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Visual Basic announcements

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) announcements

.NET Framework Class Libraries announcements

Claims based access platform (CBA), code-named Geneva announcements

  • Link
    Welcome to the "Geneva" forum
    Marc Goodner Microsoft Employee
    The Federated Identity ”Geneva”  team is happy to announce the release of Microsoft code name “Geneva”, an open platform for simplified user access based on claims.  This release consists of three components:  Geneva Framework for .NET developers, Geneva Server for IT Pros, and Windows CardSpace “Geneva”. 

     

    You can find all of our installation downloads and supporting documentation for each component of the Geneva platform on the “Geneva” Connect site.

Visual Studio Visualization & Modeling SDK (DSL Tools) announcements

Testing with Visual Studio Test Manager (MTM) announcements

Visual Studio Extensibility announcements

Team Foundation Server - Project Management & Work Item announcements

MSBuild announcements

Visual Studio Diagnostics (Debugger, Profiler, IntelliTrace) announcements

Team Foundation Server - Eclipse and Cross Platform announcements

Visual Studio Visualization & Modeling Tools announcements

Team Foundation Server - Process Templates announcements

Windows Communication Foundation, Serialization, and Networking announcements

Team Foundation Server - Build Automation announcements

Visual Studio General Questions announcements

  • Link
    Forums Merged into This Forum
    John Boylan Microsoft Employee
    The following forums have been merged into this forum: Visual Studio WPF/SL Designer, Visual Studio Guidance Automation Toolkit, Developer Documentation and Help System, Visual Studio Report Controls, and Visual Studio Editor. 

Visual Studio LightSwitch Extensibility announcements

Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) announcements

  • Link
    Visual Studio Tools For Applications (VSTA) 2012 Released!
    Xiaoying Guo

    You can get the VSTA 2012 and VSTA 2012 SDK through the links below:

    In VSTA 2012 release, we are introducing several changes to the licensing model as well as how you integrate VSTA into your application:

    • There is no longer a licensing fee for the VSTA 2012 redistributable components. Your organization can distribute and use the VSTA 2012 redistributable components free of charge.
    • VSTA 2012 no longer provides its own Visual Studio Environment for authoring macros. Instead, Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) is required to develop VSTA macros and add-ins. VSTA has two primary modes of operation: with Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) installed and standalone. In standalone mode, VSTA provides your application with the means to load, compile, and run end user customizations. With Visual Studio 2012 Professional (or above) installed on your user’s machine, VSTA extends that functionality with the means to edit and debug those customizations.
    • VSTA 2012 supports .NET Framework 4.5.
    • VSTA 2012 presents a new and simplified API for integrating design-time experiences into your application using either managed (Visual C# or Visual Basic .NET) or unmanaged (Visual C++) code. The new VSTA hosting API simplifies tasks such as finding the installation of Visual Studio, launching the external process, and synchronizing save state, making integration significantly easier than previous versions.
    • With VSTA 2012, users can upgrade projects from Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Applications and Visual Studio 2008 Tools for Applications, compile, and run them.
    • VSTA 2012 no longer requires your application host to provide a runtime library to run. This gives you the flexibility to choose the method of running user code best tailored to the host application.

    Minimum System Requirement:

    • Windows 7
    • .NET Framework 4.5
    • 2 GB of RAM
    • 4 MB of hard disk space

    Runtime requirement for VSTA 2012:

    Requirement to enable editing and debugging for VSTA customization:

    • Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Professional, Premium or Ultimate


.NET StockTrader Sample Application announcements

  • Link
    StockTrader 6.0 Available Now
    Gregory Leake Microsoft Employee

    The new 6.0 version, which can live side-by-side with the 5.5 version, is now live. Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/stocktrader to download the source code with automated setup wizard.

    You can read the technical whitepaper about it, including the mobile client architecture, and support for SQL Database Federation here. 

    You can view the application running live on Windows Azure (new HTML 5/MVC client) at https://azurestocktrader6.cloudapp.net; or the classic ASP.NET Web Forms client at https://azurestocktrader6classic.cloudapp.net.

    The download also includes Configuration Service 6.0, which adds support for Azure Service Bus.  You can access ConfigWeb 6.0 to explore the live deployment at https://azureconfigweb6.cloudapp.net.

