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Visual Studio 2008's Greatest Hits

Haven’t Upgraded Yet?

Many developers can’t switch development platforms easily
- Long approval, purchasing, discovery and deployment processes
- Too much money
You might already own it
- MSDN Subscriptions are a good value

Set 1: Simply using Visual Studio 2008 as a “better” Visual Studio 2005 targeting previous frameworks
Set 2: If you can upgrade your app to the 3.5

Multi-targeting (2.0, 3.0, 3.5, Compact Framework, Silverlight)
- Saves disk space, don't need multiple versions of Visual Studio
Simplified installation
- Web application projects built-in
- WPF, WF designers built in
"Feels" faster and less buggy
- Make sure you get the web development hotfix. Also download Team Explorer if you use Team Foundation Server for source control
Much better web designer
- Split view
- Nested master pages
- CSS designers
- Intellisense improvements
Greatly improved Javascript debugging!
Javascript intellisense
Javascript XML Code comments
Unit testing now in professional version
- You also can use NUnit/TestDriven.NET
Code analysis
Enhancements to Team Foundation Server
Continuous integration

.NET 3.5, (like 3.0), is additive
- Still uses same old .NET 2.0 CLR, but adds some new libraries
- Good explanation on Scott Hanselman’s Blog

How much does Visual Studio 2008 it cost?
- If you have an MSDN subscription, you can probably just download from MSDN subscriber site
- Students: Free with DreamSpark program
- Express Free
- Standard $266, Upgrade $180
- Professional $690, Upgrade $486
- Professional with MSDN Prem. $2393
- Professional with MSDN Prof. $1031, Renewal $730
- Team System Dev/Test/Arch/Db Edition $4800, Renewal $2000
- Team System Team Suite $10,000, Renewal $3200
Can part of the team switch?
- Changes solution file format, so be careful.
Can we try it out?
- You can set up a virtual machine using Virtual PC if you want to play without installing on your main machine. Consider using an external hard drive if you want to take it with you
What about Biztalk?
- Unfortunately Biztalk 2006 doesn't work yet with Visual Studio 2008, so you'll need to keep 2005 around for that. A Biztalk release due out this summer will fix this.