The document provides an overview of Visual Studio 2008. It discusses the different editions of Visual Studio including Express, Standard, Professional, and Team System editions. It also describes Visual Studio extensions and extensibility options, new features in Service Pack 1, resources for learning Visual Studio like code samples and videos, and tips for using Visual Studio like the task list, bookmarks, and error list.

1. Visual Studio 2008
Overview
By Roman Okolovich

2. Overview
 What is Visual Studio? The Microsoft
Visual Studio development system is a
suite of development tools designed to aid
software developers — whether they are
novices or seasoned professionals — face
complex challenges and create innovative
solutions. Visual Studio's role is to improve
the process of development and make the
work of achieving breakthroughs easier
and more satisfying.
 ―An Overview of Microsoft Visual Studio
2008 White Paper‖ – see attached
document on right side

3. Visual Studio Editions
 Visual Studio Express Edition
 Visual Basic 2008 Express with SP1, Visual C# 2008 Express with SP1, Visual C++ 2008 Express with
SP1, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express with SP1
 SQL Server 2008 Express
 SQL Server Compact Edition
 They are free
 Visual Studio Standard Edition
 Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition provides a full-featured development environment for Windows
and Web developers. It’s a perfect fit for individual developers.
 Visual Studio Professional Edition
 Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition was engineered to support development projects that target
the Web (including ASP.NET AJAX), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, The 2007 Microsoft
Office system, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Mobile devices.
 Visual Studio Team System
 Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 is an integrated Application Life-cycle Management (ALM)
solution comprising tools, processes, and guidance to help everyone on the team improve their skills
and work more effectively together. Visual Studio Team System enables members of your team to:
 Collaborate and communicate more effectively with other team members and business stakeholders.
 Ensure software quality using advanced quality tools at every step of the application life cycle.
 Gain visibility into project activity and priorities to make informed decisions based on real-time data.
 Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison

4. Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX)
 Use the Visual Studio SDK to create extensions for the Visual Studio platform
including the Visual Studio 2008 Shell.
 Visual Studio Shell
 Enables developers to rapidly create and distribute their own custom tools by building on
a streamlined Visual Studio IDE; does not include languages and compilers.
 The Visual Studio Shell is freely available as part of the Visual Studio SDK. Visual Studio
Shell is royalty-free for building and deploying applications.
 AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is an open-source development tool aimed to bring the Visual
Studio experience to building World of Warcraft add-ons.
 Visual Studio Tools for Applications
 Enables ISVs and enterprises to embed a streamlined IDE into their applications,
accelerating customization development by end users, resellers, system integrators, and
internal teams. Includes support for Visual Basic and Visual C# along with other tools for
application customization.
 Visual Studio Tools for Applications must be licensed for redistribution with applications.
The VSTA SDK provides one copy of VSTA for evaluation, development, and test
purposes only.
 Microsoft offers licensees per-seat and royalty-based licensing options.
 Home Page
 Visual Studio Gallery: Products & Extensions for Visual Studio
 Learn Visual Studio Extensibility

5. Visual Studio Service Pack 1
 Improved WPF designers
 SQL Server 2008 support
 ADO.NET Entity Designer
 Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007
style ‘Ribbon’)
 This update to the MFC library enables developers to build modern user interfaces with support for the
Office 2007 Ribbon Bar, Office-style menus, Visual Studio-style docking toolbars, tabbed documents
and much more. All of the components included in the update will run on Windows 2000 and above.
 BCGSoft Co Ltd announced that Microsoft Corporation has integrated BCGControlBar Professional
Edition technology in the next version of the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) library.
 Ribbons
 Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) addresses customer feedback
on version control usability and performance, email integration with work item tracking and
full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
 Richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment
improvements
 New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
 Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 release notes and a list of fixed issues

6. Visual C++ 2008 Poster
 Link: Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster

7. CodePlex
 CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web
site. Start a new project, join an existing one, or
download software created by the community.
 Microsoft does not control, review, revise, endorse or
distribute the third party projects on this site. Microsoft is
hosting the CodePlex site solely as a web storage site
as a service to the developer community.
 More About CodePlex...
 CodePlex Homepage