    -Greg



  • Link
    StockTrader 5.5 Download Available: Supports both On-Premises and Azure Deployments
    Gregory Leake Microsoft Employee

    The updated StockTrader 5.5 sample is now available for download and setup.  This replaces the 5.0 release of StockTrader. The installer can be downloaded from https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net or http://msdn.microsoft.com/stocktrader. 

    This new download includes the new Configuration Service 5.5 assemblies and ConfigWeb 5.5. Configuration Service 5.5 is backward compatible with 5.0 configuration repositories.  You will want to rebuild solutions implementing Configuration Service 5.0 with the new 5.5 shared libraries.

    StockTrader 5.5 What's New

    The big change is support for Windows Azure SQL Database Federations.  Federations allows horizontal partitioning, also called sharding, of the Azure SQL Database data tier.  You will note that we have also split the previously single database into two separate physical databases: a QuoteDB and an AccountDB. By default after install, neither will be federated.  You can use the new \stocktrader\builds\SQL_Loader\TradeSQLLoader.exe to create new QuoteDB/AccountDB databases, and choose the number of federation members when creating the initial databases.  You can then deploy (to Azure) and then use the \stocktrader\databaseloaders\TradeSQLAzureLoader application to load data into the federated databases.

    The single DAL layer works now against on-premises SQL Server (including SQL Server running in an Azure Virtual Machine); non-federated Windows Azure SQL Database, and federated Azure SQL Databases.

    Configuration Service 5.5 What's New

    Configuration Service 5.5 has various bug fixes, and especially enhancements to the SQL retry logic in the SQLHelper Class. Solutions using Configuration Service 5.0 should be upgraded to the new 5.5 assemblies, as well minor updates have been made to ConfigWeb. 

    Coming Soon: StockTrader 6.0

    Within the next few weeks, a new version of StockTrader will also be available: StockTrader 6.0.  StockTrader 6.0 does not replace StockTrader 5.5; but rather is a new Azure-only implementation, and it is not backward compatible with 5.5.  You will be able to do side-by-side installs. Both will remain on the MSDN site.  The coming Config Service 6.0 version adds support for Windows Azure Service Bus bindings, and StockTrader 6.0 can optionally be configured to use Service Bus and reliable messaging for order processing.  In addition, RESTFUL web services are used in the new Business Logic layer, and the service can serve as the cloud-based backend for new StockTrader 6.0 clients that will be included in the download:  Windows 8 Modern UI client; HTML5 ASP.NET/MVC client, Windows Phone client, Android client, and IPhone client.

    If you have setup issues, or questions about the sample once it is installed this is the place to post them.  Thank you!

     -Greg

Visual C# announcements

Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) announcements

  • Link
    Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012: Now Available with Office 2013 and .NET Framework 4.5 support
    Michael Zlatkovsky (MSFT) Microsoft Employee

    I'm pleased to announce that the official Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 is now available to download! For VSTO developers, this release brings .NET 4.5 support and design-time support for Office 2013, along with general design-time enhancements and bug fixes to the VSTO Runtime (released separately a few months ago via our download center and Windows Update; see KB 2796590 for information regarding the Runtime). We also heard your feedback from "Preview 2" of the tools, including the request to bring back the VSTO Runtime Bootstrapper into VS 2012 -- it is now back in the product.

    Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012 also includes tooling for the new apps for Office and apps for SharePoint projects, improvements to SharePoint Workflows, and more. You can read the official announcement for apps-related tooling on Soma’s blog post.

    Office 2013 support

    VSTO Office 2013 design-time support in Visual Studio 2012.

    Note: Now that's we've added .NET 4.5 support to 2013, we've properly re-categorized the templates in the "New Project" dialog according to the .NET framework version that they support. So, if you're looking for the Office 2010 templates after installing the latest tools, be sure to adjust the ".NET Framework" dropdown to ".NET Framework 4.0". Again, to recap, both the 2010 and 2013 templates support .NET Framework 4.0, but only the 2013 templates support .NET Framework 4.5 -- and the "New Project" dialog respects that categorization.

