Updated: July 9, 2020 (September 4, 2006)

Developer Tools Overview

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration services and client software. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s... more

The next major tools release is Visual Studio “Orcas”, which will support programming on Windows Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0 (which is also available for Windows XP SP2). Orcas will probably not ship until late 2007, after Windows Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0. Developers will be able to write applications for these platforms with Visual Studio 2005, but will lack some valuable tools such as a visual designer for the Windows Presentation Framework (the .NET Framework 3.0 graphics and user interface system).

Before Orcas, Microsoft intends to release a set of Visual Studio 2005 add-ins to aid development for the new Windows Presentation Foundation user interface technology (which will ship in the .NET Framework 3.0 and with Windows Vista), Office 2007, and Ajax-style Web applications. Also planned is Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, an edition of the Visual Studio IDE that enables developers to incorporate database schema changes into Team System source code control and project management.

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