Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Colin Angus Mackay — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:23:06 GMT

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is here and can be downloaded. Details of the downloads are here, and information on what SP1 brings is here. The big items for me are the Entity Framework and the performance improvements in LINQ.

However, before you go rushing off to install SP1 there are some caveats. If you've been running the beta Martin Hinshelwood has some advice and has also run in to problems running the Team Foundation Server SP1 install too.

Once you've installed the Service Pack you might want to download the Enhancements Training Kit in order to learn what's new.

Finally, if you have Visual Studio 2008 Standard edition or above (not including trials) you can download the IconWorkshop Lite from Axialsis.

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio,sp1,vs2008,Visual Studio 2008,Team Foundation Server

SQL Server / Visual Studio Install Order

Colin Angus Mackay — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:02:10 GMT

Yesterday I paved my laptop in order to upgrade to Windows Vista. I've now started to reinstall everything from scratch again. However, one thing that didn't work out was the installation of SQL Server 2005. No matter what I tried I could not seem to get it to install the SQL Server Management Studio - somehow it was convinced that it already existed. I eventually figured out why.

I'd installed Visual Studio 2008 first, and as part of that installation it installed SQL Server 2005 Express edition. The express edition does not come with SQL Server Management Studio. When I went to install SQL Server 2005 it refused to install the management studio saying that more up-to-date versions of the tools were already available on the machine. (Well, I suppose some of them were, at least the ones installed by Visual Studio 2008's installer). Running the Service Pack 2 upgrade did not help either. It concluded that the client tools were not valid as part of the upgrade and refused to install them.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that it would be quicker, given my recent wiping of my laptop to just start afresh again and install things in the correct order. I suppose I was lucky to have that option. I am also lucky that I don't activate Windows until I'm sure everything is installed correctly - after all I do have 30 days to activate Windows. I'd hate to have lost an activation of Windows because of a dodgy install.

So what is the installation order I've now used that works:

Windows Vista SP1
Windows Update (my install required 33 updates)
SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2005 SP2
Visual Studio 2008

Technorati Tags: sql server,sql server 2005,visual studio,visual studio 2008,windows,vista,windows vista,sql server 2005 express,sql server express,installation,install

What's New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1

Colin Angus Mackay — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:18:26 GMT

Finally, Microsoft have a date for an event in Scotland. It is on 16th of October in their new offices in Waverley Gate, Edinburgh. Here are the details:

[Register for the event here]

16 October 2008 13:30 - 16:15
Welcome Time: 13:00

Microsoft Scotland
Waverley Gate
2-4 Waterloo Place
Edinburgh EH1 3EG

Event Overview

Timings
13.00 for 13.30 Registration

13.30 - 14.45 Session 1

14.45 - 15.00 break

15.00 -16.15 Session 2

16.15 close

Overview:

“Service Pack? We’re calling it a Service Pack? Are you kidding??!?!”

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 will release later in 2008 alongside .NET Framework V3.5 Service Pack 1 and, together, they represent a significant upgrade to Visual Studio 2008. There are enhancements across many areas of the .NET Framework such as data access, windows application development and web development and there are also corresponding changes in the development environment to support the new framework features.

Session 1: What’s New for Web & Windows Development?

Here we’ll explore the changes to web and windows development with Service Pack 1. In the web space, we’ll take a look at the new controls added to ASP.NET for easy playback of media and Silverlight content and we’ll take a good look at the new Dynamic Data framework for quick “scaffolding” of a web site. In the Windows world, we’ll look at the new capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation V3.5 Sp1 and the new, smaller, subset of the .NET Framework in the .NET Client Profile that makes deployment of WPF applications much easier.

Session 2: What’s New for Data?

The ADO.NET team have been busy for Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio 2008. There are two major new pieces of functionality – the ADO.NET Entity Framework provides a level of abstraction over your data store with a LINQ-enabled, object-relational-mapping API. The other new piece of functionality, ADO.NET Data Services easily exposes arbitrary data over a RESTful set of web services. In this session, we’ll explore both to give you an idea of what’s happening in data access. We’ll also make a brief mention of the changes around SQL Server 2008 data types and tooling.

Speaker Biogragphy:

Mike Taulty

Mike Taulty, Microsoft: Mike has been in the team since 2003 and is currently looking at technologies such as Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1, Silverlight V2 and SQL Server 2008. Before joining the Community team, Mike worked in Microsoft's Services group as a developer consultant focused on helping ISVs and Enterprises develop their applications. Prior to joining Microsoft, Mike spent the previous nine years working as a software developer for a number of different software houses, end-users and consultancies, making use of various operating systems, databases and what used to be called 'middleware’.

Read Mike's blog

Eric Nelson

After many years of developing on UNIX/RDBMS (and being able to get mortgages) Eric joined Microsoft in 1996 as a Technical Evangelist (and stopped being able to get mortgages due to his new 'unusual job title' in the words of his bank manager). He has spent most of his time working with ISVs to help them architect solutions which make use of the latest Microsoft technologies - from the beta of ASP 1.0 through to ASP.NET, from MTS to WCF/WF and from the beta of SQL Server 6.5 through to SQL Server 2008. Along the way he has met lots of smart and fun developers - and been completely stumped by many of their questions!

