:

Does the new .net cf 3.5 include CardSpace for mobile?

Cheers

Matt

# July 31, 2007 5:38 AM

Moreno Borsalino said:

What's about Mobile Asp.Net ? I don't find it in Beta 2 Vs 2008.

# July 31, 2007 5:30 PM

jamespr said:

Unit testing on native : I'll post back on that in due course.  Just gathering some information from our development team.

Cardspace mobile : We do not have that in NET CF 3.5

Mobile ASP.NET : We have a webcast scheduled for September on using the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit to build web apps for Windows Mobile.  It will be accompanied by an article as well.

# August 1, 2007 4:56 PM

ColorS said:

Now why not improve the Windows Mobile Device center sync to work well with Vista.

# August 11, 2007 2:03 AM

Premier said:

With Orcas beta 2, i can't use System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace for sending a ping in WM6.

Why?

How i can send ping in WM6?

# August 12, 2007 2:17 PM

George said:

Will it be possible to use the final Visual Studio 2008 *Standard* edition to develop mobile applications, As it is now the case with VS2005?

(I'm considering the price here.)

# August 15, 2007 4:39 AM

Steffe said:

Hmm,... if installing Visual Studio 2008 beta 2 on a clean maching, I am unable to install the Windows Mobile SDK Refresh. The installer claims that "Visual Studio 2005 or later is not installed"! How can I solve this?

Best Regards

Steffe

# August 17, 2007 4:42 AM

George said:

That's what I got when I was trying to install the *Standard* edition (which has no support for mobile development). (I haven't tried the Pro edition for Beta 2, but I did for Beta 1 and it worked.)

# August 17, 2007 8:42 AM

Corrado Cavalli said:

I'd like to debug unit test inside VS 2008, is it possible? Run test works fine but can't have debugger break when selecting Debug Test option.

# August 21, 2007 4:31 PM

jamespr said:

You're correct, you need the Professional version of Visual Studio 2008 to get the mobile development features.  The Visual Studio 2008 SKU structure is based on how our customers were using Visual Studio 2005.  Very few customers use Visual Studio 2005 Standard to build applications for Windows Mobile devices so in order to deliver a Standard SKU that is simplified and tuned to the customers that use it, Visual Studio 2008 Standard no longer includes support for mobile development.

If you're concerned about the cost of Visual Studio Professional, you should consider joining the ISV Empower Program which is designed for Independent Software Vendors and provides limited Microsoft software licenses – including Visual Studio – for internal use, development and testing and technical support.  Registration with the program costs around $375 for companies in the United States.  Please consult https://empower-isv.one.microsoft.com/isv/Help/en/rsc.htm for a list of other countries which have an ISV Empower Program.

ISV Empower Program Overview : https://empower-isv.one.microsoft.com/isv/programguide/Default.aspx

# August 29, 2007 4:44 PM

Charile said:

I have a question about ISV Empower program: it comes with VS2005, but if we develop an app with VS2005 that maybe will last 18 months of development, when we have the final release it will be older in technology, you know what I mean???? So what happen with the VS2008????

# September 1, 2007 4:20 AM

Alex said:

Is there "Standard SDK" for Windows CE 5.0 and/or Windows CE 6.0 which will work with VS2008?

# September 12, 2007 5:23 PM

itcdevteam said:

Is there any intentions to include reporting and the ability to print them in VS 2008?

# October 10, 2007 7:16 AM

GerardoDada said:

Microsoft just announced the launch of Visuak Studio 2008, which is close to my heart as I was part of

# November 21, 2007 12:54 PM

David Overton's Blog said:

I saw the story at Visual Studio 2008 adds mobile application features that summarised the new features

# November 23, 2007 4:19 PM

FrankPr's R@ndom Th0ughts said:

Manchmal muss ich leider auch, entgegen meiner Jobbezeichnung "Evangelist" (= "Überbringer guter Nachrichten"),

# December 7, 2007 7:12 AM

Noticias externas said:

Manchmal muss ich leider auch, entgegen meiner Jobbezeichnung "Evangelist" (= "Überbringer

# December 7, 2007 8:12 AM

Paul said:

This is annoying

The download page states the following are pre-requisites:

* Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Standard Edition or above (Express Editions are not supported). SP1 recommended.

So I purchased a new Windows smartphone (TyTN II - I have previously stuck with Symbian) and now I find I cant do the development I wanted to do after all as I have an 'above' verison of Visual Studio, i.e. 2008 standard, but M$ have changed the goal posts.

I wonder how sympathetic they'll be when people start asking for refunds.

# June 12, 2008 11:55 AM

Nitin Bedi said:

I dont understand why the Windows Mobile 6.0 SDK is not inbuilt in the Visual Studio 2008 professional. Why there is a seperate download and installation post installing VS 2008.

# June 21, 2008 10:19 AM

Paul said:

M$ is ridiculous.  I attended the lauch for "heroes happen here".  They give out both VS2008 (standard) and windows mobile 6 resource kits.

Go to install resource kit, doesn't work with VS2008 standard.  Java's looking better and better all the time..

# June 28, 2008 9:02 AM

Bart said:

This does suck.  Attended the Heroes happen here event... got VS2008 standard only to find out that I cannot use the Mobile SDK without spending $375+. So much for Microsoft really caring for developers.  Maybe I'll just hop on the Android bandwagon.

# August 10, 2008 3:37 PM
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