Marc Gregoire’s Blog

A couple of months ago, I gave a presentation about C++11/C++0x features supported in Visual C++ 2010 for software engineers at my company. You can now download the slides.

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1.
MSDN subscribers can download it right now.
It will be publicly available on 10th of March.
See Soma Segar’s blog for details on what is included/changed with SP1.

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta. It’s available right now for MSDN subscribers and will be available to everyone on Thursday.

It includes a new help viewer that I mentioned in my previous blog entry and “Win7-specific MFC APIs to support use of Direct2D, DirectWrite, and Windows Animation Technologies”. I can’t wait to try those out 🙂

Get more details here.

Microsoft is planning to include a new help viewer with Visual Studio 2010 SP1, which is long overdue 🙂

You can see a presentation here.

Here is a list of free eBooks related to Microsoft technologies.

• Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (10 chapters by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines)
• Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (10 chapters by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner)
• Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 (1000 pages by Charles Petzold)
• Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft (8 chapters by Katherine Murray)
• Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) (6 chapters by Mitch Tulloch)
• First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (14 chapters by Katherine Murray)
• Windows 7 troubleshooting tips (short eBook by Mitch Tulloch)
• Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 (9 chapters by Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker)
• Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance (10 chapters from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and 6 TechNet articles)

Enjoy 🙂

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 to MSDN subscribers which extends testing, code visualization and modeling capabilities in VS2010. Its main features are more advanced platform and tool support for both manual and automated testing scenarios. It allows you to better control your Silverlight 4 testing scenarios and UI testing code.

Feature Pack 2 includes the following C++ related additions:

• Generate Dependency Graphs for C and C++ Code
• Validate C and C++ Code Against Layer Diagrams

Feature Pack 2 is cumulative and includes Feature Pack 1.

Get more information here.

Microsoft has released the final version of the Windows Phone 7 developers tools 🙂
The package includes everything you need to start writing applications and games for Windows Phone 7. The package is completely free and includes all of the following:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone – Free edition of VS 2010 for Phone development.
• Express Blend 4 for Windows Phone – Free version of Blend for Windows Phone 7 Development.
• Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 – Rich framework for building great applications for Windows Phone 7.
• XNA Game Studio for Windows Phone 7 – Rich framework that enables you to build great 2D and 3D games for Windows Phone 7.
• Windows Phone Emulator – A hardware accelerated emulator that allows you to run and debug your applications and games without requiring a phone.
• Phone Registration Tool – When you get a device, this allows you to “unlock” the device so you can run/debug your application on it, using your Marketplace account.

Download the tools here.
Read Scott Guthrie’s blog post to get much more details on the release.

Microsoft has just released a refreshed version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP. The biggest change is that it is now compatible with the final version of Visual Studio 2010 RTM 🙂

The CTP includes the following components:

• Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone CTP
• Windows Phone Emulator CTP
• Silverlight for Windows Phone CTP
• XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP

Get it here.

A few days ago, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010. Unfortunately, for the time being, this final version is not compatible with the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP that was released a while ago. According to Charlie Kindel:

“If you install the retail (RTM) release of Visual Studio 2010 on the same machine on which you already have the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, you will be unable to build your Windows Phone projects.  Further, while the Windows Phone project type will continue to appear in the File/New dialog, you will not be able to build Windows Phone 7 applications.”

The Windows Phone Developer Tools are being updated and a version that supports the final version of Visual Studio 2010 will be released in a few weeks.

In the meantime, Charlie Kindel recommends the following if you need the retail version of Visual Studio 2010 together with the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP:

• Install Visual Studio 2010 to a VPC image
• Install Visual Studio 2010  on another machine

Note that installing the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP to a VPC image is not supported.

Register here to be informed when an updated version of the Windows Phone Developer Tools is released.

Today, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4. A lot of new features are included. One of them is a completely new editor.

“Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 have something for every developer. The new editor, now using Windows Presentation Foundation, delivers a more flexible, feature-rich environment that supports concepts such as the use of multiple monitors. This enables a developer to have one monitor with code, another with the user interface designer, and yet another with database structure.”

Visual C++ 2010 also includes a lot of new features, some of them are:

• MSBuild and multi-targeting
• IntelliSense and Browsing (#include auto completion, call hierarchy, red squiggles, find all references, class wizard)
• C++ compiler changes (static_assert, auto keyword, lambda, decltype, rvalue references)
• Ribbon designer
• Deployment changes
• Task dialog support
• Restart manager support

Read the full press release here or watch the keynote.

Later this week, Silverlight 4 will also be released to the web (RTW). At that time, an update for Visual Studio 2010 will also become available that will allow you to develop applications using Silverlight 4.

A friend of mine, Marius Bancila, wrote several blog posts with details about new features in Visual C++ 2010.