In July 2008 he switched role from an Application Architect to a Developer Evangelist in the Developer and Platform Group. Currently Eric’s interests include digging into LINQ to Entities, ADO.NET Data Services and switching from C# to Visual Basic development.

At home, he battles rat infestations, comes second to the family dog and uses any spare moments he has after 10pm to team up and play online with and against friends - keep an eye out for 'erknel' and say 'hi'

Read Eric’s blog

[Register for the event here]

Technorati Tags: msdn,microsoft,visual studio,sp1,software development

Tip of the Day #2 - (Debugging into the .NET source code)

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:17:28 GMT

Today's tip is that you can configure Visual Studio to step-into the .NET Framework.

Here's some background: A while ago Scott Guthrie announced that the source code to the .NET Framework was now available. And Shawn Burke detailed how to actually configure Visual Studio 2008 to debug into the .NET Framework.

Event: LINQ to XML - Everything but the kitchen sinq

Colin Angus Mackay — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:10:18 GMT

I'll be speaking at the Scottish Developers event in Glasgow on the 10th June 2008 at the Continuing Professional Development Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University.

I've be giving an introduction to the new XML classes in .NET 3.5, how they work and what can be done with them. After the break I'll then show how the new XML classes can be used in LINQ (Language INtegrated Query) in order to get data out in the way that you want.

If you want to know more about the event and to sign up please use this link: http://www.scottishdevelopers.com/modules/extcal/event.php?event=61

Technorati Tags: c#,linq,xml,linq to xml,scottish developers

Cool switch snippet

Colin Angus Mackay — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:22:35 GMT

I was watching one of the MSDN Screencasts today and Mike Taulty put in a switch statement that pre-populated itself with valid values for each of the case statements within the switch. I hadn't seen this before so I investigated further (in other words, I emailed Mike and asked him what he did). It turns out this is a feature that has been in since Visual Studio 2005 and I'd only just noticed.

Essentially, if you are switching on an enumerator the snippet will expand with all the case statements created for you as you can see by the animation below. To access this, follow these steps

Type "switch", the intellisense will show the word "switch" with the torn document icon, indicating it is a snippet.
Press the tab key twice to expand the snippet, this will also highlight the text "switch_on".
Change the "switch_on" text to the name of the variable on which you want to switch.
Press return twice, this will further expand the switch statement filling in all the cases from the enumerator.

For an example, see the animation below:

Technorati Tags: switch,snippet,visual studio

Scottish Developers Event Newsletter

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:57:48 GMT

As some of you may have been aware, Microsoft recently formally launched Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 in their Heroes Happen Here launch event in Birmingham. Well, if you didn’t make it to Birmingham don’t worry about it because we are doing our own community launch in Glasgow. I’m currently getting all the updates from DHL about the progress of the swag (prizes) as it makes its way from Redmond. So there will be lots of giveaways on the night, so if you want a chance of winning some free software then let us know you’re coming. It is the usual venue at Glasgow Caledonian University, but we’re starting a little bit earlier than normal and we’re on a Thursday.

Also, if you have not registered as a delegate for Developer Day Scotland, now is your chance. The delegate registration is now open. There are three tracks in total for this day long event with some excellent presentations lined up.

Visual Studio 2008 Community Launch

Thursday April 3^rd in Glasgow starting at 18:30

Speaker: Mike Ormond

In this session we will explore what’s new for web developers in Visual Studio 2008. Demos will include the new HTML designer, CSS enhancements, improvements when working with scripting and the three new ASP.NET 3.5 data controls. We may even throw a bit of AJAX in there, just for fun!

Scottish SQL Server User Group

Wednesday 23^rd April in Edinburgh starting at 18:30

Speakers: Alistair Board & Satya SK Jayanty

Alistair will be talking about the 6 W’s of SQLDiag. Satya will be talking about SQL Server 2008 – Declarative Management Framework Concepts & Database Problem Solutions with Policy Management.

Developer Day Scotland

Saturday 10^th May in Glasgow starting at 09:00

This is a three track day long event. 2 Developer! Developer! Developer! tracks and 1 SQLBits track. Delegate registration is open.

Scottish Developers Events Newsletter

Colin Angus Mackay — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:45:02 GMT

I mentioned in my last newsletter that time just seems to get faster. Technology is pulling forward at a relentless pace. Windows 1.0 had an API of just 450 functions. That is an achievable amount to remember for many developers. .NET 3.5 has well over a quarter million members on over 11000 types (classes, structs, enums, etc.). Then there all the third party components and open source frameworks that are available. The key to managing all this without filling your head to the point it explodes is to know where to find the information when it is needed. Just as well that in March we have an evening of Grok talks to give you pointers towards all this information.

But before that we have an event from TechEd and DevWeek speaker Oliver Sturm. He is talking about what WPF can give to business applications. That is something that has always intrigued me. When I first saw WPF I thought it was wonderful and fantastic and colourful and flashy, but what use would it be to me when I write business applications for an insurance company all day? It seems there is a use and Oliver will be explaining it.

