Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 Launch
Today is the formal launch event for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5, a state-of-the-art development solution for building modern applications that span connected devices and continuous services, from the client to the cloud.
This morning’s launch keynote covers how Visual Studio 2012 takes you into the next era of software development. I opened the discussion with a look at trends in modern app development, followed by Jason Zander diving deeper into building apps, and Brian Harry touring through managing app lifecycle, all using Visual Studio 2012. This content is available live and for subsequent on-demand viewing from https://visualstudiolaunch.com.
In addition, the Visual Studio development team has put together over 60 videos to help you learn about the new Visual Studio 2012 capabilities in more detail, and all of these will be available for watching starting this afternoon. These videos provide a great point of reference across a wide variety of features and capabilities.
Modern Tools for Modern Apps
I’ve been looking forward to today for quite some time. We have a huge line-up of platform releases from Microsoft this year, from Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Windows Server 2012 to Windows Azure to SQL Server to Office 365, all of them enabling you to create or modernize really compelling apps. And Visual Studio 2012 is at the center of this. With our developer tools, we strive to give developers targeting these platforms a streamlined experience for creating apps that excite and exceed the needs of customers, whether with consumer-focused or business-focused apps.
We know the demands on the apps you build and on how you deliver them are constantly evolving with industry trends. With the consumerization of IT, users expect new levels of app richness and interaction, desiring the same experiences for their business apps that they obtain in their consumer apps. Business stakeholders also demand much more agility for IT innovation. The apps themselves reflect this with more and more aspects of user-centricity, social integration, and data-centricity. And as your customers evolve, so too do your apps, requiring you to continuously improve and incorporate innovations faster than ever before, with continuous feedback, continuous quality, and continuous delivery.
Visual Studio 2012 is all about enabling you to build and manage these consumer-focused and business-focused apps. It provides best-in-class tools that propel developers to build new apps or evolve existing ones, and it enables individuals and teams to deliver continuous value, with agility and on their own terms. In conjunction, .NET 4.5 provides expansive capabilities for developers working on all forms of apps and services, from client to mobile to web to cloud, while at the same time enabling fast time to market.
Announcements
Of course, Visual Studio is also about being a platform that enables other developer tools to build upon and integrate with it. In that light, I’m thrilled to announce that today more than 70 Visual Studio partners are sim-shipping over 100 products for Visual Studio 2012. These solutions range from developer extensions and control libraries to extensions of the modern application lifecycle support in Visual Studio. Thank you to all these partners who are extending Visual Studio and customizing it for your needs.
Visual Studio Update: We’re also not standing still with this release, but rather are committed to continuously delivering value to you as part of regular updates to Visual Studio. Our first “VS Update” will better support agile teams, enable continuous quality, elevate SharePoint development with application lifecycle management (ALM) tools, and expand Visual Studio 2012 Windows development capabilities. It will be available as a community technology preview (CTP) later this month and in final release later this calendar year.
Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop: Back in June, I announced we would expand our line-up of Express products. Today, we’re releasing Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop, bringing the newest desktop development capabilities in Visual Studio 2012 to Express users, too. You can read more about this release on the Visual Studio team blog and download the release from here.
F# Tools for Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web: In addition, today we’re also releasing F# Tools for Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web, so that developers using F# can more easily take their apps to the cloud using Express. You can find out more about this release on the F# team blog and download the tools from here.
Thank You
We are committed to maintaining Visual Studio as the best tooling experience for Microsoft platforms and for enabling modern app development, to helping your team to embrace this new era of team development, and to enabling you to have access to the tools you need faster than ever before. We look forward to continuing to evolve Visual Studio to meet your evolving needs.
Thank you again for joining us on this exciting day, and enjoy.
Namaste!
