I went to the Microsoft web site download page for development (maybe there is a seperate page for design) and I could not find a place to download Expression Blend. Does this mean it is being phased out? Is Visual Studio 2010 somehow replacing Expression Blend?
What if I needed to use an earlier version of Experssion Blend because a customer's hand held devie is customized for it? How would I get it?
It's not being phased out. Expression 4 has been released a few weeks ago: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/
Considering using an earlier version, I'm not sure if you can buy it anymore (it has never been free) on Microsoft website (contact them, they'll know more about it) but you can try not to use new features if you're developing for Silverlight and targeting an older version, for example.
Just out of curiosity, how would the handheld device be customized for a particular version of Blend?
Blend 4 supports projects that target WPF 3.5 and 4, and Silverlight 3.0 and 4.0. In other words, if you could use Blend 3, you should be able to use Blend 4.
I am not aware of any way to download older versions of Blend or Expression Studio. It is definitely not being phased out. And as 0xA3 mentioned, it is not free. I have a post about Expression availability and pricing that may be helpful.
The unfortunate news is that you need Expression Studio Premium to get Blend and Ultimate to get SketchFlow, and it's not cheap. The good news is that there a lot of products that will qualify you for Upgrade price. The great news is that if you have Expression Studio 3, then Studio 4 is a free upgrade, but whether or not Blend is included will depend on what version you had previously.
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I've been trying to install VSCommunity Edition for the last few hours with no luck. If you check the screenshot attached. You'll see that I can change the directories for installation for the first 2 requirements, but im unable to change the directory for the 3rd option (the SDK install along with others) which just happen to be the very large percentage of files. It's wanting to install over 45gb of files on my C Drive which is just a 50gb SSD.
enter image description herehttps://i.imgur.com/burFR90.jpg
I want to switch to D, and the only thing i can see fro any of the Microsoft help docs and posts is "You can change this upon fresh installation".
Which this is. I've uninstalled anything else remotely like it just to be sure.
Do any of you have any ideas or any experience with this issue, or anything i can try? I simply don't have enough space to install on C, and because of this, i can't start learning c# which is required for work.
Thanks so much in advance guys, it's really getting me worried now.
Although I can only guess why Visual Studio is locking down the SDK path, here's a few workarounds and recommendations:
In your screenshot, the installer warns you about possible performance effects of installing Visual Studio on your D drive. I assume this is because your D drive is not an SSD. Microsoft's Visual Studio system requirements document recommends that you install to an SSD, and based on community experience, this is one recommendation you really want to stick to, otherwise IDE responsiveness may be well below your expectations, especially if you decide to install extensions in future.
Instead, you might want to reconsider the set of components that you're installing. If you're only getting started with C#, you'll probably be just fine with developing class libraries, console and web applications targeting .NET Framework or .NET Core. If this is the case, you might want to go to the Workloads tab in the installer and opt out of some of the heaviest workloads (such as Mobile development with .NET). Consider only installing .NET desktop development, ASP.NET and web development, Azure development and .NET Core cross-platform development. If you only select these, your installation is going to be much slimmer.
If minimizing Visual Studio installation as shown above isn't enough, consider an alternative way of setting up your .NET development environment. For example, you can download and install .NET Core SDK and .NET Core Runtime, and use one of the two most prominent alternative code editors: Visual Studio Code or JetBrains Rider that are both quite compact.
I just started to study Nemerle. Since this is .NET language, I wonder, is possible to use for Windows Phone development? Does Visual Studio support it well?
Nemerle compiler uses System.Reflection.Emit for assembly manipulations. Then it can create assemblies same CLR version only.
I know only one reciepe for build WP assemblies: ildasm ncc.exe, fix all references to WP framework and ilasm it again.
This may not be possible, since Windows Phone runs a subset of the full .NET Framework which is closer to the .NET Compact Framework.
Looking at this page (translated from Russian) it looks like Compact Framework support is something that is/was planned for Nemerle version 2. However that article was written before Jetbrains acquired the project, so objectives may have changed.
Having said that, much more recently (Feb 2013) one of the Nemerle developers spoke about their difficulties in getting Nemerle to support other frameworks. So perhaps it is on their agenda after all.
I really want to upgrade to Visual Studio 2010. But since I do a lot of development for the Pocket PC version of Windows Mobile I cannot. (I develop for a Symbol device that does not support Windows Phone 7, so that is not a option.)
Does any one know any kind of time frame of when Microsoft plans to add support for Smart Device Projects into Visual Studio 2010?
Update: Since this is looking less and less likely without intervention from the users, Please go here and vote for this feature.
Microsoft's current public statement says that, apart from Windows Phone 7 development, there will not be Smart Device Application Development added to Visual Studio 2010.
This obviously raises concerns and has implications for a lot of people, and there are more than a few of us lobbying Microsoft very hard to change that plan and to get them to include some sort of support for Smart Device programming outside of Windows Phone.
I'm hopeful, maybe even optimistic, that their stance will change and that we will get something - even if it's only CF 3.5 targeting actual hardware (i.e. no emulator support) - at some point down the road. Right now they've got all hands on deck trying to get Windows Phone out the door, and until that happens, I wouldn't expect much for resource allocation toward other device features.
