Visual Studio 2008 Final released!

There we go, Visual Studio 2008 Final has just been released, including the .NET Framework 3.5 Final Version.

Here are some instructions for the Install-Process from Scott Guthrie, especially if you were using VS2008 Beta 2:

People often ask me for suggestions on how best to upgrade from previous betas of Visual Studio 2008. In general I’d recommend uninstalling the Beta2 bits explicitly. As part of this you should uninstall Visual Studio 2008 Beta2, .NET Framework Beta2, as well as the Visual Studio Web Authoring Component (these are all separate installs and need to be uninstalled separately). I then usually recommend rebooting the machine after uninstalling just to make sure everything is clean before you kick off the new install. You can then install the final release of VS 2008 and .NET 3.5 on the machine.

Once installed, I usually recommend explicitly running the Tools->Import and Export Settings menu option, choosing the “Reset Settings” option, and then re-pick your preferred profile. This helps ensure that older settings from the Beta2 release are no longer around (and sometimes seems to help with performance).

Note that VS 2008 runs side-by-side with VS 2005 – so it is totally fine to have both on the same machine (you will not have any problems with them on the same box).

I really hope the final Release will fix some annoying bugs I was fighting with lately, although I expect this to be a much smoother release than Visual Studio 2005.

Quick Note to Silverlight Developers: You should wait until Microsoft released the updated Silverlight Tools for VS 2008, it’s expected within the next two weeks.

Futhermore Microsoft released a cool Training-Kit for the .NET Framework v3.5, grab it here. The Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.