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Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, .Net 4 generally available as of April 12

By | April 12, 2010, 4:41am PDT

It’s launch day for Visual Studio 2010, and Microsoft is making Visual Studio 2010 and .Net 4 generally available for purchase as of today, April 12.

(Update: It looks like MSDN subscribers will be able to get the final bits as of 1 p.m. ET today, according to a tweet from Softie Scott Hanselman.)

Microsoft’s latest tool suite is available in four versions: Professional, Premium, Ultimate and Test Professional. Microsoft announced in October last year it would sweeten the deal for some of these versions by including subscriptions to the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) as part of the price.

Microsoft is positioning Visual Studio 2010 as its tool platform to support Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Azure, SQL Server, Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. The suite includes new drag and drop bindings for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation; interoperability with the ASP.Net model view controller (MVC), better multicore support and UML support.

Microsoft is touting .Net 4 as being 81 percent smaller than its predecessors, making it quicker and easier to download and install. .Net 4 adds support for the Microsoft Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), giving programmers more language choices; and is more suited for parallel-programming, workflow-centric and service-oriented application development, according to the company.

Microsoft is offering an add in for its Windows Azure Tools platform that allows developers who want to use Visual Studio 2008 and/or Visual Studio 2010 to develop and maintain applications running on Microsoft’s cloud platform.

Microsoft has been beta testing Visual Studio 2010 since May 2009. The company pushed out the final launch date from March 2010 to April 2010, adding one final Release Candidate, to improve the suite’s performance and reduce its size.

Microsoft is set to launch Silverlight 4 on April 13 and is expected to make the final Silverlight 4 bits available this week, as well.

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Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Corp., Tool, .Net 4, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Development Tools, Development Tools, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

Disclosure

Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

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Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)

  • Sweet
    Been waiting for a couple of weeks to get my next project started since I was so close to the 2010 release. Looks like I can get it installed tonight and start working by tomorrow morning.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    crazydanr@...
    12th Apr 2010
  • When will the final version of Express be available?
    I can't wait to get rid of VC# 2k8 Express to free up my disk space and install the 2010 version.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Grayson Peddie
    12th Apr 2010
  • Express is available.
    http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-All
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Q360
    12th Apr 2010
  • RE: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, .Net 4 generally available as of April 12
    test
    ZDNet Gravatar
    julieboston
    12th Apr 2010
  • RE: .Net 4
    When is M$ going to come up with a single version of the .net framework? We're getting tired of dealing with the various versions and updates. Have one, make it backward compatible and make our lives easier....please!!!!!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kagnewrick@...
    12th Apr 2010
  • uh?
    and stop the improvements? no thanks
    ZDNet Gravatar
    keoz
    12th Apr 2010
  • Backwards compatible?
    Why should they do this? They ensure that the newer frameworks install side by side with the older frameworks.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    mikefarinha
    12th Apr 2010
  • what is your problem with progression?
    We can install newer version side by side with older version.

    Do you think the Linux movement should stop with current kernel, Java development should stop at the current Java Engine, or Apple should stop with current Snow Leopard and iPhone 4.0?

    Haven't you ever seen having multiple copies of same version of Java runtime running on your machine if you have servers installed on the same machine from different vendors. This is much better than that.

    --Ram--
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Rama.NET
    12th Apr 2010
  • Well...decided to try out Express...
    And I'm right where I was when I tried to give
    it a
    shot back in 05/06. If they made the .Net
    install
    smaller then good grief....because it took
    forever to
    download and install on my machine. Then it
    required a
    reboot. Next the Express edition did something
    for a
    while and required a reboot. Now after the
    reboot its
    been installing for about the past 30 mins
    and....nothing.

    I don't know about others and all the FUD the
    spread
    but when I switched to Linux I learned to expect
    everything to just install and run. I say I had
    to
    LEARN that because I previously learned exactly
    what
    I'm getting out of Windows right this
    instant....something that doesn't work.

    Update: Its been about an hours since I started
    and it finally finished. I was hoping that it
    had actually hung more than it just taking THAT
    long to install. Thats just ridiculous.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    12th Apr 2010
  • Not par for the course
    The full install of Pro completed for me in 23 minutes with 1 reboot. Ans that was in a virtual machine, with 7 as the host and Server 2008 as the guest.

    Express edition is not what I would call a slim piece of software, but your experience would lead me to believe you are on some seriously old hardware or there is something very wrong with your system.

    Just so you know - what you're experiencing is not normal... at all.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    crazydanr@...
    12th Apr 2010
  • I'd hope not....
    ....although a 23 minute install is STILL
    ridiculous to me being used to Java IDE's.

    The hardware is not terribly old. It was a brand
    new workstation in 2008. Its running XP so maybe
    that could be a problem.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    storm14k
    13th Apr 2010
  • If you're running XP ...
    1) WHY? wink

    2) Chances are that several patches and updates had to be applied in order to install correctly on XP. That would slow down the install considerably.

    FWIW C# Express 2010 just installed on my 4-year-old PC running Win7 in less than 14 minutes.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
    13th Apr 2010
  • .NET 4.0 81% smaller?
    81% smaller? I doubt it. I bet it is actually 19%
    smaller, being 81% of the size of previous versions.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    stickman393
    13th Apr 2010
  • RE: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, .Net 4 generally available as of April 12
    When i pay out a head to to some weblog, odds are that I see which the building is insufficient and so the writting lousy. About your blog,I've to say that you have attained an efficient career correct right he mulberry bags re.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812
    10th Oct

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