So what does that actually mean? In my mind I wouldn't postpone installing VS2010 until they have device support. My guess is it won't happen until early next year at the absolute earliest and realistically I would say mid to late next year if it happens at all. Again, I'm optimistic that it will, but I'm also a realist, so I'm not going to base my business decisions and future on it happening.
Add your support to the following Microsoft Connect Item, it's had quite a bit of interest being the 3rd highest voted suggestion so far.
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/595712/no-support-for-windows-ce-and-compact-framework-development-in-vs2010
Through private conversations I've had with the Customer Advocacy Team at MS it would appear that they are really digging their heels in over this. MS reneged on promises to include Smart Device Framework support in VS2010 early on in the product life cycle.
It is really frustrating because at some point the development tools will fragment and you'll end up with having to maintain separate development, source control and build systems for targeting Windows CE. Who is to say that the tools will even work on future versions of Windows either or even if they will live side by side with future versions of VS. Remember this lack of support also hurts people doing unmanaged code on CE too.
MS is doing a great job of remaining silent here, the silence is already causing people to look at alternative platforms. Without a statement of intent no business is going to invest in Windows CE development without knowing the future of the OS and the tools to develop on it.
All recent Visual Studio versions can be installed side by side. You could upgrade now for desktop development, then when smart device support is rolled out, migrate your projects to VS2010.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/setupprerelease/thread/fce95ec7-728d-41d1-ab13-74a2fd3a4136
I am forced to have two VS installations side by side. However, another issue - that is causing me more pain is that TFS 2010 doesn't work with VS 2008 - there is a plugin, of course, but there are many issues with it which make it unusable.
So to have source control, I have installed SVN on my machine.
Microsoft once again, has proven that they have no concern for the devs at all. Their tools don't work together, backward compatibility is not there, all of which makes their dev tools a big load of crap.
MS replied to that connect issue:
Hi folks,
In the first quarter of 2013, we plan to provide tooling for Visual
Studio 2012 to create apps for Windows Embedded Compact v.Next. We’ll
be announcing more details in September, including the roadmap for
.NET CF. You can find more details this Fall in the Windows Embedded
Compact website at http://www.windowsembedded.com.
thanks, Doug Turnure Visual Studio PM
Should I start using VS2010 Beta 2 for development work now?
What reasons are there for and against?
You can take two angles with this; using Visual Studio to build your solutions in a .NET 3.5 or earlier OR using it to build applications in .NET 4. Firstly, familiarise yourself with what’s new in both the IDE and the framework (I’ve got a quick, illustrated overview here and there's heaps of other info on the web) and see what you’re actually going to be able to take advantage of in your situation. Secondly, be aware of your target environment; If you’re publishing to shared hosting or client machines you need to consider whether the .NET 4 approach is wise while it's in beta.
I’ve previously built solutions on the last couple of generations of Visual Studio and .NET whilst in beta 2. You’ve got a go-live license so you can actually productionise solutions and both previous generations have been very stable without any significantbugs or changes from beta 2 to alpha versions.
If you can address the issues above, I say go for it!
Only if you're interested in trying it out. Don't use it for real work as it. It's a beta, which means that significant bugs may still be lying around in the code.
We started using VS*2008* Beta 2, when it came out, as our main dev environment - but targeted .NET Framework 2.0 only initially. This was mainly because VS2005 was such a dog. As to whether you want to start targeting .NET 4.0 now is your decision - but I can't see the harm in using it for targeting .NET 2.0 - 3.5.
I think we'll stick with VS 2008 for our main dev environment until at least a 2010-compatible version of CodeRush/Refactor Pro comes out.
I say whats wrong with 2008? You could use 2010 to build for 3.5 framework if you really wanted to, but I'd seriously leave it, it might be more trouble than its worth..who knows?
I have it installed and I've had a play with it and I've even installed resharper beta that works with 2010. But this is only to give the new tools a test run.
The company I work for are really good at keeping up with the latest tools, for example we have already rolled out windows 7 to some developer machines, but we wouldn't go as far as using a beta IDE in a production environment.
I'm about to start a new WPF project and there are a number of things in 4.0 that I need (multitouch for one). I've heard that VS 2010 beta 2 will be released at PDC in November so I'm considering starting the project in beta 1 now, then migrating to beta 2 when it becomes available. Assuming I only need to live with the environment for about 3 months would it be reasonable to start this project in VS 2010 beta 1 or is it not ready for daily development?
I'm not sure you're going to get the answer you're looking for here. In part because it's really hard to understand what you mean by "ready".
Visual Studio 2010 Beta1 is a beta product and hence will have beta issues. It will crash more often, have more performance issues, less features and generally speaking not as smooth of an experience as an RTM product would. That's essentially the definition of a beta.
But is it ready? I use it on a daily basis at home and work for essentially every project I work on (including those which ship on the 2.0 or 3.5 framework). Yeah I occasionally run into some annoying bugs. But nothing so severe that I stopped using the product.
I've been doing a few things myself with .NET 4.0 recently, nothing major or for production, but it seems stable enough.
Though others may have had a different experience to me.
As it's beta software, I wouldn't recommend using it for Production purposes until it's fully released, or at the point of RC.
However, like I say, it seems to be stable enough in the .NET aspect of things, but I've not tpyed with WPF 4 yet so I would leave that decision up to you.