He touches the following features:

• MSBuild and multi-targeting
• IntelliSense and Browsing (#include auto completion, call hierarchy, red squiggles, find all references, class wizard)
• C++ compiler changes (static_assert, auto keyword, lambda, decltype, rvalue references)
• Ribbon designer
• Deployment changes
• Task dialog support
• Restart manager support

You can read his posts here. They give you a good idea of new features in VC++ 2010 🙂

The Release Candidate of Visual Studio 2010 has changed the behaviour of RValue references slightly compared to the implementation in the Visual Studio 2010 beta versions. This is because the C++0x standard commitee has changed the RValue reference feature a bit and Visual Studio 2010 RC has incorporated those standard changes. Unfortunately, this might lead to compiler errors when you try to build code that is following the old standard. Let me give an example. Previously using a beta version of Visual Studio 2010 that was using the old C++0x standard, the following code would compile without any problems.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// Increment value by 1 using RValue reference parameter.
int increment(int&& value)
{
   cout << "value = " << value << endl;
   value++;
   return value;
}

int main()
{
   int a = 10;
   int b = 20;

   // Increment a
   int result = increment(a);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment b
   result = increment(b);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment an expression
   result = increment(a + b);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment a literal
   result = increment(3);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;

   return 0;
} 

However, when trying to compile this using the latest release candidate of Visual Studio 2010, you will get the following errors:

rvalue_test.cpp(18): error C2664: 'increment' : cannot convert parameter 1 from 'int' to 'int &&'
          You cannot bind an lvalue to an rvalue reference
rvalue_test.cpp(21): error C2664: 'increment' : cannot convert parameter 1 from 'int' to 'int &&'
          You cannot bind an lvalue to an rvalue reference

These are related to the lines that are trying to increment a and b. Incrementing an expression or a literal still works as before. To get rid of those errors, you need to convert the lvalue to an rvalue. You can use the std::move function for this as shown in red below.

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

// Increment value by 1 using RValue reference parameter.
int increment(int&& value)
{
   cout << "value = " << value << endl;
   value++;
   return value;
}

int main()
{
   int a = 10;
   int b = 20;

   // Increment a
   int result = increment(std::move(a));
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment b
   result = increment(std::move(b));
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment an expression
   result = increment(a + b);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;
   // Increment a literal
   result = increment(3);
   cout << "  a=" << a << ", b=" << b << ", result=" << result << endl;

   return 0;
}

This now compiles without any errors and produces the following output:

value = 10
  a=11, b=20, result=11
value = 20
  a=11, b=21, result=21
value = 32
  a=11, b=21, result=33
value = 3
  a=11, b=21, result=4

Now, it again works as expected 🙂

Microsoft has released a white paper for Visual Studio 2010 licensing which provides an overview of the complete Visual Studio 2010 product line. The paper also gives a number of example deployment scenarios and the licensing requirements for those.

Client editions in the Visual Studio 2010 product line include:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN
• Microsoft Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 with MSDN

(Visual Studio 2010 products can be purchased without an MSDN subscription in certain channels.)

Server products in the Visual Studio 2010 product line include:

• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010
• Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management 2010

Volume licensing customers who need a definitive guide to licensing terms and conditions should reference the Microsoft Licensing Product Use Rights (PUR) and applicable licensing agreements. For retail customers, the license terms are specified in the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) included with the product.

Microsoft has released the Release Candidate version of Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.

See Scott Guthrie blog post about it.

Right now it’s available for MSDN subscribers.
On Wednesday 10th of February everyone will be able to get their hands on it 🙂

Two important things to know (from Scott Guthrie blog post):

• If you have previously installed VS 2010 Beta 2 on your computer you should use Add/Remove Programs (within Windows Control Panel) to remove VS 2010 Beta2 and .NET 4 Beta2 before installing the VS 2010 RC.  Note that VS 2010 RC can be installed on the same machine side-by-side with VS 2008 and VS 2005.
• Silverlight 3 projects are supported with today’s VS 2010 RC build – however Silverlight 4 projects are not yet supported.  We will be adding VS 2010 RC support for SL4 with the next public Silverlight 4 drop. If you are doing active Silverlight 4 development today we recommend staying with the VS10 Beta 2 build for now.

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 are now available. The final version is scheduled for 22nd of March 2010. I’m looking forward to it 🙂

For Visual C++ developers there are lots of new things to look forward to, like parallel programming, MFC ribbon resource editor, easy application local deployment model etc etc…

When you use the .NET Framework you will apparently be able to have deployments with up to 81% reduction in the framework size by using the Client Profile.

According to the press release:

“The company also outlined a simplified product lineup and pricing options for Visual Studio 2010 as well as new benefits for MSDN subscribers, including the Ultimate Offer, available to all active MSDN Premium subscribers at the official product launch on March 22, 2010.”

The product lineup is simplified with the following versions:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. The comprehensive suite of application life-cycle management tools for software teams to help ensure quality results from design to deployment
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN. A complete toolset to help developers deliver scalable, high-quality applications
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN. The essential tool for basic development tasks to assist developers in implementing their ideas easily

Download Beta 2 now.

Read the full Microsoft press release.