The Ramblings of Two Microsoft .NET Developers, TFS, and Visual Studio ALM Guys --- "Yes, we are both named Ed."

Key Piece of Information for Adopting Visual Studio “11” and Future Releases

April 10, 2012 4:05 PM | Comments [4] | by



Visual Studio 11 Logo

I was reminded by someone that this is huge.  It’s something that hasn’t really sunk-in for people following the new release of the Visual Studio family of products.  It is a subtle thing that will really help people with adopting Visual Studio “11” without making the rest of the team adopt it -- even while it is in Beta & RC.  Because we now have “round-tripping” of Visual Studio solutions & projects, we no longer need to “upgrade” a vast majority of the VS project types when you open a solution in Visual Studio “11.”  That means that a few people can install Visual Studio “11” Beta/RC/RTM without interfering with everyone else on the team.  It allows for a rolling adoption across teams as each team member is ready which is a key adoption feature for this release.

  • Most solutions and projects can be opened in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 and Visual Studio “11” without requiring upgrades of the solutions.  There is a constantly updating list of the project types that aren’t currently supported available on MSDN but again, most of the ones that people interact with every day are supported.
  • Visual Studio “11” can be installed side by side with Visual Studio 2010 SP1.
  • You do not need to adopt .NET 4.5 for your applications if you want to start using Visual Studio “11”.  Visual Studio “11” targets .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, and .NET 4.5.
  • You do not need to upgrade to Team Foundation Server “11”.  Visual Studio “11” will connect with a TFS 2010 server and work similar (but better) than the Team Explorer 2010 client.
  • The opposite of the previous bullet point is true as well.  If you do upgrade to Team Foundation Server “11”, you do not need to also upgrade your Visual Studio edition.  You can connect from Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 to a TFS “11” server instance.  You’ll want to install the forward-compatibility update for earlier editions:  http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29082

This is a subtle but huge change in this next release that we need to stress with all development teams.  It will help increase the speed at which teams will adopt Visual Studio “11” and future releases.

 

Ed Blankenship

Comments [4]
Posted in TFS | VSTS


Thursday, April 12, 2012 2:39:59 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Just make sure that you are not using features that are not supported in Visual Studio 11!

Visual Studio Installer
Data Dude Projects
Business Intelligence Projects
Mobile Projects

To name but a few... Not complaining mind, this is one of my favourite features of 11... Just need to remember the differences.
www.google.com/accounts/o8/id
Thursday, April 12, 2012 8:58:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I hear you! Thankfully there are replacements for many of them including the new SSDT projects that you can upgrade your "Data Dude" projects to even while you are in Visual Studio 2010. I have a feeling that project system support for the SQL projects will be ready shortly after the release of Visual Studio "11". That's only personal conjecture though.

We weren't supposed to use Visual Studio Installer projects any longer anyway in Visual Studio 2010. :) They were deprecated in Visual Studio 2010 and then finally removed.

There would definitely be a big incentive for the team who owns the mobile projects system to get there's ready for VS "11" as well.

Be sure to provide feedback on Connect or User Voice if you find there are projects that aren't participating in round-tripping that your team finds valuable to participate. Microsoft won't know how to prioritize the investment if they don't understand the amount of need from customers!
Ed Blankenship
Friday, June 01, 2012 4:53:57 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Looking for download for -
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2011
kevin
Friday, June 01, 2012 4:56:09 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Hi Kevin,

It is not available just yet but I would imagine should be available pretty soon.
Ed Blankenship
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