VS 2010 Multi-Monitor support

World is changing and now most of the people has started working with two monitors, it makes them more productive, as people say.

Now if you consider, that you can view Form-Design and Form-code together, would it make you productive? or if you have ever felt sometimes how annoying it is to navigate from one tab to another tab in code editor view to look at code, compare, debug, or even work.

Considering this fact VS 2010 team made these Code/Form-Design windows Floatable, and so whichever code/design window you want to open in another monitor/screen parallely you can select "Float" option on the context menu (right-click that window) and drag it to your 2nd monitor.

If you see in the image here, as you right-click on a window it shows you a new option "Float"


click on the image to see larger view

Float was not an option with VS 2008 or earlier version of Visual Studios.Other options shown in the contect menu in the image above are same as of Visual Studio 2008 and earlier versions.

VS 2010 - Start Page Behaviour

If you have noticed whenever you open a project in Visual Studio, it also opens "Start Page" in the project.

Whereas this is not what you always wanted, sometimes you want only code files pages shown in your project. Visual Studio 2010 team realized this and brought cutomization to user when you begin with a new project.


Click on the image to see larger view

If you select both the check-boxes (as shown in the image) you will see Start Page upon loading of VS 2010 IDE, but as soon as you create a project, Start Page will not be shown at all, unlike VS 2008 or earlier versions.

If you wish to see Start Page while working on a project you can use View menu, Start Page option.

VS 2010 IDE integration with SQL 2008 T-SQL Editor

Visual Studio 2010 has new feature to invoke T-SQL Editor inside its IDE itself.

So unlike in VS 2008 and other previous Visual Studio versions where you had to open SQL Server Management Studio to run the T-SQL queries, VS 2010 provides this feature which comes handly when you need to interact with database without leaving your Visusl Studio IDE.

You can access it through Data menu by choosing Transact-SQL Editor option. It offers connectivity only with SQL Server 2008 only, in order to open T-SQL Editor.


click on the image to see in larger view, use back button to continue reading

Once the T-SQL Editor is open it also shows the SQL related toolbar on the top, as shown marked in RED color on top-left, and allows you to work with SQL 2008 Databases without leaving the VS 2010 IDE.

VS 2010 code editor’s Tab closing behavior

In any of the Visual Studio IDE, VS 2002 until VS 2008 each .cs or any other file was/is displayed in the form of a separate code-editor tab, and so at some point in time it was very common to have multiple files open in various code-editor tabs.

The problem comes when you want to close these tabs and it is and has been a troublesome process as in these versions of VS 2002 – VS 2008 there is a common closing tab on the right-hand-side so you have to go to that common closing button for each tab as shown in the screenshot below.

common closing button for all the tabs
Click on the image caption link to see larger view

In VS 2010 this behavior is changed and each tab has its own closing button, this makes it more simple and easy to use. Notice in the image below that each tab has its own closing button and there is no common closing button on the right-hand-side like in VS 2008 or any of the previous version of Visual Studio.


each tab has a closing button
Click on the image caption link to see larger view

VS 2010 compatibility with VS 2008

Visual Studio 2010 is backward compatible with Visual Studio 2008, and it allows upgrading Visual Studio 2008 solution/projects to VS 2010 with the help of upgrade wizard.

Any VS 2010 solution/project or the one which you upgraded from VS 2008 to VS 2010 cannot be re-opened in VS 2008. If you try to do so you will receive an error that you can't open a solution or project which is created with newer version of this application.

VS 2010 - Splash Screen

This is how splash screen looks in Visual Studio 2010.

Codeplex - WPF Application Framework

Microsoft launched WPF Application Framework,its alpha could be downloaded from codeplex site, by following the link below:
WPF Application Framework (WAF)

This application framework will help you create the applications based on layered architecture and the Model-View-ViewModel (aka MVVM, M-V-VM, PresentationModel) patterns.

.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is a prerequisite for this.

Bing - Because Its Not Google

Microsoft has launched its new search engine which will replace live.com.

MCP Exams Scheduled for Discontinuation from 31-Mar-2009

Microsoft is committed to a program of Microsoft Certifications that are relevant, valued, and respected indicators of IT professional and developer technology skills. To fulfill this commitment, the Microsoft Certification team continually monitors current industry trends and evolves accordingly, developing new exams and discontinuing others to ensure that certification requirements keep pace with technology enhancements.

In accordance with this commitment, Microsoft Learning will retire 12 exams on March 31, 2009. These exams focus on technologies no longer included in Microsoft mainstream support, and are requirements for the Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), and Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) certifications. To complete these credentials, you must pass all required exams before they retire.

To know about the following:
• Developer exams that retire on March 31, 2009
• Microsoft SQL Server exams that retire on March 31, 2009
• Frequently asked questions

Read
MCP Exams being retired from 31-Mar-2009

Microsoft Technology/Career Mentor