Microsoft lets slip Visual Studio 2008 Microsoft on Monday gave developers early access to the next version of its Windows development tools and framework, for the first time tying in both Windows Vista and the upcoming Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. The company has released to manufacturing code for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, while …
I'm scared of just how much of a behemoth it's likely to be. VS 2005 was horrific enough (try service packing it with 1 gig of ram and less than 4 gig on C and see what I mean). I'm thinking without 2 gig and dual core it's going to be pointless even trying to install 2008..oh, and, say, 12 gig of free disk space?
There's 2 ways to download it. The normal way, using the FTM and navigating through the tree-view in the subscriber downloads. Currently only the full Team Suite edition is available that way - they're staggering the availability of the editions using this method.
The other method is to use the 'Top Downloads' section on the MSDN page which includes every edition of Visual Studio 2008, including the MSDN Library and Team Foundation Server etc. This uses the Akamai Download Manager (remember to enable pop-ups!). Bit weird results with IE7 and Vista (check C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Temporary Internet Files\Virtualized\C\Users\<user>\Documents\Download for the actual place it gets downloaded to). Worked better with Firefox on Vista.
I prefer the FTM method as it seems far more reliable, however the Akamai version gives far better and consistent download speeds.
So far, since lunch Monday, I've downloaded VS2008 Team Suite (x3), VS2008 Team Foundation Server, VS2008 Pro, VS2008 Express Editions, and VS2008 MSDN Library. So it's definitely working.
Glad they shipped this month - my free Team Suite subscription runs out on the 31st - hence the manic downloading!
VS2008 isn't really aimed at Vista specifically. Yes, you can now easily do WPF apps (which are really just .Net 3.0, available on XP for over a year) - but you can also target .Net framework 2.0, so exactly the same platforms VS2005 can target. There's lots of new features which are available to all .Net versions, not just 3.0/3.5 etc. And the best thing - that you can chose which .Net version you target - which means VS2005 can be ditched completely, working in VS2008 for 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 projects.
We don't target Vista at all for the stuff we do, but we're upgrading simply because of the new features available across the board.
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