Comments
Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Since this is being released by the end of the year, and Windows XP support is reported to be coming this fall, I assume this is how the Windows XP support will be delivered, but that isn't mentioned in that post. Also, since you've previously reported that these updates will include compiler updates, is there a list of which of the missing C++11 pieces will be included in this release? I would assume that variadic templates would be one of the big ones, since that was mostly implemented a year ago but was pulled from the product because it wasn't quite ready yet.Anonymous
September 12, 2012
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September 12, 2012
When Roslyn will be released ?Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Has any pricing been released for upgrading from VS 2010?Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Thanks Soma, it was really great presentation and great day :-) well done VS team!Anonymous
September 12, 2012
@GregM: Our current thinking is to use the VS Update mechanism for delivering XP support, but I don't have an exact timeframe to share. I also don't have any additional info at present on C++11 language features. @Tristan: We've not announced any ship dates or ship vehicles for Roslyn. @Mike: Pricing information is available on the Microsoft Store at www.microsoftstore.com/.../categoryID.50804600 . Note that the price of Visual Studio Professional was lowered, and it was moved to a single SKU approach where there is no separate upgrade SKU.Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Is this still a blog, or is it just a one-way announcement channel? Your previous posts in this blog have received hundreds of comments about the ridiculous GUI. How about at the very least acknowledging them? Or better, writing an apology about how you have destroyed our favorite IDE? Or even better, fixing these problems in the upcoming service pack?Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Wow!! the VS Express 2012 for Windows Desktop seems really a good release. I will try to download it to-morrow ( it is nearly midnight for me ). I have appeciated to have the 3 main languages (VC#,VB and VC++) in the same application.After the download and some tests, i hope that i will be able to tell you : you have done a tremendous work ( my most sincere wish )Anonymous
September 12, 2012
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September 12, 2012
Thanks Microsoft. Really we are waiting for the New Release......Anonymous
September 12, 2012
Will the update fix the user interface?Anonymous
September 12, 2012
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September 13, 2012
Microsoft Allways Rocks Soma. Waiting for the New Release.... Thank you, Regards, SrigopalAnonymous
September 13, 2012
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September 13, 2012
We really need a complete VS2010 theme which includes the original ICONS, colors, borders, spacing, scroll bars, title menu and respect for the Windows selected theme such as Aero. Theme Editor: visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/366ad100-0003-4c9a-81a8-337d4e7ace05 Proper Case the File Menu: blogs.msdn.com/.../turn-off-the-uppercase-menu-in-visual-studio-2012.aspx Again, we need the original VS2010 ICONS. ICONS, ICONS, ICONS. TomAnonymous
September 13, 2012
@BrienK: Soma announced that the first VS Update would be available this calendar year. Regarding "crashes, weird behavior, features broken," it'd be great if you could file bugs on those through Connect (connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio) to make sure the team is aware of the issues you're facing; the more detail on repros you can provide, the better.Anonymous
September 13, 2012
So WHo Did The gUI dEsiGN ? ThEy SeEM tO HaVe pROBleMs with CASE and GeNERaL gui DeSIgN ? "Innovation" doesn't meaning breaking good features or stable designs for the sole purpose of being "innovative".Anonymous
September 13, 2012
Will the projects used using the launch event be made available?Anonymous
September 13, 2012
correction: used during*Anonymous
September 13, 2012
Thanks Microsoft. Really we are waiting for the New Release......Anonymous
September 14, 2012
VS 2012 is more like a funeral then a celebration. When you post your resignation then that will be reason to celebrate.Anonymous
September 14, 2012
sir, it has nice graphics and enhance features....incredible....thnks/....Anonymous
September 16, 2012
