Visual Studio 2008 is a comprehensive toolset that enables developers to build applications on all Microsoft platforms. Support for all the latest Microsoft technologies assists developers in building compelling rich Windows Forms, ASP.NET, WPF and Silverlight applications. Visual Studio 2008 provides comprehensive support for building native code and .NET applications using a variety of languages including Visual Basic, C#, C++ and has full support for building database applications using Microsoft SQL Server and other platforms.
Exclusive Book Promotion
If you purchase a new licence of Visual Studio 2008 with MSDN on Open licensing you may receive a free book package worth up to £200. There are a variety of book and training packages available, for a complete list please refer to the 'MSDN Books Offer' document in the documents and downloads section above.
Visual Studio 2010 Upgrade Offer
Visual Studio 2010 is expected to launch April 12th 2010 and if you have an active MSDN subscription come release you will be able to download and use Visual Studio 2010! By buying or renewing a MSDN Premium subscription today you will also receive a
FREE upgrade to the next level of Visual Studio:
- If you currently own Visual Studio Team System 2008 with MSDN Premium (Development Edition, Database Edition, Architect Edition, Test Edition or Team Suite) you will get Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate w/ MSDN at launch.
- If you currently own Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Premium you can get Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN at launch.
- If you currently own Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Professional you can get Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN at launch (this product is not included in the free upgrade promotion).
- If you currently own Visual Studio 2008 Professional on volume licensing (and don't have MSDN/SA) you can upgrade to Visual Studio Professional 2008 with MSDN Pro/Prem for a reduced price plus you will get Visual Studio 2010 when it's released. Please contact us for more information on this specific promotion as it is only available on a volume licensing scheme.
Documents & Downloads
-
Back to top
» Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Full Feature Edition Comparison
» MSDN Books Offer
» Visual Studio 2010 HardCopy Supplement
New Features
-
Back to top
Develop smart client applications
Visual Studio 2008 adds ClickOnce support for the Firefox browser and provides location-independent signing and customer branding.
By taking advantage of the 2007 Office System as a development platform, designers can leverage the look and feel of both Office and SharePoint to create familiar, intuitive UIs. Developers can then use Visual Studio Tools for Office to produce the UIs in their solutions quickly and easily. Additionally VS 2008 also provides developers with support for building native C++ applications that use the Microsoft Office 2007 UI style, including the Ribbon Bar, Ribbon Status Bar and Mini-toolbar.
Developers can use the same user profile and login services for their client applications as for their Web applications. This enables customers to use one method of back-end storage for user personalisation and authentication, regardless of the application type.
Developers using Visual Studio 2008 can leverage service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to build mobile device client applications that work in partially connected environments. These applications can send data to and receive data from a server, even if the device disconnects or roams.
Create Microsoft Office applications
Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) is fully integrated into the Professional edition. The tools in Visual Studio enable developers to create both application-level and document-level managed-code customisations behind 2007 Office system applications quickly and easily. BUT PLEASE NOTE - the Visual Studio Tools for Office supplied with Visual Studio Professional (licence only) do not contain the Access extensions. To get the Access deployment features you will need to purchase Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Professional as a minimum.
Full support for ClickOnce deployment of all Office customisations and applications gives developers and administrators the right tools and framework for easy deployment and maintenance of their Office solutions.
Handle data more productively
Using LINQ (Language Integrated Query), developers can write queries natively in C# or Visual Basic, without needing to use specialised languages such as SQL and XPath.
LINQ to SQL - a run-time infrastructure for managing relational data as objects without losing the ability to query - simplifies the construction of data driven Web sites.
Enable new Web experiences
Developers can use RAD tools to quickly and easily create client connections and proxies to existing services, and test them without needing to write code. In addition, developers can use the same techniques and tools for consuming WCF services, no matter where they are located.
Build client-centric Web applications that integrate with any back-end data provider, run within any modern browser, and have complete access to ASP.NET application services and the Microsoft platform.
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
Visual Studio 2008 provides a full suite of tools for source control, test-data generation and testing, rename refactoring, and a deployment solution that includes visual diff/merge and deploy-script generation.
Visual Studio 2008 improves on existing load-testing capabilities as well, by simplifying the load-testing interface and providing a multiple-machine graph view that displays the test results, performance, and health of all the machines under test.
A new area of support in Visual Studio is the ability to drive system performance tuning and diagnostics through the Visual Studio test tools. This enables developers to run profiling during tests.
Features
-
Back to top
Data at your fingertips
Visual Studio 2008 revolutionises the way developers interact with their data. 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. Building data-driven applications has never been easier.
Give your applications a facelift
Developers can 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. Visual Studio makes it easy for you to extend these applications to deliver high quality user experiences. 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.
Free your inner designer
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.
Harness the power of Microsoft Office
With Visual Studio 2008 developers can easily target the more than 500 million users of Microsoft Office while using the same managed code skills that they’ve developed for writing Microsoft Windows applications or ASP.NET applications. 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 (Access extentions are NOT included with the VS Professional edition licence only - for that, MSDN Professional would be required.)
Build interactive Web experiences
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.
Focus on quality
Visual Studio 2008 provides the tools to make both of these goals attainable. In response to customer demand, Visual Studio now features improved unit testing, web/load testing, and code profiling tools.
For developers practicing test-driven development, unit tests now run faster whether they’re executed from the IDE or from the command-line. Test inheritance allows users to reuse inherited methods and usability improvements enable users to execute a test directly from its definition.
A new area of support in Visual Studio is the ability to drive system performance tuning and diagnostics through the Visual Studio test tools. This enables developers to run profiling during tests, so that they can run load and test procedures against a system, see how it behaves, and use integrated tools to profile, debug and tune.
Licensing
-
Back to top
There are various ways to license Microsoft products - please see our ‘Microsoft Licensing’ buyers guide on the left or click Call Me above and we will contact you to discuss the options.
Editions
-
Back to top
Visual Studio Standard and Visual Studio Professional Comparison
The following features are only available in Visual Studio Professional:
- Build applications for Microsoft Office using Visual Basic and C#
- Build applications for Windows Mobile devices
- Online and offline documentation (Standard edition only contains online documentation)
- Class designer to design classes and Object Test Bench to test objects (limited C++ support)
- Crystal Reports Visual Studio edition
- Server Explorer to explore file systems, databases etc
- Unit testing (limited C++ support)
- Software Assurance eligible (provided through MSDN)
Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Editions Comparison
Visual Studio Professional with MSDN represents great value for money by providing a central location to access all the software (past and present), tools and support you need for building applications.
Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Professional
- Comes with Visual Studio 2008 Professional, Visual SourceSafe, all versions of SQL Server, Operating Systems, Toolkits, SDKs and DDKs.
- Additional benefits include 2 technical support incidents, MSDN library, managed newsgroup support, online concierge, MSDN magazine and MSDN flash
Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Embedded
- Comes with Visual Studio 2008 Professional, Visual SourceSafe, Windows Embedded operating systems, Windows and Toolkits, SDKs and DDKs.
- Additional benefits include 2 technical support incidents, MSDN library, managed newsgroup support, online concierge, MSDN magazine and MSDN flash
Visual Studio 2008 Professional with MSDN Premium
- Comes with Visual Studio 2008 Professional, Visual SourceSafe, Servers, Operating Systems, Windows Embedded (availability pending), Office, Dynamics and Toolkits, SDKs and DDKs.
- Additional benefits include 4 technical support incidents, MSDN library, managed newsgroup support, online concierge, MSDN magazine and MSDN flash