Several features planned for ASP.NET 2.0 and included in the initial beta will be removed from future betas and the final product, forcing some developers who have been using the betas to revise their code. Unlike the recent changes to the next version of Windows (code-named Longhorn), in which a major pillar of the product was postponed indefinitely, the changes to ASP.NET are relatively minor and do not reflect any drastic changes in product design. Rather, they are the normal result of the product team trying to minimize the risk that the product might not ship on time, as it works its way through the beta cycle.

The most significant changes include the following:

Mobile adapters. The initial ASP.NET 2.0 plans called for all of its built-in controls to adapt automatically to the type of device being used to access a Web page, adjusting their output for the smaller screen size of a Pocket PC or Smartphone, for example. These capabilities are being removed and developers building applications for mobile devices will need to use a separate set of mobile controls, as they did in ASP.NET 1.0.

Access data provider. A key element of ASP.NET is isolating the services provided by ASP.NET (such as user membership tracking and site personalization) from the underlying storage system (such as SQL Server and Active Directory.) Microsoft had planned on including a database provider to allow Web sites to store such data in an Access database. However, the Access provider will be removed from the product and replaced by one for SQL Server 2005 Express, a new edition of SQL Server that will become Microsoft’s preferred redistributable database engine, replacing the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE). Although SQL Server 2005 is undoubtedly more capable than Access, the change may pose difficulties for Web hosters because, unlike SQL databases, Access files are self-contained in an MDB file that can easily be uploaded by authors via FTP.

In addition to these changes, some controls and user-interface elements are being removed, including a site-counter control and a set of built-in themes that take advantage of ASP.NET’s architecture for customizing the look of a site.

For more details on the features of ASP.NET 2.0, see "ASP.NET Gets Major Improvements" on page 12 of the Feb. 2004 Update.

For more information on the feature cuts, see msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/Whidbey/beta2changes.aspx.