Visual Studio Express Editions
Four Free lite versions of the Visual Studio tools to download from Microsoft.
- Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition & Visual C# 2008 Express Edition for building object-oriented applications for Windows on the .NET Framework.
- Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition for creating native Windows and cool 2D and 3D games.
- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition for creating powerful Web applications.
Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition provides a full-featured development environment for Windows and Web developers. It offers productivity enhancements for building data-driven client and Web applications. Individual developers looking to create connected applications with next-generation user experiences will find Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition a perfect fit.
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition is a comprehensive set of tools that accelerates the process of turning the developer’s vision into reality. Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition was engineered to support development projects that target the Web (including ASP.NET AJAX), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, The 2007 Microsoft Office system, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Mobile devices. The number of platforms that developers must target to meet business needs is increasing rapidly. Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition provides the integrated toolset for addressing all of these needs by providing a superset of the functionality available in Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite Provides multi-disciplined team members with an integrated set of tools for architecture, design, development, database development and testing of applications. Team members can continuously collaborate and utilise a complete set of tools and guidance at every step of the application life cycle. Team Suite includes all of the functionality found in:
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Architecture Edition – focuses on improving the design and validation of distributed systems. It gives architects, operations managers, and developers the ability to visually construct service-oriented solutions and validate them against their operational environments prior to deployment.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition – provides developers with an advanced set of tools to identify inefficient, insecure, or poor-quality code, specify coding best practices, and automate software unit testing. These tools help team members write better-quality code, reduce security-related issues, and avoid bugs later in the development life cycle.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition – provides advanced tools for database change management and testing and offers functionality to enable database developers and administrators to be more productive and increase application quality in the database tier.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Edition– provides a comprehensive suite of testing tools for Web applications and services that are integrated into the Visual Studio environment. These testing tools enable testers to author, execute, and manage tests and related work items—all from within Visual Studio.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Test Load Agent generates additional test loads for Web application load testing.
Data Integration
With the introduction of Language Integrated Query (LINQ), you can now deal with data of all types with a consistent approach and perform data access with new data designers. LINQ makes data access easier for developers through a set of extensions to the C# and Visual Basic programming languages as well as the Microsoft .NET Framework. These extensions provide integrated querying for objects, databases and XML data. Using LINQ, you will be able to write queries natively in C# or Visual Basic without having to use specialised languages, such as SQL and XPath.
Visual Studio Conversion Tool
Use the latest version of Visual Studio to build and enhance applications built on previous versions of the .NET Framework. Visual Studio 2008 will adjust available project templates, toolbox controls, and IntelliSense to match the version of the .NET Framework (2.0, 3.0, or 3.5) that a developer chooses to target. For example, enhancements to the Windows Forms designer enable the creation of applications that leverage Windows Forms, .NET Framework 3.5, and XAML in one application.
Use Familiar Design Tools
In addition to the design surfaces in Visual Studio, user interface designers can use familiar tools like the Microsoft Expression Suite to manipulate layouts, controls, and data binding. The solution files generated by the Expression tools can be opened and edited in Visual Studio. Designers and developers will also be able to build libraries of common user interface designs, formats and elements that can be easily managed and reused.
Visual Studio Tools for Office
As an integrated component of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) enables developers to customise Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, InfoPath, and Project to improve end user productivity. Whether building Office UI-based workflow solutions, custom add-ins, or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server solutions, Visual Studio provides the tools to give the developer a RAD development experience.
Vista Look and Feel
Development teams of any size building applications targeting the next generation user experience will be able to create, edit, debug, and deploy Windows Presentation Foundation applications in Visual Studio 2008. Visual Studio enables a developer building a WPF application to edit XAML directly (with IntelliSense support) or create the user interface through the new visual designers. A change made to the layout of an application through one of these tools is reflected immediately in the other. Additionally, Visual Studio provides support for taking advantage of more than 8,000 new native APIs in Windows Vista.
Developers building distributed applications will find that creating and consuming Web services with Windows Vista technology is a great experience. Visual Studio makes it easy for you to implement a Web service using Windows Workflow Foundation. You can test this service without writing a single line of code and consume or expose this service from an existing workflow.
Microsoft Web Platform
The Microsoft Web platform is an end-to-end offering for designing, developing, and hosting applications on the Web. Visual Studio 2008 provides tools that span the entire platform from the secure, reliable, and extensible infrastructure of IIS, through the amazing client-side experience of Silverlight, and everything in between. Developers will be able to take advantage of rich client-side and server-side frameworks to easily build client-centric Web applications. These applications can integrate with any backend data provider, run within any modern browser and have complete access to ASP.NET application services and the Microsoft platform.
