Found the MSDN newsletter in my mailbox this morning. First topic that caught my eye: Visual Studio 11 Dev Preview! Another one? Indeed!!! So here is some more information on the new kid on the block.

 

What's New in Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview

Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview Training Kit

 

.NET Framework 4.5 Developer Preview

On Hosam Kamel’s blog there is an interesting post on a tool that helps you finding your way in an SLN-file (Visual Studio Solution file).

 

“Tools for SLN File” is a tool that makes it easier for developers to compare, merge or filter the Solution (.Sln) Files generated by Visual Studio. (source)

Benefits and Features

Using the SLNTools provides the following advantages:

• - Make it easier to compare SLN files versus a 'generic' file comparer. For more information on the compare function see SLNTools Compare.
• - Make it easier to merge SLN files versus a 'generic' file merger. For more information on the merge function see SLNTools Merge.
• - Make it possible to create filters for a SLN file. The way it work is that when the filter file is opened, a temporary solution is created dynamically. The created solution file contain only the projects that are specified in the filter, and all the dependencies of those projects. This make it possible to have a mega-solution that contain all the projects needed to build the complete system but still have the possibility to work efficiently on a subset of the system. As you might know, Visual Studio is a lot faster when you have a solution with 10-20 projects instead of one with 200+ projects (opening the solution, building, etc). For more information on the filter function see SLNTools Filter.

 

For downloading the tools or viewing the full article, please visit the original blog post.

Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 ( Web Installer)

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (ISO – 1.5GB!)

 

SQL Server 2008

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (for x86, x64 and IA64)

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (for x86, x64 and IA64)

SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 3 (for x86, x64 and IA64)

 

Microsoft Office 2007

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1 – SP1 Language Pack

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 – SP2 Language Pack
The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 3 – SP3 Language Pack

There are a bunch of new SDL resources available on the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle page. For every step in the software development process (Requirements, Design, Implementation, Verification, Release) there are tools and/or training videos available. For a video giving an overview of the SDL tools, click here.

 

Source

 

Requirements

Templates:

- SDL Process Template for Visual Studio Team System 2008

- MSF-Agile + SDL Process Template for Visual Studio Team System 2010

- MSF-Agile + SDL Process Template for Visual Studio Team System 2008

 

Videos:

 

• Introduction to the SDL Process Template for VSTS
• How to set up the SDL Process Template
• How to improve your check-in process
• How to change default work items
• How to use the SDL Process Template documentation and reporting

 

Design

 

SDL Threat Modeling Tool

 

For more information on the treat modeling tool, click here.

 

Implementation

 

FxCop 

 

FxCop analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. For more information, click here. Watch the video here.

 

Anti-Cross Site Scripting Library

 

This is specifically designed to help mitigate the potential of Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks in web-based applications. Watch the video here.

 

Microsoft Code Analysis Tool .NET

 

CAT.NET is a binary code analysis tool that helps identify common variants of certain prevailing vulnerabilities that can give rise to common attack vectors such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), SQL Injection, and XPath Injection. Watch the video here.

 

 

Verification

BinScope Binary Analyzer

 

BinScope Binary Analyzer is a verification tool that analyzes binaries to ensure that they have been built in compliance with the SDL requirements and recommendations. Watch the video here.

 

SDL MiniFuzz File Fuzzer

 

MiniFuzz is a basic testing tool designed to help detect code flaws that may expose security vulnerabilities in file-handling code. Watch the video here.

 

AppVerifier

 

Application Verifier is a runtime verification tool for native code that assists in finding subtle programming errors that can be difficult to identify with normal application testing. For more information, click here.

 

SDL Regex Fuzzer

 

SDL Regex Fuzzer is a verification tool to help test regular expressions for potential denial of service vulnerabilities. Watch the video here.

 

Attack Surface Analyzer Beta

 

Attack Surface Analyzer is a tool that highlights the changes in system state, runtime parameters and securable objects on the Windows operating system.

 

 

Release

The release resources are the same templates and videos as the ones in the Requirements section.

The first post I did about this was the announcement of it's beta release. The final version has been available for a while now, so here we go :)

 

What is Visual Studio LightSwitch?

Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch is a simplified self-service development tool that enables you to build business applications quickly and easily for the desktop and cloud. What can your business do with LightSwitch? Watch this brief introduction to find out.

 

Links & resources:

Visual Studio LightSwitch page
MSDN LightSwitch Development Center
Visual Studio LightSwitch Technical White Paper Series

 

LightSwitch videos:

 

Overview with Jason Zander
Build Custom Business Apps. Coding Optional.