    VS 2012 New Project dialog

     

    I hope you enjoy using our new tools! If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

    - Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office


  • Link
    Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    Many folks have been asking about the emerging "apps for Office" model, and what it means for the future of VSTO.  Rest assured that VSTO continues to be alive and well.  In fact, many existing automation scenarios continue to be best served by VSTO for now.  At the same time, there are many exciting opportunities to look forward in apps for Office: for example, the ability to better integrate with web content and JavaScript/CSS libraries, support for additional programming languages and platforms, support for host applications beyond the desktop versions of Office, and new distribution, lifecycle management, and monetization opportunities through the Office Store.

    To learn more, please see the blog post:  "Roadmap for Apps for Office, VSTO, and VBA".

  • Link
    Documentation for Office 2013 Ribbon controls now available
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    I know the documentation for Office 2013 is still somewhat limited, but hopefully the following link will help.

    Microsoft Office Document: [MS-CustomUI2] Supporting Documentation - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=727

    From here, you should be able to download the *.txt files for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus the imageMso information. Once a file is downloaded, it can be opened in Excel to make it easier to look through all the controls.

    Best Regards,
    Nathan O.
    Microsoft Online Community Support

  • Link
    VS2012 & Office2010 solutions: Add-ins disable / Customization could not be loaded
    Cindy Meister MVP MVP

    We had discovered an issue where add-ins deployed using the ClickOnce method will, under certain conditions, try and fail to install an update, and thereby disable the add-in.  For document-level customizations, an exception window with a stack trace may be shown; for application-level add-ins, the add-in will be disabled silently.  See the thread http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsto/thread/495098f8-6364-443a-b2e1-23e650af7e1e.

    There is now a NEW VERSION of the VSTO Runtime that fixes the issue.  If you're using the web bootstrapper (for add-ins developed using Visual Studio 2010), the bootstrapper will automatically chain in the latest version, so no action is required on your part, or on that of your users.  If you're deploying from Visual Studio 2012,  you'll need to enable the bootstrapper functionality manually:  please see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsto/archive/2012/12/21/creating-a-bootstrapper-package-for-an-office-2013-vsto-add-in-with-visual-studio-2012.aspx.  Users can also download the latest runtime from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=140384.

    Installing the new Runtime is a preventative measure, and we highly recommend that all of your users do so!  However, this will not fix add-ins that may already have gotten disabled due to the issue.  Thus, for users who are already impacted:

    If the install location is still accessible (and/or if the developer puts a new version into the same location)
    1. Re-run setup from the original network share. 
    2. Re-enable the Add-In / Doc-Level Customization from within the Office application, as described below.

    If the install location is NOT accessible (e.g., network share permanently down, or file was installed off of a USB stick which has since been removed)
    1. Launch “regedit.exe” from the start menu / start screen.  Navigate to Computer ==> HKEY_CURRENT_USER ==> Software ==> Microsoft ==> VSTA ==> Solutions.
    2. There should be several entries there, identified by GUIDs.  Click on each entry and check the “ProductName” data until you find the Add-In that you’re trying to re-enable.
    3. For the Add-In that’s having problems, double-click on UpdateEnabled.
    4. Change the “Value data” to 0 and press “OK”.  This will disable Update Checking (and hence cure the problem) until a new version of an add-in is explicitly installed, or until the user repeats the same steps, and sets “UpdateEnabled” to “1”.


    After editing the Registry, the user should re-launch the Office App (e.g., Excel), and go through the usual steps of re-enabling the add-in (see below).

    The usual steps of re-enabling the add-in: (required in either case for any user with currently-disabled add-ins)
    1. Open the application’s options (e.g., “Excel Options”) and navigate to the Add-Ins tab.
    2. Select “COM Add-ins” from the “Manage” dropdown.
    3. Press “Go…”.  A window will open.
    4. Enable the checkbox for the Add-In(s) that you’d like to re-enable.
    5. Click “OK”.




    After performing the above steps, the add-in / document-level customization should re-activate in the host application, and also show up in the Control Panel’s “Add or Remove Programs” list.

    Michael Zlatkovsky | Program Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office & Apps for Office



Visual Studio Setup and Installation announcements

Visual Studio Editor announcements

Visual Studio LightSwitch - General Questions announcements

AppFabric Caching announcements

Team Foundation Server – Migration and Integration announcements

LightSwitch HTML Client Preview announcements

Visual Studio ALM Rangers announcements

Parallel Computing in C++ and Native Code announcements

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