The Visual C++ team is excited to announce the release of Visual Studio 2005 SP1!!!  The Service pack launched on Friday December 15, 2006 and is available for download here: VS2005SP1   This SP addresses issues that were found through a combination of customers and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. There are over 400 Visual C++ bugs that have been fixed with issues ranging in severity from minor syntax highlighting problems to customer reported crashes across various scenarios. In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product Feedback Center and Microsoft Connect. Overall, Service Pack 1 offers customers improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance for Visual Studio 2005.

Service Pack 1 also provides over 70 improvements for common development scenarios including:

• New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling

• Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server

• Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007

• Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition

• Additional support for project file based Web applications

• Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support

For developers using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, Microsoft is in current development on an update to Service Pack 1 called the ‘Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta’. This update builds on the improvements made in SP1 and delivers a first class experience for developers wanting to take advantages of the new features in Windows Vista. The Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista is expected to ship after the consumer availability of Windows Vista in Q1 of 2007 and is now available in beta.