From the site:
Visual Studio code name “Orcas” delivers on Microsoft’s
vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create
connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences.
This new version enables any size organization to rapidly create more secure,
manageable, and more reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista
and the 2007 Office System. By building these new types of applications,
organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information
so that they can make effective business decisions.
This download is the March 2007 Community Technology Preview of Microsoft
Visual Studio Code-Named “Orcas”. This CTP is available in English only.
Note: This CTP is available as a Virtual
PC image or as a self-extracting install. If you wish to use the Virtual PC
image you will need Virtual PC or Virtual Server to run this image. If you wish
to use the self extracting install, we advise that you do not install this on a
production machine. Depending on your hardware the download files make take
between 30-60 minutes to decompress.
This CTP targets early adopters of the Microsoft technology, platform, and
tools offerings. It enables developers to experience the upcoming toolset and
underlying platform improvements. We designed this release to enable developers
to try out new technology and product changes, but not to build production
systems. This limitation is fully covered in the EULA that accompanies this
CTP.
The highlights of this CTP include:
- LINQ
The LINQ Project: this CTP represents a major milestone in the LINQ
project. For more information about LINQ click here.
- VB 9.0 Language
Support: This CTP contains the following language features: - Query Expressions:
Basic querying, filtering, and ordering support - Object Initializers
- Extension Methods
- Local Variable Type
Inference - Anonymous Types
- XML literals
- XML properties
- New Line and
Expression IntelliSense - C# 3.0 Language
Support: This CTP implements all of the C#3.0 language features from the
May LINQ CTP including: - Query Expressions
- Object and Collection
Initializers - Extension Methods
- Local Variable Type
Inference and Anonymous Types - Lambdas bound to
Delegates and Expression trees - Complete design-time
support: Intellisense, Formatting, Colorization - LINQ to ADO.NET
- ADO.NET is fully
integrated with LINQ and offers many options for using LINQ in various
scenarios: LINQ to SQL provides direct access to database tables from
the programming environment, LINQ to Entities enables developers to use
LINQ over EDM models, and LINQ to DataSet allows the full expressivity
of LINQ to be used over DataSets. - LINQ to Entities
enables developers to program against a relational database using a view
of the data that is appropriate for the application they are building,
independent of the structure of the underlying database. The use of the
Entity Data Model (EDM) enables developers to design models that follow
the concepts built into the application, instead of having to map them
to constructs available in relational stores. LINQ to Entities is built
on the ADO.NET Provider model and will support working against different
back end relational stores in addition to Microsoft SQL Server. This CTP
includes a LINQ to Entities provider for SQL Server and SQL Server
Compact Edition. - LINQ to SQL (previous
name DLinq) has enhanced the functionality from the May 2006 LINQ CTP.
You can find it in System.Data.Linq namespace in System.Data.Linq.dll.
New in this release is that DataContext provides optimized modes for
read-only use and serialization . Also new is that DataShape streamlines
eager loading capabilities and adds the ability to set queries on
relationships - LINQ To SQL Designer
- Methods can be created
from stored procedures and functions within the designer. - Better handling of
database schemas. - Improved inheritance
support in the designer. - LINQ over XML (XLinq)
- System.Xml Bridge
Classes added – There is a set of extension methods allowing XPath /
XSLT to be used over LINQ to XML trees, allow XSLT transformations to
produce an LINQ to XML tree, and to validate an XElement tree against an
XML Schema. - Event Model - This
allows LINQ to XML trees to be efficiently synchronized with a GUI, e.g.
a Windows Presentation Foundation application - Class hierarchy
changes - XObject class added, XStreamingElement class (temporarily)
removed - Various
understandability / usability improvements – There have been a number of
relatively minor changes done in response to internal reviews, usability
studies, and external feedback to make the API more clean and
consistent. - LINQ to Objects API
- The LINQ to Objects
API supports queries over any .NET collection, such as arrays and
Generic Lists. This API is defined in the System.Linq namespaces inside
System.Core.dll.
- ADO.NET
- Extended, more powerful
data APIs with the ADO.NET Entity Framework - With the ADO.NET
Entity Framework developers will be able to model the view of the data
that is appropriate for each one of the applications they are building,
independently of the structure of the data in the underlying database.
The use of the Entity Data Model (EDM) enables developers to design
models that follow the concepts built into the application, instead of
having to map them to constructs available in relational stores. Once
the model is in place, the powerful ADO.NET Entity Framework API is used
to access and manipulate the data as .NET classes or as rows and
columns, whatever is appropriate for each application. - Added paging and stored
procedures for update (“update customization”) for ADO.NET Entity
Framework: - Paging: the paging
support in the ADO.NET Entity Framework allows developers to “page” over
data in a database by indicating the start row and number of rows to be
included in the result. Paging is available through Entity SQL (using
the LIMIT AND SKIP keywords) and through the query-builder methods in
the ObjectQuery <T> class (Top and Skip). In a future CTP the
feature will also be enabled to be used in LINQ queries by means of the
standard Take and Skip LINQ operators. - Stored-procedures for
update customization: the Entity Framework by default automatically
generates SQL statements for insert, update and delete operations when
processing changes to entities in memory to be sent to the database.
