20 October 2009

Visual Studio 2010 – Links for Getting Started

If you are venturing to try out the latest Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 release then you may be looking for as much information regarding this release as you can.  There is too much information available to condense into a single post so here are a few links to help get you started:

Links & Downloads

  • Visual Studio Home – this is the official Visual Studio home page.  You will be able to view information specific to each SKU, as well as download the latest beta, once the site is updated (hopefully tomorrow).
  • Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 can be downloaded from the MSDN Subscribers download site.  General availability is expected to start on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 on the Microsoft Downloads site.
  • Team Foundation Installation Guide for Visual Studio Team System 2010 – use this link to download the CHM file for the TFS installation guide (beta 1 and 2 guides are currently available).  This guide is also included in the Team Foundation Server 2010 download (in the root folder).
  • Compare the various Visual Studio 2010 SKUs here.

Documentation

If you’re looking for documentation for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, then you can find (hopefully) everything you need on the MSDN site.  Click here for the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 documentation.

Client Compatibility

If you’re going to be running Visual Studio 2010 side-by-side with older clients and/or Team Foundation Servers (e.g. 2005 and/or 2008) then there are some compatibility issues that you will need to take into account.  This blog post covers these in great detail.

Licensing

Along with the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 announcement came details regarding the new SKUs that will be available.  Brian Harry has posted some highlights regarding these changes.  Buck Hodges has also posted a few details here.

Learning More

Here are some links to miscellaneous posts and videos regarding some of the new Visual Studio 2010 features:

BLOGs to Watch

Reporting Bugs

If you happen to discover any issues (i.e. bugs) with Visual Studio, 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.