Visual Studio "Orcas" September CTP Virtual PC Download

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - September Community Technology Preview (CTP)

"Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" delivers on Microsoft’s vision of smart client applications by enabling developers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality rich user experiences. This new version enables any size organization to rapidly create more secure, manageable & reliable applications that take advantage of Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. By building these new types of applications, organizations will find it easier than ever before to capture and analyze information so that they can make effective business decisions.
This download is the September 2006 Community Technology Preview of Microsoft Visual Studio Code-Named “Orcas”.

Note: This CTP is available only as a Virtual PC image. You will need Virtual PC or Virtual Server to run this image. Depending on your hardware the download files make take between 30-60 minutes to decompress.

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The highlights of this CTP include:

• Improvements on the widely acclaimed Visual Studio 2005 product set
• Significant investments in improving product quality
• LINQ to Objects API
• LINQ to Objects API supports queries over any .NET collection, such as arrays and Generic Lists. This API is defined in the System.Query namespaces inside System.Core.dll. Click here for more details about LINQ.
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• NET Framework improvements such as:
• New managed add-in model enables developers to add a version-resilient extensibility model to their products.
• Support for time zone conversion, enumeration and serialization, including cases where Daylight Saving Time rules change over time.
• ...
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It's only a 3.6GB compressed download, so of course I'm getting it now...  ;)

I'm a little torn about this. On one side I'm happy to see VS improve and am excited about the new features, but on the other I'm upset that VS 2005 still isn't "done" and we've had to wait so long (with months yet to go) for SP1. Yeah, yeah, I know it's a huge product, and everyone has limited resources, yada, yada, yada. Still... Any Battlefield 2 fans out there? How do you feel about 2142 coming out soon? While BF2 is still, well, um... yeah. Kind of the same thing, IMHO.

And OMG, let's not talk about VS2003 on Vista...  :|

LOL, but then again, we bitch that MS doesn't move fast enough and there's too long a period between major versions of their products. Those poor guys and gals just can't win... lol

In any case, with VS Orcas probably 9-12 months from release (that's just my WAG.. Wild Ass Guess) I think it's worth checking out and playing with a little, especially since it's been provided as a VPC image. This was a smart move MS...