With the stored-procedures update customization feature developers have
the option to override the automatic SQL generation and instead provide
stored-procedures that will perform the insert, update and delete
operations, which the system will call during entity change processing.
Among other things, this enables scenarios where direct access to tables
is restricted in the database and the only way to make changes to the
data is through stored-procedures. - Microsoft
Synchronization Services for ADO.NET - Provides an
application programming interface (API) to synchronize data between data
services and a local store. The Synchronization Services API is modeled
after the ADO.NET data access APIs and gives you an intuitive way to
synchronize data. It makes building applications for occasionally
connected environments a logical extension of building applications
where you can depend on a consistent network connection. For details
please visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=80742
.
- Web
- Improvements for web
development in this CTP include: - New ASP.NET WebForms
design-surface with advanced XHTML and CSS features - JScript intellisense
for ASP.NET AJAX and browser DOM - Multi-targetting for
.NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 in websites and web applications - LINQ to SQL designer
integration in websites and web applications
- Client App-Level Services
- Enable client
application developers to use the same user profile and login services as
your Web applications. This enables customers to utilize on set of
backend storage for user personalization and authentication regardless of
the applications type.
- C# Workflow Rules
- Workflow Rules allows
users to enter rules (and conditions) in a code-like manner - Support the use of the
new C# Extension methods features in their rules - Enable operator
overloading and the new operators in their rules
- XML
- XML Tools: XSLT
Debugger - Enables Input Data
Breakpoints allowing the user to break the execution of the style-sheet
whenever a certain node in input document is hit. - XML Editor Performance
Improvements - Performance in the Xml
Editor for Intellisense, schema validation etc is improved by
implementing incremental parsing of the XML Document. - Seamless transition
between XML Editor and XSD Designer - Improves the
experience a user has when working with an XML Schema in textual and
graphical mode at the same time.
- MSBuild
- Parallel/Multi-Processor
Builds - Building multiple
projects in parallel, as much as possible based on the use of dependency
information in projects to parallelize - Allowing the
developer/builder to control the parallelism by providing them the
ability to specify the number of processors to use for build.
- UAC Manifests in the Managed Build Process
- Support for manifests
that are embedded into the final executable via the Build process.
- IDE
- Windows Presentation
Foundation (WPF) Designer (“Cider”) & Application Tools to deliver
the ability to: - Create, edit, build,
run and debug WPF projects - Use the WPF Designer
to: - Preview any XAML in
the designer including user defined controls and types - Design Windows, Pages
and UserControls - Do basic layout tasks
in a Grid - Do basic property
editing using the new property browser - Easily understand and
navigate “document structure” using the Document Outli - See changes in the
designer immediately in the XAML - Use the XAML Editor
to: - Edit XAML with
intellisense - See changes in the
XAML immediately in the designer - Build design time for
WPF controls - UAC manifests in the
IDE for Windows Vista applications - Enable developers on
Windows Vista to easily include the UAC manifest as an embedded
resource.
- CLR
- Add IRI support (RFC
3987) to URI related classes - This allows resource
identifiers to be specified using a character set that supports all
languages. - New Async model on
Socket class - A new Async model is
reduces the per I/O overhead compared to the current I/O model - Peer Networking Classes
- Delivers a set of
peer-to-peer network APIs that allow a developer to easily extend an
application with compelling collaboration functionality. - WMI.NET Provider
Extension 2.0 - WMI.NET Provider
Extension 2.0 simplifies and enhances the development of WMI providers
in the .Net framework to enable the management of the .NET applications
while minimizing the impact on the development time. - Delivers equivalent
access to WMI features and functions available to native code
providers. - Exposes property
updates and methods to managed code. - Improved scalability
for large collections of WMI entities.
- Office
- Enable ClickOnce deployment
for Microsoft Office applications - Developers now have an
easy to use and version resilient security model for their applications
that will exist for future versions of Visual Studio and Office. With
full support for ClickOnce deployment of all Office 2007 customizations
and applications, developers and administrators now have the right tools
and framework for easy deployment and maintenance of their Office
solutions.
- Team Architect
- Top-down service design
- Top-down system design
allows an application architect/lead developer to perform the design of
a business solution without having to be confronted with technology
decisions. It enables the user to progressively refine a high-level
system design, designing new sub-systems and applications in the context
of the system in which they are to be used. - Architectural Roles on
System, Applications and Endpoints - Enables an architect,
while working on the high-level design of a system’s architecture using
the System Designer, to introduce elements into the design that play a
specific pre-defined architectural role(s) within architectural
patterns.
