Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 continues Microsoft's investment in market-leading development tools and platform. Service Pack 1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customer and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. Overall, Service Pack 1 offers customers many new features and improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5.

Overview

With Service Pack 1, Visual Studio 2008 introduces a large assortment of new features for targeting Windows, Office, and the Web. Developers building .NET-based applications will enjoy improved performance in the WPF designer, new components for Visual Basic and Visual C++, as well as an MFC-based Office 2007 Ribbon. Web developers will see continued improvement in the client-side script tooling including JavaScript IntelliSense. Additionally, full support for SQL Server 2008, the ADO.NET Entity Framework and performance improvements for the IDE make Service Pack 1 a great release across the board.

Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 includes:

• Improved designers for building WPF applications
• Full support for SQL Server 2008
• The introduction of the ADO.NET Entity Designer
• Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style 'Ribbon')
• Improvements to Team Foundation Server to respond to customer feedback on version control usability and performance, improved e-mail integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
• Improvements for Web development including richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment

The .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 includes:

• Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications - without having to change any code
• WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
• Streamlined installation experience for client applications
• Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and support for SQL Server 2008's new features.

Instructions

1. Click the Download button on above pages to start the download
2. To save the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save.
3. To cancel the installation, click Cancel.