Visual Studio Team System
With Visual Studio Team System 2008 you can integrate new team members into the software development life cycle. Database professionals can create database projects that are integrated into Team Foundation Server’s version control, test stored procedures, generate test data, refactor schemas, and more. Visual Studio makes the integration of designers into the development process easier. Designers can use familiar tools like the Microsoft Expression Studio to create user interfaces and produce files that developers can work with directly in Visual Studio.
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Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Visual Studio Team System 2008 client products are options within a range of development tools from Microsoft. These tools are licensed according to the Microsoft Developer Tools licensing model, which licenses products on a per user basis.
Each licensed user may install the software, for their own use only, and as many times as he/she wishes, on his/her devices. No portion of the software may be shared with, installed by or used by any other user who is not covered by their own equivalent licence.
Visual Studio 2008 Professional can be acquired as a ‘licence only’ product (no MSDN) both on Microsoft Volume Licensing and as a Retail (FPP) product. (The Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition is ‘Licence only’ product. It is not available on volume licensing but available only as a Retail (FPP) product.)
Visual Studio 2008 Team System products (including the Team Suite) can be acquired as ‘Licences only’ (no MSDN) but this is only on the Open Licence volume scheme. There are no Retail options.
Visual Studio 2008 Professional with either an MSDN Professional or an MSDN Premium subscription, and Visual Studio Team System 2008 (including Team Suite) with an MSDN Premium subscription can be licensed either as a Retail product or on Microsoft Volume Licensing (usually one of two schemes).
Retail – Licence only
Retail (FPP) is a one-off purchase with all payment up front. You purchase a Licence only which includes no upgrade entitlement. Unusually for Retail products, the Visual Studio retail products include downgrade rights which entitle the user to use a prior version instead of that licensed. The user is not licensed to run both versions under the one licence. The user may subsequently revert to the later version provided the prior version is no longer used. Prior version media must be acquired separately or already be held by the user. The following products are available in this way:-
- Visual Studio Standard 2008
- Visual Studio Professional 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008 CAL (Device or User) see later notes about TFS CALs
Retail – Licences with MSDN Subscription
These are also a one-off purchase with all payment up front. The MSDN Subscription component entitles the user to periodic updates as new version components are released (monthly or quarterly in the case of MSDN Library) and runs for just one year. At the end of the year, the client is entitled to purchase a Retail subscription renewal giving a further 1 year benefit. And except for the MSDN Library, the client has the option to renew into the equivalent product on one of the volume licensing scheme products.
Clients will usually find that getting Licences with MSDN Subscriptions is economically more advantageous in the longer term on one of the volume licence scheme options, where the subscription runs for two or three years.
The following Retail products with MSDN are available:-
- Visual Studio Pro 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Pro 2008 Win32 with MSDN Pro
- Visual Studio Team Architecture 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Database 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Developer 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Test Edition 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Suite 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- MSDN Operating Systems 2008
- MSDN Library 2005
With the release of 2008 editions, the Retail edition of Visual Studio Team Test Load Agent is no longer available. It will be available only through Volume Licensing.
Volume Licensing – Open Licensing
Open Licensing is one of Microsoft’s volume schemes. It is a two-year scheme normally with entry requirements of a minimum of 5 licences (any mix) on the initial order for the base level of the scheme. Once an instance of the scheme is commenced, then during the following two years further licences can be added one or more at a time as required. Licences purchased on this scheme are perpetual. Any Software Assurance components is active only until the end of the scheme.
This scheme offers ‘Licences only’ and/or Licences with Software Assurance (or Software Assurance Renewal). The benefits of Software Assurance are active for the duration of the scheme, a maximum of two years. Adding Licences with Software Assurance during and to an already active scheme will result in a proportionately reduced period of benefits, but in all cases the one-off full cost is paid at the time of purchase. If quantities permit when purchasing licences with Software Assurance, it is always better to try and meet the conditions to start a new instance of the scheme and thus get the full two years benefit. The full benefits of Software Assurance are described elsewhere but one of the key entitlements – new software versions as they are released – is particularly relevant to MSDN where the subscription includes the provision of updates on a regular basis for the duration of the scheme.
Visual Studio products with MSDN are an exception to the minimum 5 licences rule. They qualify in their own right for the Open Licence scheme, so if appropriate, a new Open Licence scheme can be initiated for each purchase.
Licence only purchases include no upgrade entitlement but in common with all other volume schemes do included downgrade rights which entitle the user to use a prior version instead of that licensed. The user is not licensed to run both versions under the one licence. The user may subsequently revert to the later version provided the prior version is no longer used. Prior version media must be acquired separately or already be held by the user.
The following products are available as Licences only:-
- Visual Studio Professional 2008
- VStudio Team Arch 2008
- VStudio Team DB 2008
- VStudio Team Dev 2008
- VStudio Team Test 2008
- VStudio Team Suite 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008 CAL (Device or User) see later notes about TFS CALs
- Visual Studio Test Agent 2008
Licences with Software Assurance on Open Licensing do include upgrade entitlement and downgrade rights. But Visual Studio with MSDN is again a special case in that a single licence allows the specific user to install and use both current and previous versions, as well as getting the regular subscription updates.
