Visual Studio 2014 CTP - Dev Eye for Azure Client VMs

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The VS2014 CTP is was released in June 2014. Particularly exciting to me is the new Universal Apps with WinJS support. WinJS Universal Apps really aren't called out in many other VS2014 CTP resources.  Quite a pleasant find! Other goodies include looks at Rosalyn compiler, ASP.NET vNext, C++ 11/14. More info on new features can be found in the resource links below.

I personally don’t like installing CTP bits onto my main drive or machines. Things happen. I'm not saying our stuff would ever not uninstall properly, but I hate when a support guy tells me I have to "pave it" to restore core functionality after a run in with a "preview uninstall gone bad".

So what's a developer who loves to tinker with the latest bits to do? I'd also like to embrace my inner lazy mode which means I want someone else to have done all the heavy lifting and installation stuff for me.

Enter Azure Virtual Machines. As you might know I'm a huge fan of Azure Client VMs from my blog series on them ( see links below ). So wanting to play with VS2014 CTP, I headed over to see if there were a Windows 8.1 image with VS2014 CTP already installed in it. Sadly, there wasn't.

But wait, there WAS a Windows Server 2012 R2 image with VS2014CTP in it. Azure VMs are a great place to start playing with Visual Studio 2014 as they require a minimum of effort on your part to get going, and even less to 'clean up' after you're done with the CTP.

Click into your Azure Management Portal ( https://manage.windowsazure.com/ ) until you get to the Virtual Machines Section.
Click on Visual Studio in the Virtual Machine Gallery categories section
You should see an entry for Visual Studio Professional 14 CTP2 on Windows Server 2012 R2.
Go through the normal steps of provisioning up your VM.
If you haven't done VM provisioning in Azure, read my blog post in the RESOURCES section below on Visual Studio WPF app in Azure VM.

Once you've connected into your Azure VM, you'll see the Windows Server 2012 desktop along with Visual Studio 2014 Preview.

You'll also note if we go into Visual Studio 2014 we will find Windows Universal Apps under the JavaScript entry! This compliments the XAML/Csharp support for Universal Apps that's already there in Visual Studio 2013.

Yes, I know I could have used a local hyper-v instance to try Visual Studio 2014 CTP, but why? I hate to lose a gig or two in space, I dont really enjoy downloading gigs worth of VMs, and when executing I dont particularly enjoy bogging down my local machine. I can also use the Azure client as a remote machine doing tasks and downloads for me.

And if I did use local Hyper-V, I wouldn't be able to write about another cool thing you can do having a Dev Eye for Azure Client VMs (well, maybe not client in this case, but I'm still using the title) .

Hey, Azure guys, how about a Windows 8 image with VS2014 CTP in the gallery?!

RESOURCES

DEV EYE FOR AZURE CLIENT VM SERIES

  1. Visual Studio WPF App in Win81 in Azure VM - https://blogs.msdn.com/b/devfish/archive/2014/05/19/visual-studio-wpf-app-in-win81-dev-eye-for-azure-client-vms.aspx 
  2. Unable to activate Windows Store app in Azure VM - https://blogs.msdn.com/b/devfish/archive/2014/05/19/unable-to-activate-windows-store-app-dev-eye-for-azure-client-vms.aspx 
  3. Adding a Microsoft Account to Azure VM - https://blogs.msdn.com/b/devfish/archive/2014/05/27/adding-a-microsoft-account-dev-eye-for-azure-client-vms.aspx 
  4. Signing in with your Microsoft Account to an Azure VM - https://blogs.msdn.com/b/devfish/archive/2014/05/27/signing-in-with-your-microsoft-account-dev-eye-for-azure-client-vms.aspx 
  5. Visual Studio 2014 CTP in an Azure VM - this post