Now, I was doing a little checking the other day and I worked out that to see a speaker like Oliver at TechEd it would cost somewhere in the region of €80 for a single presentation (well, that’s the cost if you could see TechEd in such bite sized chunks, but it is an all or nothing proposition and I don’t have a spare €2000 + tax + flights and accommodation). Oliver’s session is a double length presentation (don’t worry there is a comfort break in the middle) so that is €160 worth of information. And how much are we charging for this? Well, at the moment we are charging £25 if you go on to our website, which you have to admit is excellent value for money. But we are running a promotion so you can see this for as little as £10!

Business Applications with WPF – The Full Monty

Edinburgh, 5^th March 2008 @ 127 George Street (Microsoft’s Office)

Lots of demonstrations of WPF show flashy User Interfaces with animations and videos and trickery worthy of a Hollywood production worked over by ILM. Is that what your next business app is going to look like? Probably not. Nevertheless, WPF can do a lot for you, because it's the most powerful and most productive UI platform out there. Full stop. This double session walks you through the whole process of creating a business application with WPF, focusing on how it saves you development time.

Biography

Oliver Sturm is an experienced software architect, developer, trainer and author, with a strong background in various different fields including system and framework architecture and design, process modeling and user interface design. He is a C# MVP and he works for Developer Express as a Technical Evangelist and Lead Program Manager for the Frameworks Division.

http://www.sturmnet.org/blog

Cost: £25 before March 1^st or £30 thereafter or if turning up on the day.

Promotion rate: You can get the promotional rate of £10 if you quote promotion code “SDGW82” when registering for the event. The promotion rate is valid until 23:59 on Friday 29^th February.

For more details visit: http://www.scottishdevelopers.com/modules/extcal/event.php?event=40

The Grok Talks

Glasgow, 11^th March 2008 @ CPD Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University.

A Grok Talk is a short 5 to 15 minute presentation on a specific subject aimed at giving a broad overview to the audience. Or it may be a way to explain a smaller concept that does not require a full length presentation.

For the audience it acts as a taster allowing you get to know a little about a subject you may not already have known much about.

For the speaker it gives a chance to folks who may not have had the opportunity to speak before, or for those that would like to speak but are unsure about it. (If you would like to speak then please get in touch by emailing me at colin@scottishdevelopers.com)

The evening will be a smorgasbord of subjects packaged in to short 5 to 15 minutes talks with lots of interaction as well. The subject area of software development is too large for everyone to know everything, so this is a fantastic taster for learning a little bit about stuff you don't know much about already.

For more detail (and an update on the topics that are going to be covered) please visit:

http://www.scottishdevelopers.com/modules/extcal/event.php?event=47

Visual Studio 2008 Community Launch

Glasgow, 8^th April 2008 @ CPD Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University

The world wide launch of Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will happen on 27^th February. On the 19^th of March in Birmingham the UK launch will take place. And on the 8^th April Scottish Developers will be doing its own launch event.

For more details visit: http://www.scottishdevelopers.com/modules/extcal/event.php?event=48

Developer Day Scotland

Glasgow 10^th May 2008 @ CPD Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University

The session voting is currently open. Please register on the website and help shape the day if you have not already done so. The voting will close on the 8^th March. The delegate registration will open sometime on the week commencing 10^th March.

For more details: http://developerdayscotland.com/main/Default.aspx

Technorati Tags: scottish developers,events,wpf,developer day scotland,grok talks,visual studio 2008

Always show the solution, Dammit!!!

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 20:01:21 GMT

This has got to be the most pointless setting in Visual Studio. I can't imagine why any reasonable person would want to hide the solution. Maybe it is for those "Morts" I keep hearing about who bundle everything into one ~~giant ball of mud~~ project so have no need to know about mundane things such as solutions.

I suppose what gets me most is that I like my right-click. I like to right-click on things and get context sensitive menus. I also normally create a new blank solution then add projects to it. The solution disappear when the number of projects equals one. When there are zero projects the solution shows, but as soon as I add one it disappears so I can't right-click and add another until I sort this setting out. It was the same in Visual Studio 2005, I was hopping they might have changed the default for VS2008, but no - the mob rule of the Morts wins.

Yes, I realise that I can go to the file menu to add a new project from there, but if I'm already focused in the solution explorer, I want to stay there. I don't want to make giant leaps across the screen to do these things. I want everything I need within easy reach.

Technorati Tags: visual studio 2008,visual studio 2005,solution explorer

Contradictory messages

Colin Angus Mackay — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:51:09 GMT

While attempting to create a database project in Visual Studio 2008 against a SQL Server 2008 database I got a rather odd error message. The dialog used to create the project requests information about the SQL Server database. It clearly states "The server version must be 2005 or later". No problem, I thought. So I put in the information about my SQL Server and database in the dialog and tested the connection. So far so good. But as soon as I hit the "Okay" button I got a new message. Apparently, "Only servers up to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 are supported."

Technorati Tags: sql server 2008,visual studio 2008