8. "How Do I" Videos
 On this page you will find dozens of videos designed for all Visual Studio
Developers, from the novice to the professional, to highlight some of the
great new features available in Visual Studio 2008 to help you and your
organization experience productivity breakthroughs, create outstanding
user experiences, and collaborate across the development life-cycle.
 How Do I: Create and Modify a Cascading Style Sheet in Visual Studio
2008?
 How Do I: Use JavaScript IntelliSense in Visual Studio 2008?
 How Do I: Learn About the Integrated Development Environment in Visual
Studio 2008?
 How Do I: Create a Rich Client Application with MFC?
 How Do I: Read and Write Selected Text from a Visual Studio 2008 Source
Code Window?
 etc…
 "How Do I?" Videos for Team System

9. Channel 9
 Channel 9 is all about the conversation. Channel 9 should inspire
Microsoft and our customers to talk in an honest and human voice.
Channel 9 is not a marketing tool, not a PR tool, not a lead generation
tool.
 Be a human being. Channel 9 is a place for us to be ourselves, to share
who we are, and for us to learn who our customers are.
 Marketing has no place on Channel 9. When we spend money on
Channel 9 the goal is to surprise and delight, not to promote or preach.
 Lynne Hill: Parallel Computing Platform - The Vision and Future
 Cogwheel: Building World of Warcraft Addons
 QuakeLight Preview
 Expert to Expert: Natural Language and Computational Linguistics

10. Visual Studio Tip of the Day by Sara Ford
 Sara Ford is Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) on the Visual Studio Core
team. She have been on the team for 4 years, since joining Microsoft.
 When I grow up, I want to be a Test Lead.
 Did you know… How to change the default templates that appear in the New
Project Dialog? - #342
 Did you know… What unchecking the display an explorer window on the Export
Templates Wizard does? - #341
 Did you know… You can view the build order for the solution? - #334
 Did you know… How to change the build order for your solution? - #333
 Did you know… You can use the New Project Dialog to add a new project to a
solution? - #330
 Did you know... You can add $exception to the Watch window to see the caught
exception - #318
 Did you know... What's the difference between the Autos window and the Locals
window? - #316
 etc…

11. Visual Studio Tips: Task List
 The Task List helps to create and manage a list of programming tasks. In the Task List window, you can do
the following:
 Create User Tasks, which are notes about work to be done.
 Display Task Comments that link to lines in your code where work must be done.
 Display custom Categories of task messages.
 Comments in code begin with the comment mark preferred by your development language. If you insert a
token string (TODO, UNDONE, HACK, or a custom token string) after the comment mark, a shortcut to
the comment will appear in the Task List.

12. Visual Studio Tips: Bookmarks
 The Bookmarks window is a handy companion tool to the Code Editor. You can mark lines in your code
files with bookmarks and then organize these bookmarks into virtual folders. This enables you to open files
and navigate directly to the lines marked simply by clicking entries in the Bookmarks window.
 Bookmark displays the name of the bookmark. Default names are created as Bookmarkn where n is a number. You can
create custom bookmark names by right-clicking on the bookmark entry and selecting Rename from the context menu.
 Each bookmark has its own check box. To activate an existing bookmark, select its check box in the Bookmarks
window. To hide (but not remove) an existing bookmark, clear its check box in the Bookmarks window.

13. Visual Studio Tips: Error List
 The Error List helps you speed application development. In the Error List window, you can:
 Display the Errors, Warnings, and Messages produced as you edit and compile code.
 Find syntax errors noted by IntelliSense.
 Find deployment errors, certain Static Analysis errors, and errors detected while applying Enterprise
Template policies.
 Double-click any error message entry to open the file where the problem occurs, and move to the error
location.
 Filter which entries are displayed, and which columns of information appear for each entry.

14. Visual Studio Tips: Tabs
 Tab size
 Sets the distance in spaces between tab stops. The default is four spaces.
 Indent size
 Sets the size in spaces of an automatic indentation. The default is four spaces. Tab characters, space characters, or both will be inserted to fill
the specified size.
 Insert spaces
 When selected, indent operations insert only space characters, not TAB characters. If the Indent size is set to 5, for example, then five space
characters are inserted whenever you press the TAB key or the Increase Indent button on the Formatting toolbar.
 Keep tabs
 When selected, indent operations insert as many TAB characters as possible. Each TAB character fills the number of spaces specified in Tab
size. If the Indent size is not an even multiple of the Tab size, space characters are added to fill in the difference.