THE Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop automated registration system is not working for IE 9, others have posted this same problem on your other blogs. The software will expire after 30 days. The download website for Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop did not inform the user that this was an evaluation copy only, I usually do not download evaluation copys, but wait for the final release verson. It is very troublesome for me that the software I have downloaded is an evaluation copy! also If I have to uninstall Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop from my computer, I also need the exact uninstall sequence for the other software packages that were automatically installed with Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop. I have tried to uninstall them, but I get warnings that uninstalling some of the products may make other programs unable to function! There are 21 other software items installed along with Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop, for a total of 22 software items, as indicated in the installed programs list on my computer. Some off these programs have dependencies on the other installed programs that were installed, and I do not want to make my system become unstable by uninstalling them in the wrong order! I have made my system unstable in the past by incorrectly uninstalling the software out of order that was installed in earlier versons of Visual studio express! The uninstall script for Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop, did not offer me the option of also uninstalling the other software that was installed along with Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop, hence my request for the exact uninstall sequence of the other software! Please publish the Uninstall instructions for the other software, and inform me via this blog as to where I can obtain these instructions.Anonymous
September 17, 2012
@Michael: Yes, the MyEvents apps from the keynotes are available from code.msdn.microsoft.com/MY-EVENTS-Modern-Sample-9a42abc6 .Anonymous
September 18, 2012
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September 18, 2012
@Asesh: The graphics debugging features in Visual Studio 2012 do not require Windows 8, and do work on Windows 7. Is there a particular problem you're running into? See the "Operating System and SDK Requirements" section of the page at msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh315751.aspx.Anonymous
September 20, 2012
well get some thing newAnonymous
September 20, 2012
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September 20, 2012
niceAnonymous
September 20, 2012
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September 21, 2012
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September 22, 2012
@MY Yeah I agree save your cash. Visual Studio 2012 is like using assembler with an horid interface but assembler was stable. Great Job Microsoft Tools Division!Anonymous
September 24, 2012
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September 24, 2012
When will the GUI get fixed?Anonymous
September 25, 2012
Unrelated to this post, but to whom do I speak with regarding the new color theme for the MSDN and Technet pages (and this blog as well) which use gray text and light blue hyperlinks? I do a lot of reading on these sites and my eyes are really strained due to the lack of contrast. Using black text and the traditional dark blue hyperlinks would make life much more pleasant for me. I can certainly configure my browser to use different colors, but my guess is that if I'm having this difficulty, I'll bet others are as well. So perhaps Microsoft can consider making a slight change on these pages? Thanks in advance.Anonymous
September 25, 2012
@Rob Murray: While I don't know exactly what was said, if Soma said something similar this, I believe what he meant was first targeting the web and browsers, and then targeting a native Windows experience. You can use standards-based HTML5 and JavaScript to write apps for Windows 8; msdn.microsoft.com/.../apps. @ITMAG: Thanks. I've passed along your comments to the folks responsible for those sites.Anonymous
September 25, 2012
The GUI will be fixed when Windows 9 comes out. As Windows 8 is bound for the same fate as vista.Anonymous
September 27, 2012
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September 27, 2012
HOW TO USE VC++Anonymous
September 27, 2012
@LEARNER: What kind of programming are you looking to do? You might start at msdn.microsoft.com/.../zdbe067e.aspx. If you're looking to build an app for Windows 8, you might look at the tutorial at msdn.microsoft.com/.../hh465045.aspx.Anonymous
September 27, 2012
@Paul: You can uninstall Visual Studio 2012.Anonymous
October 02, 2012
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October 02, 2012
Huge eyes-strain user interface with that "gray" interface. While for most app it MAY be important to promote the "data" over the interface, in the business of writing code, the data is the code and that code is not as much important than the TOOLS supporting it, that is, the user interface. Dumbing the interface to gray is NOT the greatest idea that Microsoft ever had.Anonymous
October 03, 2012
