According to a white paper provided by the company, "developers will be able to build a mobile device client application that works [even] in a partially connected environment. The application will be able to send and receive data from a server, even if the device disconnects or roams."
New features for developers, according to
a post on the Windows Mobile Team Blog, include:
- 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.
- NET Compact Framework 3.5, introducing new features such as LINQ and as 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
Mobile developers need to use Visual Studio 2008 Professional Beta 2 and above to build Windows Mobile applications, according to the blog post. Those who already have the
Windows Mobile 6 SDK or SDK Refresh installed will need to reinstall it after they're done with installing Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2.
Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 supports the following platforms:
- .NET Compact Framework 3.5
- .NET Compact Framework 2.0
- .NET Compact Framework 1.0 (projects will be upgraded to 2.0)
- Windows Mobile 6 (by installing the Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh)
- Windows Mobile 5.0
- Pocket PC 2003 (managed and native code)
- Smartphone 2003 (native code only)
- Windows CE 6.0
- Windows CE 5.0
Seven different disk images are available from the
Visual Studio 2008 download page:
- Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Express Editions
- Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Standard Edition
- Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 Professional Edition
- Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite
- Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Foundation Server
- Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Test Load Agent
- MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2
Microsoft has also made Virtual PC images available that include preinstalled versions of the software. Users of this beta software would be well-advised to run it in one of these virtual machines, or at least avoid installing on a production machine, the company says.
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