Service Pack 1 Released for .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Express

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is not a traditional service pack, which usually consists of bug fixes and performance improvements. This service pack contains new features to help in your ongoing development efforts, including:

You can download the service packs from:

The .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 delivers:

  • Performance increases between 20-45% for WPF-based applications – without having to change any code
  • WCF improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services.
  • Streamlined installation experience for client applications
  • Improvements in the area of data platform, such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework, ADO.NET Data Services and extensive support for SQL Server 2008’s new features.

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 delivers:

  • Improved designers for building WPF applications
  • Full support for SQL Server 2008 (formerly known as SQL Server Katmai)
  • ADO.NET Entity Framework and ADO.NET Data Services tooling
  • Visual Basic and Visual C++ components and tools (including an MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’)
  • Improvements to TFS to respond to customer feedback on version control usability and performance, improved email integration with work item tracking and full support for hosting on SQL 2008.
  • Improvements for Web development including richer JavaScript support, enhanced AJAX and data tools, and Web site deployment.

Application Development

The new ADO.NET Entity Framework feature in SP1 offers developers a model-based paradigm and a rich, standards-based framework for creating data-oriented applications shared across multiple applications and platforms. The separation of presentation, data, and business logic used in concert with a single data model will enable developers to spend less time writing plumbing code and more time refining business logic.

Data-driven Development

SP1 offers developers support for ASP.NET Dynamic Data, which provides a rich scaffolding framework that enables rapid data-driven development. Since ASP.NET takes care of creating the presentation layer, a fully functional Website is output and ready for customization without the developer writing a single line of code. Further, with ADO.NET Data Services, Web developers can create RESTful Web 2.0-style applications that have better server scalability and improved caching support.

Client Deployment

With the .NET Framework Client Profile, a small subset of the Framework that powers client applications, developers can offer their end users a dramatically streamlined and rapid application download experience. In addition, improvements in SP1 result in dramatic reductions in cold start times, allowing developers to serve a broader set of customers with varying hardware profiles.

ASP.NET MVC

The release does not include ASP.NET MVC, the model view controller technology. This will ship separately. This pattern lets you separate applications into loosely coupled, pluggable components for application design, processing logic, and display. You can get the latest community technology preview from ASP.NET MVC.

.NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit

A training kit for developers is in the works and will be available soon. The training kit is named "enhancements" because it will include support for Silverlight 2 and ASP.NET MVC. The kit includes demos, presentations, and labs.

More information

For more information, see Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1.