Introductory videos

Creating Your First Business Application
Data, Queries and Code in LightSwitch 2011
Controlling Access to Your Business Application
Publishing Your LightSwitch Application

Advanced videos

Understanding the LightSwitch Architecture
Deploying Your Application to the Cloud
Advanced LightSwitch Customization
Advanced LightSwitch Extensions

Extension videos

DevExpress LightSwitch Extensions
Infragistics LightSwitch Extensions
RSSBus LightSwitch Extensions

Recently I’ve been working on a project with a friend of mine. One of the things we were playing with was Team Foundation Server 2010. So we set it up and I connected to it using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Collaborating was not an issue. Sharing documents, using source control,… everything worked fine. Now I wanted to work on some of my ideas. I wanted to start a new project in Visual Studio, but the only option that was available to me was the “Start new team project” issue:

 

 

When clicking here, I got the following error (which is ok since my rights on that TFS server have been revoked):

 

The weird thing here is that I have a fully working version of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate installed, but I only get the Team Explorer functionality. You can verify this by checking the installed components of Visual Studio in the “About”-window (Help –> About Microsoft Visual Studio).

 

To get back to the “normal” mode in Visual Studio (meaning: being able to create new projects and working with VS2010 normally) you need to reset your preferences by doing Tools > Import/Export settings > Import. Here you can choose to reset everything or to import a certain configuration. I chose to import a predefined configuration without backing up my current configuration (wasn’t much use to me anyhow):

 

 

I selected the Visual C# Development Settings and pressed “Next”. There I chose to reset all settings and clicked the “Finish” button:

 

 

Now that my configuration settings have been restored, I have the regular view in my Visual Studio and I can create projects again!

 

Here are some resources that might be useful when working with (or learning) Team Foundation Server 2010.

 

Team Foundation Installation Guide for Visual Studio 2010

Description:
Team Foundation Installation Guide 2010 includes instruction for installing Team Foundation Server, Team Foundation Server Proxy and Team Foundation Build Services.

Note: After you download the installation guide, you cannot view its contents unless you right-click the .chm file, click Properties, and then click Unblock.

 

Download

 

Administration Guide for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server

Description: Effective administration of Team Foundation Server is important to the success of your team projects. You can use this downloadable version of the administration content available on MSDN for local review of critical administration concepts, procedures, and walkthroughs.

Download

 

Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Monitoring Management Pack

Description: The Team Foundation Server 2010 Monitoring Management Pack provides both proactive and reactive monitoring of Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010. It monitors TFS components such as application tier server instances, team project collections, build servers, and proxy servers.

Download

 

Team Foundation Server Integration Tools (March 2011 Release)

Description: The TFS Integration Tools is a project developed by the Team Foundation Server (TFS) product group and the Visual Studio ALM Rangers to integrate Team Foundation Server with third party systems for migration and synchronization of data.  Although the tools can be used for many purposes, planning, thorough testing and honest evaluation of extra resources and cost that will be required should precede any decision to use the Integration Tools.  The Integration Tools are not intended to replace a server upgrade as a path to TFS2010 and this scenario should be avoided if possible.

The March 2011 release includes the following features:

• Out of the box adapter to Team Foundation Server 2010
• Out of the box adapter to Team Foundation Server 2008
• Out of the box adapter to Rational ClearCase
• Out of the box adapter to Rational ClearQuest
• Out of the box adapter for File system based version control migrations
• Updated documentation, guidance and case studies (readiness package)
• Updated User Interface to configure and run integrations
• Synchronization monitoring tools and reports

Download

 

Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Branching guide

Description: The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around branching and merging with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. The new release focuses on Hands on Labs and includes lots of lessons learnt from the community Q&A.

Download

 

Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server Requirements Management

Description: This Ranger solution addresses the People, Process, and Technology guidance for Requirements Engineering (RE) using Team Foundation Server. The goal of this guidance is to provide formalized Microsoft field experience in the form of recommended procedures and processes, Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server configurations, and skill development references for the Requirements Engineering discipline of your application lifecycle.

Download

 

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere 2010

Description: Eclipse plug-in and cross-platform command-line client for Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server.

Download

 

Team Foundation Server Power Tools (March 2011)

Description: A plug-in to Visual Studio, Alerts Explorer provides a graphical user interface that supports flexible subscription of alerts based on check-in, work item change, or build completion.

Download

The Visual Studio 2010 SP1 is available for download here (Web Installer). The service pack is also available as ISO image (1.49GB)

 

From the download site:

 

This download installs Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1). This service pack release addresses issues that were found through a combination of customer and partner feedback, as well as internal testing. These service packs offer Visual Studio users improvements in responsiveness and stability, as well as completes some high-impact scenarios requested by customers. The full list of updates included in this service pack can be found here.

A new list of free e-books on Microsoft technologies has been released on the Microsoft Press blog. Below is the list of available books (including sample code if available).