The following products are available as Licences with Software Assurance:-
- Visual Studio Pro 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Pro 2008 Win32 with MSDN Pro
- Visual Studio Team Architecture 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Database 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Developer 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Test Edition 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- Visual Studio Team Suite 2008 Win32 with MSDN Premium
- MSDN Operating Systems 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008
- Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008 CAL (Device or User) see later notes about TFS CALs
- Visual Studio Test Agent 2008
At the end of the two-year scheme, items with Software Assurance may have their Software Assurance component renewed for a further period.
Volume Licensing – Open Value Licensing
Open Value Licensing is a three-year volume scheme with normal entry requirements of a minimum of 5 products (any mix) on the initial order for the scheme. Payments are split per year over the three years of the scheme and the licences become perpetual only after all payments have been made. This scheme includes Software Assurance as standard. It is not possible to purchase Licences only.
Once an instance of the scheme is commenced, then during the following three years further licences can be added one or more at a time as required. However purchasing during a scheme year still requires the full payment for that year (with a proportionally reduced period of benefit) and if purchased in year 2 or 3 then payment is spread over the remaining years.
Again, Visual Studio with MSDN products are an exception and qualify in their own right for the scheme, so when purchasing a subsequent MSDN licence it is worth starting a new instance of the scheme.
The list of products available under this scheme is the same as under Licences with Software Assurance on Open Licensing.
At the end of the three-year scheme, the Software Assurance component may be renewed for a further period.
There are two special forms of the Open Value scheme called Open Value Company-wide and Open Value Subscription (a rental scheme). It is possible to get the above products on these schemes but the user is also obliged to commit enterprise wide to certain other ‘qualifying products’. These schemes are not detailed here.
Team Foundation Server (TFS) CAL Requirements
In general, Grey Matter would recommend that users (particularly developers) get TFS User CALs. A User CAL is allocated to a specific user regardless of which one or more devices that user may be accessing the Team Foundation Server from. So a developer with a number of desktops/laptops or other devices would be covered by a single User CAL. Device CALs are allocated to specific devices. Device CALs allow any user to access the TFS at any one time from that device only.
Any user or device that accesses the Team Foundation Server, files, data, content or deploys files, content, or data provided by the server in automated process (e.g. directly from a server or automatically posted to a server) requires a CAL.
Multiplexing (many devices coming through a single piece of middleware, hardware or software) even though they may not directly be accessing the TFS, does not reduce the number of Microsoft licenses required. End users are required to have the appropriate licenses, regardless of their direct or indirect connection to the product.
There are 2 circumstances under which CALs are not required:
a) Manual intervention – a CAL is not required for users and/or devices accessing files, data or content as a result of manual activity (e.g., a person uploading a file onto a server or e-mailing the file from the server to others).
b) Multiplexed users/devices not accessing TFS information – a CAL is not required for users and/or devices on multiplexed devices that do not access data, files or content from TFS in an automated way. In other words, you do not need a CAL simply for being a user on the multiplexed device, but you do need a CAL if you are on the multiplexed device and you access TFS data directly or indirectly in anyway.
Microsoft has made one licensing change in the Team Foundation Server CAL (TFS CAL) requirement with the release of VSTS 2008. You no longer need a CAL to access work item tracking functionality, to create new work items or view and update work items you opened.
You may do the following:
- Open a new work item of any type within the system.
- This CAL licensing exception is limited to bug filing scenarios only. The goal is to allow organisations to allow bug / issue/ defect submission for the users of an application.
- Access to work items opened only by you. You cannot view or access a work item opened by anyone else unless you have a TFS CAL.
- Edit any work item you opened to clarify the original entry, change work item fields, or make annotations to the discussion of the opened work item. You cannot resolve, close or change the work item state in any way unless you have a TFS CAL.
The change will only apply to TFS 2005 when customers are exercising downgrade rights from TFS 2008. TFS 2005 customers that purchased Software Assurance with their licenses will be able to apply this new licensing exception to their 2005 version.
MSDN Subscriptions provide software maintenance for Visual Studio and can help your development teams to be more efficient, effective, and productive. MSDN subscriptions provide a cost-effective way to licence Microsoft platforms and tools, receive technical support, and gain priority access to new versions of Microsoft products, including Microsoft operating systems, server software, and productivity applications. MSDN Subscriptions perfectly complement Visual Studio with resources that help support your teams every step of the way.
With an MSDN Subscription you can access:
- Developer Tools
- Development and Test licences
- Exclusive access to pre-release products
- Licences for general business use
- Technical Support Incidents
- Managed Newsgroups Support
- Online Concierge
- MSDN Library
- MSDN Magazine
- MSDN Flash
- Discounted Microsoft and MSDN events tickets
- Partner offerings
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