Will VS 2012 support smart device development? I have .NET desktop applications and Mobile applications. Currently the mobile applications run on the WIndows CE OS. But the next generation of devices that we are looking at uses Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Currently I am still using VS 2008 because VS 2010 did not support smart device development. It was nice having one development environment for all my applications. But now comes .NET 4 and 4.5 which are not suported in VS 2008. I also have Oracle database applications that use Oracle DataAccess DLLs. Currently we use Oracle Client 10.2.0.2 which suports .NET 2.x. We need to move to Oracle 11 Client to support .NET 4 and above. But if VS 2012 does not support smart device development (Windows CE and Windows Mobile), I guess I will start looking at other development tools by other companies. I would like to stay with Microsoft development tools since all my applications run exclusively on Microsoft operating systems. I have been using Visual Studio since version 6.0 and always upgraded to the next veriosn until VS 2010. Thank you.Anonymous
October 03, 2012
@DonB: Yes, VS 2012 will support targeting the next version of Windows Embedded Compact. If you go to the on-demand viewing site linked from Soma’s post (http://visualstudiolaunch.com) you’ll find a video about the support we’re enabling. Look under Tracks -> Modern Apps -> .NET 4.5 and languages to find the video. This will be an exciting release for Windows Embedded Compact. We’re not only providing development support in VS 2012, allowing you to use the same IDE and ALM solutions across Windows platforms, but we’re also bringing in all the C++11 features from VS 2012 and an updated version of the .NET Compact Framework. As always, you’ll be able to find all kinds of information about this release when we announce the next version of Windows Embedded Compact on http://www.windowsembedded.com.Anonymous
October 05, 2012
Ok - tools for modern apps .... And a new gui skin in CAPS and without any color or recognizable icons .... I build LOB applications, and I still mostly see Windows XP at a customers site. Windows 8 will take at least another 4 to 6 years to appear in most businesses. So please tell me what is new in:
- Windows Forms
- WPF
- Web development And what is improved in the tools for those technologies? And what are the language improvements that can be used with those technologies (C#, VB, C++)? The real question is: Why should I upgrade when I am not going to build Windows 8 only applications?
Anonymous
October 05, 2012
@Theo: There are many such improvements not focused on Windows 8. Soma's previously blogged about some of them, e.g.: blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-11-programming-language-advances.aspx blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-11-net-advances.aspx blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-11-ide-advances.aspx blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-11-platform-tooling-advances.aspx blogs.msdn.com/.../visual-studio-11-alm-advances.aspx blogs.msdn.com/.../net-improvements-for-cloud-and-server-applications.aspx More generally, you can find a detailed Visual Studio 2012 product guide at go.microsoft.com/fwlink. You can also find "What's New in .NET 4.5" at msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms171868.aspx, and it includes a section on WPF, one on web development, etc.Anonymous
October 11, 2012
Thanks Soma, it was really great presentation and great day :-) well done VS team!Anonymous
October 14, 2012
Great :) Now we will enjoy with VS 2012Anonymous
October 20, 2012
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October 22, 2012
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November 01, 2012
How can we install Silverlight in Visual Studio 2008?Anonymous
November 07, 2012
The GUI was a great failure. Luckily I was able to download a trail. Will stick to VS2010.Anonymous
November 11, 2012
Thanks Soma, it was really great presentationAnonymous
December 21, 2012
thanks microsoftAnonymous
December 22, 2012
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January 07, 2013
Too many bugs. Most critical bug is crash on open.Anonymous
January 27, 2013
I can say as well that after some months of serious use, VS 2012 is buggy. Intellisense just stops quite often, especially if you have an ASP.Net ScriptManager with references to scripts in assemblies. C# syntax highlighting stops from time to time too. While it may be faster in some regards compared to 2010, it has definitely regressed in some ways. Also, while debugging an ASP.Net app in IE9, when I hover the mouse over a JS variable, the whole Studio and debugger will crash and VS will restart. I'm going to wait it out to see if a service pack fixes things, but if it doesn't, then I'm back to 2010.Anonymous
January 28, 2013
Microsoft Allways RocksAnonymous
January 29, 2013
VS 2012 is such very useful IDE for developer... I very enjoying with working by itAnonymous
November 11, 2013
How about price? I waiting it.