Both Service Packs were released to manufacturing this morning, announced S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate VP of Microsoft's developer division. In making the announcement, Somasegar commented, "Visual Studio 2008 SP1 concentrates on improving performance and reliability, but in the .NET Framework we went even further, making it easier to develop applications for the latest platforms."


Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 include more informative online help
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Touted new features and capabilities in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 include:

• Full support for SQL Server 2008
  
• The introduction of the ADO.NET entity designer
  
• Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007-style "Ribbon")
  
• Improvements to Team Foundation Server, improved e-mail integration with work item tracking, and full support for hosting on SQL Server 2008
  
• Improvements for Web development, including richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and site deployment

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is said to include:

• Performance increases from 20 to 45 percent for applications based on WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), without having to change any code
  
• WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services
  
• A streamlined installation experience for client applications
  
• Improvements in the ADO.NET entity framework, ADO.NET data services, and support for SQL Server 2008

Microsoft claims that ADO.NET simplifies data access code in applications "by providing an extensible, conceptual model for data from any data source and enabling this model to closely reflect business requirements." Providing a "rich" set of components for creating distributed, data-sharing applications, it is said to provide consistent access to data sources such as SQL Server, as well as data sources exposed through OLE DB and XML.

Visual Studio 2008, first offered in November 2007, supports Windows CE, Windows Mobile, and Windows XP Embedded. Compared to earlier Visual Studio releases, the 2008 product added:

• Automated functional testing of managed code
  
• An enhanced device emulator (version 3.0) that permits simulation of real-world changes in device state, such as signal dropoff or battery running dead
  
• support for NET Compact Framework 3.5
  
• An implementation of the Windows Communication Foundation enabling device to device and device to server communication over the Exchange Activesync transport
  
• The ability to build SQL Server 3.5 Compact Edition applications using the Visual Studio 2008 designer experience

Further information

To read S. Somasegar's blog posting about the releases, go here. To read release notes and download Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, see the Microsoft website, here.

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