New on Microsoft downloads this week is the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 training kit.

It contains 151 MB of techie goodness such as demos, labs, presentations and videos.

If you want, you can even turn it into a 3-day workshop as the included agenda suggests:

Day 1

Lap Around Visual Studio 2010

PPT: What's New In Visual Studio 2010

Lap Around .NET Framework 4

PPT: Whats New In .NET Framework 4

Managed Languages Overview (C#/VB)

PPT: What's New In C# 4 and Visual Basic 10

Entity Framework 4

PPT: Whats New In Entity Framework 4

ADO.NET Data Services 1.5

PPT: Whats New In ADONET Data Services 1.5

Velocity

PPT: Introduction to Project "Velocity"

Silverlight 3

PPT: Not included in the kit

Day 2

ASP.NET 4

PPT: Whats New In ASP.NET Web Forms 4

AJAX 4

PPT: Whats New In ASP.NET AJAX 4

Web Deployment with Visual Studio 2010

PPT: Web Deployment with Visual Studio 2010

Windows Presentation Foundation 4

PPT: What's New in Windows Presentation Foundation 4

.NET RIA Services

PPT: Introduction to .NET RIA Services

Managed Extensibility Framework

PPT: Introduction to the Managed Extensibility Framework

Day 3

WF/WCF 4

PPT: Workflow 4: A First Look

Parallel Computing with Visual Studio 2010

PPT: Parallel Computing with Visual Studio 2010

Parallel Computing for Managed Developers

PPT: Parallel Computing for Managed Developers

Visual Studio Team System 2010

These are short modules that can be picked based on the interest of the audience.

PPT: Introduction: Visual Studio Team System 2010

PPT: No More Planning Black Box

PPT: No More Late Surprises

PPT: No More Stakeholder Surprises

PPT: No More Parallel Development Pain

PPT: No More Bewildering Admin

PPT: No More No Repro

Visual Studio Team System 2010

PPT: No More Build Breaks

PPT: No More Butterfly Effect

PPT: No More UI Regressions

PPT: No More Missed Requirements or Changes

PPT: No More Waiting for Build Setup

PPT: No More Performance Regressions

VSTS Rangers are a team of very active MVPs and other experts, such as Inner Circle partners, that are dedicated to improve the ease of use and adoption of Visual Studio Team System. Willy-Peter frequently blogs about the projects these guys are working and their progress.

Recently they released Quick Reference Guidance for Visual Studio 2010 on codeplex, which I think is very valuable. Go check it out:

http://vs2010quickref.codeplex.com/

“The Visual Studio 2010 Quick Reference Guidance consists of compact cheat sheets for Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 and Visual Studio (VS) 2010, addressing the core problem of teams in the field who are unaware of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server capabilities or have little time to invest in detailed education.
The artifacts include an overview document and poster that allows you to quickly focus on individual areas like testing, by providing crisp and compact guidance sheets and quick reference posters. You can take these to your 5-min coffee break discussions or use them as a stepping stone to the more detailed and in-depth guidance you will find on MSDN.
The download package consist of three ZIP files containing a number of quick reference posters and quick reference sheets in XML Paper Specification (XPS) format:

• An overview of the guidance and focus areas, contained in one index table and overview quick reference poster.
• A collection of basic guidance sheets, focusing on the “what” are the key features and “why” to consider them.
• A set of documents and quick reference posters, supporting the basic guidance sheets.”

This is one of my start pages: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/resultsForCategory.aspx?nr=50&sortOrder=Descending&sortCriteria=Date&period=30&stype=ss_nd&sterm=All+Categories 

It is a great start of the day as it prompts you all new downloads at MS Downloads. As you can see in the listing below, the Visual Studio team have updated the VSTS 2008 VMs. On top of that you can also get the 2010 Beta 2 version in a ready to go VM.  Pretty cool, right? Brian Keller posted about the latter and he also provides an easy way to download the GBs and how to get the hands-on-labs. So if you have some time to burn this week, check them out.

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 for Windows Virtual PC Image

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate simplifies solution development, lowering risk and increasing return. The virtual machine image in this download contains both Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 and is designed to be run under Windows Virtual PC.

12/24/2009
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 Hyper-V Image

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate simplifies solution development, lowering risk and increasing return. The virtual machine image in this download contains both Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 and the requisite trial software. Designed to be run from Microsoft® Hyper-V

12/24/2009
Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Virtual PC SP1 Image

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate simplifies solution development, lowering risk and increasing return. The virtual machine image in this download contains both Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 and the requisite trial software. Designed to be run from Microsoft® Virtual PC 2007 SP1.

12/24/2009
Visual Studio® Team System 2008 VSTS Hyper-V Image (Trial)

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is the next-generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web.

