Visual Studio Blog
The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team
Latest posts
Feedback Opportunity: Command Complexity in Visual Studio
By Sam Zaiss Update: We're happy to set anyone up with the new reduced toolbar set, whether you are in the US or not. Unfortunately the rule about the Microsoft gratuity is strict, but if you're willing, we'd still love to get your feedback. Please send mail to VSToolbarFeedback@microsoft.com if you're interested. Update 2: Thanks everyone for your interest! The formal survey is now full, and the gratuities have all been claimed. However, we're still happy to share the reduced toolbars with any interested customer. Please contact VSToolbarFeedback@microsoft.com if you're interested in checking it out; we ca...
TechEd 2011: Visual Studio vNext Sneak Preview
In case you missed it, last week at TechEd 2011 in Atlanta, GA, I gave conference attendees a first look at some of the new IDE features and performance improvements we’re working on for the next version of Visual Studio. Channel9 has posted the session (along with all the other TechEd sessions) so everyone else can now watch the presentations and demos. Take a look, and let us know what you think!Microsoft Visual Studio IDE Futures - https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/DEV326There were also a number of other Visual Studio and language sessions that might interest you: ...
New Channel 9 Series: Visual Studio Toolbox
The debut episode of the Visual Studio Toolbox, a new Channel 9 series focused on Visual Studio tips and tricks, is now live! In the first episode, Robert Green walks through the features of the Solution Navigator tool window included in the Productivity Power Tools, showing you how to efficiently navigate your code. Check it out and let him know what you’d like to see in future episodes! Visual Studio Toolbox: Productivity Power Tools Part 1 (17 min)
Using PerfWatson to report performance issues to Microsoft
By Selma IkizWould you like Visual Studio 2010 to be even faster? Would you like any performance issue you see to be reported automatically without any hassle? Well now you can, with the new Visual Studio PerfWatson extension! Install this extension and help us deliver a faster Visual Studio experience.We’re constantly working to improve the performance of Visual Studio and take feedback about it very seriously. Our investigations into these issues have found that there are a variety of scenarios where a long running task can cause the UI thread to hang or become unresponsive. Visual Studio PerfWatson...
Async CTP (SP1 Refresh)
By Robin Reynolds-Haertle This morning, we released an updated version of the Visual Studio Async CTP (SP1 Refresh) that’s compatible with Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and Windows Phone 7! What Is the Visual Studio Async CTP (SP1 Refresh)? The Async CTP previews a language feature that is in the next version of Visual Basic and C#. By using this feature, you can call into asynchronous APIs without having to split your code across multiple methods or lambda expressions. No more callbacks! This is all thanks to the new await and async keywords that enable you to write asynchronous methods that can pause execution w...
List of patches for Visual Studio 2010
“Where can I find a list of patches/QFEs/hotfixes for Visual Studio?” This question appears quite frequently in blog comments and it wasn’t until recently that I found a web page that lists all the publically released patches for Visual Studio. http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/DownloadsThe majority of the patches fixed before December should be in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 – you don’t need to install them again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a list of the patches that were included in the service pack. We’ll work on fixing that for future releases.&nb...
F# Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4.1
By Jack Hu As the word “code-first” implies, the EF 4.1 offers a code centric data programming paradigm. From a coder’s point of view, it requires little effort to map a very clean object model to a database. This style of programming is idea for explorative, bottom-up kind fsharp programmers. Since EF 4 CTP4 release, there have already been many buzzes. The following two blogs have in-depth EF 4.1 feature overview. In this blog, I demonstrate how to use EF 4.1 Code-first in Fsharp 2.0 to save a record into a SQL CE. I also provide workarounds for several practical issues may block fsharp program...
Quick Find extension in the Productivity Power Tools
We’re pleased to announce a new Quick Find (Ctrl+F) extension in the February release of the Productivity Power Tools. This is the first version of the Quick Find extension and we are planning to make some improvements to it in future Power Tools releases, but this blog post describes the reasons for the extension, its functionality, where we’re planning to take it in future versions, and how to send us feedback. Why make a Find extension? Find is a feature that is used day in and day out by the vast majority of developers, and yet the built-in Find dialog leaves something to be desired. In fact, Find is the ...
Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Now Available
As of this week, Visual Studio 2010 SP1 is now available for download! The service pack was released to MSDN subscribers on March 8 and became generally available on March 10. SP1 includes fixes that improve reliability and address the most commonly-reported customer bugs. It also adds some of the most requested feature improvements, including a new local help viewer, IntelliTrace support in more scenarios, and built-in Silverlight 4 tooling. For more information, check out the following blog posts and links: Enjoy! The Visual Studio Professional Team