Multitargeting in Visual Studio 2008

Many would be now familiar with the word multitargeting in Visual Studio 2008. So, what is it ? 🙂

Prior to Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 worked only for specific .NET versions and Visual Studio 2005 had .NET 3.0 extensions for .NET 3.0

Things have been made easy for developers in Visual Studio 2008, as now you can work with .NET 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 projects in the same IDE 😉 . This means that you don’t need Visual Studio 2005 anymore! 😀

Here is a screenshot of options what the New Project menu has in Visual Studio 2008,

Note that for each version of .NET you choose, the project templates gets changed accordingly!

Don’t miss this screencast on Multitargeting in Visual Studio 2008 by Daniel Moth 🙂

Neat Ctrl+Tab replacement in Visual Studio 2008

If you want to navigate to different tabs(files) opened or previous tab opened inside Visual Studio, we use Ctrl+Tab, similar to Alt+Tab from our Windows Desktop.

This feature has been refined and made to look really good in Visual Studio 2008 😀

It now shows previews too 😉

Below is a screenshot,

Make Expression Blend work with Visual Studio 2008

As I reinstalled my system, I had to reinstall Microsoft Expression Blend too. As expected it didn’t save all the projects in Visual Studio 2008 format and had to use the same old BlendConfigurator tool to configure for Visual Studio 2008. The tool was built for Expression Blend to work with “Orcas” releases and it works for RTMs too 😉

UPDATE

After discussing this with Daniel, it is advised to install Expression Blend Service Pack 1 and not to use BlendConfigurator as mentioned above in my post 🙂

Get to know more about Visual Studio 2008

When I started to interact with my friends about Visual Studio 2008, there were several questions raised by them, like,

1) Will it work in Vista ?

2) Is it not better to wait for a Vista patch like Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 ?

3) Well, do you really think it will support .NET 2.0 and 3.0 ?

4) Will my Visual Studio 2005 solutions work in Visual Studio 2008 ?

I have answers for these but it would be better to read through Daniel Moth’s blog for more information about Visual Studio 2008 and particularly these

I would also highly recommend to download the Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Training Kit by Microsoft

My Development Environment

After a long time, I re-installed Vista in my laptop and did some changes to partition. The re-install was due to the lack of fair amount of space in my Windows partition. Being a developer, you need to have good amount of free space in the Windows partition to work on. With the release of Visual Studio 2008 and also for going to be released soon Vista SP1, I thought this is the right time to make my machine ready 😉

So – What have I installed now ?

LINQ to SQL Beta 2 to RTM Changes

I was totally shocked to see when my solution which I had built using Orcas Beta 2 threw errors when compiled in VS 2008 RTM!

Exploring a bit, I found that the errors generated were related to my LINQ-to-SQL classes.

Visual Studio 2008 is now RTM

As promised by Microsoft to release Visual Studio this month (November), Visual Studio is now to RTM (Released to Manufacturing) 🙂

If you have MSDN subscription, you can download Visual Studio 2008 via your downloads section

And if you don’t have MSDN, yet you would like to see whats this fuzz about, you can download the Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2008 Editions here

What should I do ?

Many Linux articles today, we see have started bashing Microsoft and Microsoft products and the Linux User base in the forums are also anti-microsoft and don’t entertain people who use Microsoft and Microsoft products.

So, I think now the time has come for me to move away from these Linux “anti-microsoft” fanboys and not to bother these “anti-microsoft” fanboys in their forums. I would rather use Linux and discuss with my friends than with the “anti-microsoft” User base.

By the way, Windows (Vista) is my Main operating system and I work in Microsoft Technologies and love them a lot. I am also a full time Microsoft Developer. No doubt in that. It doesn’t mean I should move to Linux! (please,its not Open Source, its Linux)

Anways, my Comments section is open to you all. Feel free to pass on your comments.

New updates for Vista available this week

There are 3 updates being released for Vista this week (expected this Tuesday 14th, November 2007) by Microsoft.

The updates are,

1) An update on system compatibility, reliability and stability

2) An update to core USB components

3) An update to Windows Media Center

And also these updates would be delivered through Windows Update

More info here 

Linux Myth (?)

Even though Linux journalists like SJVN try to push Linux a lot by doing anti-microsoft campaigns like these, there is always this Linux Myth with every user who wants to try Linux or uses Linux,

1) Linux is more Stable, Reliable

2) Linux is FREE, no penny being spent!

3) Linux is Virus Free!

One of my friend sent me an email recently on what he felt about using Linux –

I’ve been using Linux exclusively this year. But…. it is so boring! The only application I use is my browser. (Which incidentally crashes several times a day.) Seriously I don’t have a single useful program. I do all my coding in a vi terminal.

sidenote: The myth that linux software is more reliable is fading very fast for me. A wise friend of mine said to me many many years ago that the only reason Linux doesn’t get viruses is because IT DOESN’T DO ANYTHING. I’m beginning to see his wisedom.

I need not explain more here 😀

Thats why people still say Linux is no Vista Killer 😉