Programming Windows Phone 7 (Charles Petzold) PDF - Sample Code C# - Sample Code VB.NET
Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner) XPS - PDF
Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions, From the Desktop to the Datacenter (Mitch Tulloch) XPS - PDF
Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 (Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker with the Windows Server Team at Microsoft) XPS - PDF
First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (Katherine Murray) XPS - PDF
Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance (Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, Jerry Honeycutt, Ed Wilson,...)  PDF
Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines) XPS - PDF - Sample Code

 

(original post)

In both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 there is a bug when you try to use the WCF Service Configuration Editor. The editor should be reachable through the Tools-menu or by right clicking a configuration file (web.config / app.config). This appears to be a known bug. It’s not blocking, but it’s easier to access the editor directly from the configuration file (then the file is immediately loaded in the editor). 

When you just started Visual Studio, and right-click a configuration file, the editor is not visible as an option:

 

 

 

Now open the editor from the tools menu (Tools –> WCF Service Configuration Editor):

 

 

Now the editor will open. You can close it immediately and go back to the configuration file. When you right-click it now, you will see that the option to open the editor is available:

 

Another MSDN-flash newsletter was send out covering various topics such as Windows Phone 7, PDC10, MVVM Light Toolkit for Silverlight and WPF and much more. If you want to subscribe to the MSDN-Flash newsletter (and all other available Microsoft newsletters), you can do so at the Profile Center.

 

 

Now, about the e-book:

 

The book is called “Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010”, written by Ken Haines, Pascal Paré and Patrice Pelland. For more information about the authors, please check the original post on the Microsoft Press Blog. The book is divided in three parts: part I for developers moving from VS2003, Part II is for developers moving from VS2005 and part III is for developers moving from VS2008. You can provide feedback by filling out the survey on the Microsoft Learning site.

 

 

 

Download the book: PDF (18.2MB) / XPS (30.5MB)
Download the sample code

Introducing the newest member of the Visual Studio family:

 

Visual Studio LightSwitch is a new tool aimed at building data-driven applications, like an inventory system or a basic customer relationship management system incredibly easy.
LightSwitch automatically generates the user interface in Silverlight for a data source and, with no code, you can create, read, update and delete data.

 

Resources:

- Visual Studio LightSwitch Development Center

- Visual Studio LightSwitch Forums

- Jay Schmelzer: Introducing Visual Studio LightSwitch (Channel 9 video)

- Jason Zanders blog

- Beth Massi “How do I” videos

- Download Visual Studio LightSwitch

I opened my mailbox this morning and found the new Oracle for .NET Developers newsletter in my mailbox.

 

Oracle has just released new versions of Oracle Developers Tools for Visual Studio, ODP.NET, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, and .NET stored procedure support for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.

Downloads: 32-bit / 64-bit

 

Resources:

 

- Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio on MSDN

- List of new features

- Data sheet (PDF)

 

Download the trials:

 

- Visual Studio 2010 Professional Trial (ISO – 2.16GB)

- Visual Studio 2010 Premium Trial (ISO – 2.24GB)

- Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Trial (ISO – 2.25 GB)

- Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 Trial (ISO – 408 MB)

- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Trial (ISO – 1,56GB)

 

These trials last for 90 days. After the first 30 days you must register your trial version to obtain a free key so you can use it the additional 60 days.

 

For release notes, list of new features and improvements, I refer to Scott Guthrie's blog and Scott Hanselman's blog.

This is an overview of the express editions (which can be downloaded and are free) of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2:

 

 

- Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition

- Visual C# 2008 Express Edition

- Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition

- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition

- All - Offline Install ISO image file

- MSDN Express Library

 

 

 

- SQL Server 2008 Express Web Installation (SQL Server + Management tools)
- SQL Server 2008 Express with tools

- SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services
- SQL Server 2008 Express Management Studio

- SQL Server 2008 Express Service Pack 1

 

 

• - Visual Web Developer 2010 Express Beta 2 
• - Visual Basic 2010 Express Beta 2
• - Visual C# 2010 Express Beta 2 
• - Visual C++ 2010 Express Beta 2

- All - Offline Install ISO image file

- Visual Studio 2010 Express Product Feature Chart

When I was running unit tests on Visual Studio 2008, the entire test-run fails and in the “Test Run Errors and Warnings”-section I found the following error:

Code coverage instrumentation warning while processing file Project.exe: 
Code coverage collection error: The Visual Studio performance and coverage logging engine is already running on the computer. Therefore, the test run cannot continue. Close the pending performance or code coverage session and then rerun the tests.

Restarting Visual Studio didn’t help, so I checked the Task Manager. There I found VSPerfMon which is the tool used by Visual Studio to collect performance data for the application. Kill this process and the tests will run again.

For more information on using VSPerfMon separately from Visual Studio (using command line), click here.