- Team Developer
- Profiler Support for
WCF Applications - Enable profiling of
WCF based applications to improve application performance - Customize and extend
code correctness policies - Code Analysis Check-in
Policy improvements to communicate to a developer why the check-in
policy failed and to provide guidance on how to pass the policy
requirements. - Customize and extend
code correctness policies - Code Analysis Check-in
Policy improvements to communicate to a developer why the check-in
policy failed and to provide guidance on how to pass the policy
requirements. - Performance tune an
enterprise application - Enables developers to
run profiling during load and test procedures for a system, to see how
it behaves, and use integrated tools to profile, debug and tune. This
also enables performance base-lining, so that users can save a baseline
profile and then, if the performance degrades, compare up-to-date traces
to identify the source of the regression
- Team Test
- Unit Test Generation
Improvements - Improvements to unit
test generation provide an easy way for the user to specify what methods
to test, and generate test methods and helper code to do unit testing,
as well as providing unit test support for generics. - Web Test Validation
Rule Improvements - Web Test rules
improvements enable testers to create more comprehensive validation
rules for the application being tested. These improvements include the
following functions: - Stop test on error
- Search request and
response - Add validation rule
for title - Redirect validation
- Provide test level
validation rules - Expected HTTP code
- Warning level for
errors on dependents - Better Web Test Data
Binding - This feature allows
users to data bind .CSV and XML files, as well as databases to a web
test, using a simple databinding wizard. - Improved Load Test
Results Management - With this feature user
can open or remove an existing load test result from the load test
repository. User can also import and export load test results files.
- Team Foundation Server
- Team Build
- Support multi-threaded
builds with the new MSBuild. - Continuous Integration
– There are many components to this, including build queuing and queue management,
drop management (so that users can set policies for when builds should
be automatically deleted), and build triggers that allows configuration
of exactly how when CI builds should be triggered, for example – every
checkin, rolling build (completion of one build starts the next), etc. - Improved ability to
specify what source, versions of source, etc to include in a build. - Improved ability to
manage multiple build machines. - Simplified ability to
specify what tests get run as part of a build - Version Control support
- Destroy- The version
control destroy operation provides administrators with the ability to
remove files and folders from the version control system. The destroyed
files and folders cannot be recovered once they are destroyed. Destroy
allows administrators to achieve SQL server disk space usage goals
without constantly needing to add more disks to the data tier machine.
Destroy also facilitates removing versioned file contents that must be
permanently removed from the system for any other reason. - Annotate - Annotate is
a feature that allows developers to inspect a source code file and see
at line-by-line level of detail who last changed each section of code.
It brings together changeset data with difference technology to enable
developers to quickly learn change history inside a source file. - Folder Diff - Team
Foundation Server now supports compare operations on folders, whereby
the contents of the folder are recursively compared to identify files
that differ. Folder diff can compare local folders to local folders,
local folders to server folders, and server folders to server folders.
It’s a great way of identifying differences between branches, files that
you’ve changed locally, and files that have changed between two points
in time. - Get Latest on Checkout
- As an optional setting on a team project or on an individual basis,
you can have Team Foundation Server always download the latest version
of a file when you check it out. This helps ensure that you don’t have
to merge your changes with somebody else’s when you check the file back
in. - Performance and Scale
- This release includes
numerous improvements in performance and scalability of Team Foundation
Server.
- Visual C++
- Easily add the Windows
Vista “Look and Feel” to native C++ applications - Developers can use
Visual Studio to build ISV applications that exhibit the Windows Vista
“look & feel”. A number of the Windows Vista “look & feel”
features are available simply by recompiling an MFC application. Deeper
integration that requires more coding or design work on the part of the
developer is also simplified with Visual Studio’s integrated support for
the Windows Vista native APIs.
Existing CTPs: As Visual Studio code name “Orcas” CTPs are released on a predefined cadence, existing CTPs (such as the LINQ May 2006 CTP) may not yet have been integrated into a given “Orcas” CTP release (This should not be taken as a change in commitment to any existing technology that has been made available as a CTP but instead is just a real world example of how large applications, with many technology areas, are built. We will be integrating this existing functionality into future CTP builds.
Developers using a VPC image can run the CTP on a machine without impacting any existing software installations. The CTP can be removed by deleting the folder and using the Virtual PC application to remove the configuration information.
This image ships with networking set to “local”. This setting enables the virtual machine to think it is connected to a network without actually connecting and exposing the machine to the Internet. We recommend that customers do not modify the networking settings. Customers who wish to turn networking “on” to connect the image to a physical network are advised that they will need to ensure the security of the virtual machine as well as apply any security updates that may have become available since the release of this image.