12/23/2009
Visual Studio® Team System 2008 VSTS VPC Image (Trial)

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is the next-generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web.

12/23/2009
Visual Studio® Team System 2008 TFS SP1 VPC Image (Trial)

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 is an integrated collaboration server for Visual Studio Team System.

12/23/2009
Visual Studio® Team System 2008 TFS Hyper-V Image (Trial)

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server is an integrated collaboration server for Visual Studio Team System.

12/23/2009

How time flies! Last year I presented Modelling in VSTS Rosario with demos in CTP12. Since then Microsoft have moved on: The product is now called Visual Studio Team System 2010 and we are at Beta2 already.

For the past few weeks I have used my rare spare time to get to know the Beta2 release. I already liked Beta1 a lot and this is even better. Sure there is room for improvement, which you can express here, but I can advise both VS as well as TFS to anyone for production use.

My session is called “New in VSTS2010” and there is much more content such as Surface development, ASP.NET security and ADO.NET Entity Framework. If you want to get the guided tour around VSTS2010 make sure to attend Codecamp in Rotterdam on November 21st.

Hogeschool Rotterdam
Locatie Academieplein 
G.J. de Jonghweg 4 - 6
3015 GG Rotterdam

For years Teamprise have provided integration between Eclipse and Team Foundation Server. Teamprise also works on mainframes.

The collaboration continues: At the European Eclipse conference Microsoft announced improved support for Eclipse and the Windows world. In short Eclipse will get better interop support for Windows 7, Windows Azure, Silverlight and others like ADO.NET Data Services.

“Microsoft teams with Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec on open source projects designed to foster interoperability and make Eclipse a first-class tool on the Microsoft platform.”

Source: Partnering to foster Eclipse and Microsoft platform interoperability

Press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/oct09/10-28eclipsepr.mspx

By now you must have heard about the new Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 release. There are plenty of blogs and videos that demonstrate the great functionality of both Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. As of today it is available for everyone to download.

I was most curious about the TFS Basic configuration which gives you TFS version control and build on your local machine. The installation went pretty smooth: I used my sysprepped copy of Windows Server 2008 R2 and installed TFS Basic without additions. So the good thing is that you do not have to think about installing and configuring IIS or SQL Server (Express); the TFS Basic installation takes care of that. The installation is a breeze and only takes minutes and a reboot.

One error message I encountered when clicking the links in the installation summary was:

Server Error in '/tfs/web' Application.

Configuration Error

Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified. (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Access\Web\web.config line 123)
Source Error:

Line 121:

Line 122:    <httpModules>

Line 123:      <add name="ScriptModule" type="System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>

Line 124:      <add name="TSWAAuthentication" type="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WebAccess.TSWAAuthenticationModule"/>

Line 125:    </httpModules>

Source File: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Access\Web\web.config    Line: 123

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.4927; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.4927

It turns out that the although the installation runs smooth, you do have to install .NET Framework 3.5 additionally.

… and the end of Visual SourceSafe. Brian Harry blogged about this recently. His post explains the early days of SourceSafe and the idea of bringing easy version control to developers. In the 3rd generation of Visual Studio Team System this concept returns in the form of TFS Basic. It is Team Foundation Server without components such as Windows Sharepoint Services and SQL Reporting Services but it does provide functionality for version control, builds and simple work items. The installation is supposed to be just 2 Gb and takes 20 minutes to complete. You can even install it on your laptop if you are doing a disconnected development project solo where you want to use version control. And if your TFS Basic is to be used by the entire organization, you can simply “reconfigure” the instance and make it a full-blown Team Foundation Server.

All of this will be publicly available in TFS 2010 Beta2, which is just around the corner. And since Beta2 can go-live you can actually have this functionality in the real world very soon.

Check out Brian’s post for more information.

If you are doing a Team Foundation Implementation or if you are running one, make sure you have these guides to make your life easier:

Installation guide – How to install TFS (in single or dual server setup), TFS build, TFS proxy and team explorer.

Administration guide - Administration concepts, procedures, and walkthroughs.

Operations guidance – When you realize that your ALM solution is business critical

TFS Guide - All about using your TFS and getting the most out of it

My first public appearance about Visual Studio Team System was with Dennis Mulder in June 2005. After a few more years of community exposure I received the MVP Team System reward, which I consider a great honor.

Back then the presentation was about source control in VSTS 2005. It is great to see the progress in VSTS 2008 that the discussion is now way beyond version control. And the story continues as the eminent VSTS 2010 Beta2 release will prove.

It is going to be a very promising year for VSTS. And it feels great to be a part of it.

PS: You can see my fellow MVPs here.