Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 – Beta 2 is now available for download on the MSDN subscribers download site. This is a milestone release for Microsoft for several reasons:
- This release (Visual Studio 2010 – Beta 2) is generally considered to be feature complete (barring any loud feedback concerning some missing feature that just can’t be left out)
- It comes with a “Go-Live” license. This means that you can use Visual Studio 2010 and/or Team Foundation Server 2010 to produce production systems and the upgrade to the RTM version will be supported.
- The Visual Studio 2010 SKUs have been modified to (hopefully) reduce confusion – specifically, the confusion between Visual Studio and “Team System”. The moniker “Team System” is no longer used with Visual Studio although the ALM tools are still very much part of Visual Studio. In fact, all of the Visual Studio 2010 SKUs that include and MSDN subscription include a full Team Foundation Server (TFS) license for production use as well as one CAL. This is an exciting change because it makes TFS a much more affordable solution.
The official list of Visual Studio 2010 SKUs include:
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Professional
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Professional with MSDN
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Premium with MSDN
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 Ultimate with MSDN
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® Test Elements 2010 with MSDN
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server 2010
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team Lab Management 2010
- Microsoft® Visual Studio® Load Test Virtual User Pack 2010
The “Express” editions are not included in the above list as they have not changed.
Also, you will be seeing the “Ultimate Offer” promotion from Microsoft that will bump your MSDN subscription up to the next level based on your current MSDN subscription status at the time Visual Studio 2010 is launched (which is scheduled for March 22nd, 2010). So, if you currently have an MSDN subscription, make sure you check out the details of this offer (details in a later post) prior to the launch date.
There are a ton of other details regarding this release that are too numerous to list right now (e.g. new MSDN subscription benefits as well). Expect to see (lots) of posts regarding the changes in Visual Studio 2010 in the near future.
For now, if you are running Visual Studio Team System (2005 or 2008) you may want to download the new beta and try out the new features. In fact, you can even use it for your production development if you like.
If you happen to discover any issues (i.e. bugs) with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, please report them on Microsoft Connect. This is the site where you can search for existing issues, create new issues, and follow them as they move through Microsoft’s development life cycle.
For further information, check out these links: