Already here: Visual Studio 2013 Update 3 CTP 1

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Yep!  Fresh on the heels of the RTM of VS 2013 Update 2 (I just finished delivering “What’s New” presentations on Update 2 a couple weeks ago), the first CTP for Update 3 is available!  CTP 1 means it’s early, and may not be completely production-ready.  But heck, it’s at least worth checking out!

Mary Jo Foley mentioned some of the key targets for Update 3; but check out this KB article for the full run-down of features.

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Here is the short list of my favorites:

  • You can use Windows PowerShell or the Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) feature to deploy and manage configuration data. Additionally, you can deploy to the following environments without having to set up Microsoft Deployment Agent:
    • Windows Azure environments
    • On-premise environments (Standard environments)
  • CodeLens authors and changes indicators are now available for Git repositories.
  • You can drag binaries from the Windows file explorer to a code map, and then start exploring binaries by using Code Map.
  • You can skip straight to the details of performance events that are exported from Application Insights to IntelliTrace.

My absolute favorite piece is the added flexibility to customize test plans and test suite artifacts.  Full details here.

Enjoy!