VS 2005 SDK 4.0 RTM is here!

We are really excited to announce that the VS SDK team has just taken the wraps off of the Visual Studio 2005 SDK 4.0 RTM release! This is the final release on the VS 2005 platform. You can download it immediately from the Microsoft Download Center.

The highlights to this release are:

Visual Studio SDK Browser

As part of the Visual Studio product development team’s community initiatives, the team has built a Visual Studio SDK Browser to enhance the overall Visual Studio Extensibility development experience and to connect users with the community and online contents. The Visual Studio SDK Browser is a key feature of Visual Studio 2005 SDK 4.0.

Package Load Analyzer

The Package Load Analyzer analyzes package load issues and then provides diagnostic information instead of a generic failure message. For example, if a package load issue was caused by a failed Package Load Key (PLK) verification, then the Package Load Analyzer will present that reason together with supporting data. This data may also help Microsoft Customer Support or VSPackage providers trouble-shoot package load issues on end user computers.

Toolbox Control Installer

Visual Studio 2005 introduced a change in the Toolbox that would have required a component vendor to create a VSPackage in order to make components appear in the Toolbox. Included in this release is a redistributable Toolbox installer package that component vendors can include in their Setup programs to simplify the deployment of their components. By using the Toolbox installer package, a vendor does not have to create a VSPackage to load components in the Toolbox. The redistributable Toolbox installer package is an .msi file, and the Controls sample demonstrates how to use it.

Updated TFS Contents

The Team Foundation Server samples and contents have been updated to include new sample and documentation.

DSL Tools Bug Fixes

This release contains bug fixes for the DSL Tools that were released in Visual Studio 2005 SDK 3.0. For details about the bug fixes, refer to the DSL Tools readme.htm, which is located in <Visual Studio SDK installation path>\2007.02\VisualStudioIntegration\Tools\DSLTools\.

Updated Setup Experience

This release has an entirely new Setup experience with a fresh look and feel. Installing the Help documentation is optional. The documentation is now available online at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=76770&clcid=0x409.

New Toolbar Combo Box Sample

This sample shows how to create combo boxes on Visual Studio toolbars. You can find this sample in the folder <Visual Studio SDK installation path> \2007.02\VisualStudioIntegration\Samples\IDE\CSharp\Reference.ComboBox\ .

IronPython Bug Fixes

The IronPython sample now recognizes external line mapping comments. These follow the form of #ExternalSource(“filename”, lineNumber) and are ended with a #EndExternalSource comment. This format matches the format of the C# compiler and is used for a similar purpose. Errors reported on lines in an ExternalSource region will include file and line number information based on the ExternalSource comment. This enables scenarios such as ASP.NET code-behind where the source code from the Web page is inserted into generated code in another file.

Sandcastle Documentation Compilers

Sandcastle is a tool that lets developers automate the creation of accurate managed class library documentation with a common look and feel. For more information about Sandcastle, see https://www.sandcastledocs.com. Sandcastle produces documentation by using .NET Reflection on source assemblies. As an option, developer source code comments provided by the Visual Studio XML Documentation Comments feature can be integrated. The Sandcastle tools can be found in <Visual Studio SDK installation path> \2007.02\VisualStudioIntegration\Tools\Sandcastle\ .

We are really excited about this release. Please let us know what you think about it and send us feedback by sending email to vssdkfbk@microsoft.com!