A developer’s blog about it
here says that
MSDN subscribers can download now and you can order free copies of it here with
free shipping for US/Canadian residents.
Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 is out
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
No MSDN required.
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/
I’m getting 3 kb/sec on the Visual C# express download. At this rate the DVD I ordered will be here before it’s installed.
anyone else having issues installing the express editions because it’s saying the beta1 versions are still installed? I uninstalled it through the control panel/add-remove programs, deleted the file directory, and cleaned the registry. still saying it can’t install because beta1 version is still there.
There are 3 parts of vc# express beta1 that have to be uninstalled from the control panel.
the actual IDE
the 2.0 framework
and the express MSDN
I’m just messing around with a very tiny SWF app. Leave VS running for 3 mins, CPU usage spikes and I get a hardlock and have to reboot.
I’m getting a full 350 kb/s here.
My attempt to install SQL Server Express on a Windows XP Home Edition, SP1 box fails due to the installer complaining about me needing be logged in as an administrator, even though I am logged in as an administrator.
Has anybody else managed to install SQL Server Express on a Windows XP Home, SP1 box yet? If so, how did you workaround the administrator account issue?
Thanks.
Is http://www.getthebetas.com really a valid Microsoft website? Or is it some type of scam? Anyone know? Thanks.
“Is http://www.getthebetas.com really a valid Microsoft website? Or is it some type of scam? Anyone know? Thanks.”
Its quite real, and you have taken part of my IP! Hehe
Oops. It seems that Sql Server Express is not supported on Windows XP Home Edition.
<rant>
I keep running into this crap whenever I try to get enthusiastic about Microsoft tools. I attempt to install the latest version of Visual Studio and/or SQL Server and encounter some sort of problem with the fact that I’m running XP Home Edition. At that point, I remember that some very good tools and RDBMS from other vendors don’t refuse to run on XP Home Edition, and so lose my temporary enthusiasm for the Microsoft tools and go back to the ones that work.
For some reason, it seems that Microsoft has decided that developers should have to run XP Professional. If so, then perhaps their Windows XP Home logo should say something like “Warning: Windows XP Home Edition will not run Microsoft development tools”.
What a bunch of crap. I hope that I’m wrong about all of this and would be happy if somebody explained how to use Windows XP Home as a development machine. I’d like for my next box purchase to be a Longhorn/Media Center purchase, but I worry that Microsoft would prevent the use of Media Center as a development box.
It’s little wonder that folks are leaving Windows for OS X and Linux.
</rant>
The torrent would go a lot faster than the 5kpbs download I am getting from msdn.
Yes, the site is legit – it is linked to from msdn online.
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/uninstall/
“If you have installed previous versions of Visual Studio 2005, such as Beta 1 or Community Technical Preview (CTP) builds of Visual Studio Team Suite, Visual Studio Standard or Visual Studio Professional, then you must uninstall the pre-Beta2 components in the exact order below before beginning to install any version of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2.
Go to the Control Panel and launch Add/Remove Programs
Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional” or other related IDE installs such as (Visual Studio Professional/Standard/Enterprise Architect/Team Suite, etc.)
Remove “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition”
Remove “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Tools Express Edition”
Remove “Microsoft SQL Native Client”
Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio 64bit Prerequisites Beta”
Remove “Microsoft MSDN Express Library 2005 Beta”
Remove “Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office System 2005 Runtime Beta”
Remove “Microsoft Device Emulator 1.0 Beta”
Remove “Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 2.0 Beta”
Remove “Microsoft SQL Mobile 2005 Development Tools”
Remove “Microsoft Visual J# Redistributable Package 2.0 Beta”. If you receive an error message, see Note 1.
Remove “Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Beta”. If you receive an error message, see Note 2″
Doug,
This is just a temporary limitation done to ease the early testing burden. I agree it’s really irritating, but it will supposedly be remedied in SQL ’05 Beta 3. Here are some links to the MSDN VS2005 Product Feedback Center that show i’m not just full of shite: 😉
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?fee…
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?fee…
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?fee…
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?fee…
(Sorry for the hairy URLs! 🙁 )
HTH 🙂
Thank you very much for the information.
As a former product developer I can certainly understand Microsoft needing to minimize its early testing burden. But as you say, this is really irritating. I’ve been looking forward to the beta 2 release for a long time, was excited when it was made available for download today and then was disappointed when it wouldn’t even install on my machine.
I wouldn’t mind paying the extra bucks for an XP Professional license, and have even purchased a retail license of XP Pro separately for use in situations such as this one. However, the machine that I’m attempting to install SQL Server on is an AMD64 laptop that came with XP Home (XP Pro wasn’t available on the laptop from the manufacturer when I bought the machine). A while back, when beta 1 was released, I installed XP Pro on the laptop to avoid these Microsoft tools issues, but then had to restore the laptop to XP Home in order to receive support from the laptop manufacturer. In short, as is the case with many customers, I’m stuck having to choose between being able to run Microsoft development tools and being able to get support from my computer manufacturer.
I suppose that this problem will only get worse with the release of Longhorn/Media Center when Microsoft re-segments its OS feature sets and licenses.
What a pain in the butt. I really envy the OS X guys who don’t have to put up with this kind of stuff, or with crap such as the “Genuine Windows” validation that I had to pass in order to even be able to attempt to install SQL Server.
I like Microsoft’s stuff, but sometimes I wonder if using their stuff is really worth all of the annoyances.
Anyway, thanks again.
Doug Dew, Pick up a copy of Virtual Pc at pricegrabber.com.
I don’t trust Microsoft’s “Production” quality code, so there’s No Way In Hell, I’d run Microsoft Beta software without Virtual PC.
Forgive me, but you are aware that VirtualPC is a Microsoft product, right? 😉
…are *sweet* man, and long overdue.
I wish I could play with it, but the uninstall for the February CTP is broke, so I can’t uninstall the old version. I tried to delete the files and the Add/Remove Programs entry, but it still detects it as installed. Maybe I need some powerful registry tool that will delete all entries.
I anticipated this problem given that I’ve run into issues with Visual Studio betas before and made an image (using Norton Ghost) of my boot partition after having installed Windows XP and the essential drivers and tools. I then installed the february CTP of Visual C# express and when beta 2 arrived I just replaced my partition with the image. I can’t recommend this approach enough.
Write apps that run on both Windows & Linux.
http://www.realbasic.com/
I don’t know why people are so enthusiastic about VisualStudio. Maybe i’m not the kind of developer it’s aimed to (OpenGL), but i use V.S.2002 only as a fancy code editor with a floating file list (and a compiler, of course). I get the same productivity with an editor like GVIM…
C++ GUI is crap (resizing widgets by hand?), there’s no profiler, class browser and code completion are useless (C++ complexity is to blame here), debugger is somewhat usable but doesn’t impress me. Database and GUI features (which can be used in managed code only, unfortunately) were available many years before in Delphi (which compiled to machine code at the time). V.S. wizards generate code (usually damn ugly code) and leave you helpless (if you don’t know how the framework works).