Main differences between the IDEs
Integrated Development Environment
General Integrated Development Environment Tools
Start Page
The Start Page has been re-designed for this release. You can still set your user preferences for IDE behavior and access new or existing projects, but with a user interface designed to be easier to navigate. Both the My Profile and Project sections now have their own tabs. The Online Resources tab now contains useful Microsoft related online developer resources.
Solution Explorer
A new option, Track Active Item in Solution Explorer, has been added to the
Projects and Solutions, Environment, Options Dialog Box. When this option is selected, Solution Explorer automatically opens the folder for the active item, scrolls to its node, and selects its name. The selected item changes as you work with different files within a project or solution, or different components within an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) designer. When this option is cleared, the selection in Solution Explorer does not change automatically. This option is enabled by default, but it is cleared when you choose the "Visual C++ Developer" or "Visual C# Developer" profile on the My Profile tab of the Visual Studio Start Page.
New icons in the Solution Explorer toolbar include:
-
Checked Out Exclusive - Item is checked out from a source control database to one developer only. Other developers cannot access this file.
- Checked Out Shared - Item is checked out from a source control database for shared use by a development team. Different versions of the item will be merged upon checkin.
Options and Settings
You can copy certain Options dialog box settings from a previous version of Visual Studio .NET to a more recent version. If you have two different versions of the program installed on the same machine, the first time you launch the newer version of the Visual Studio .NET, a dialog box appears giving you the choice to migrate your existing setting. If you dismiss this dialog, you can display it later by executing the following command from the Windows command line:
devenv /migratesettings
After you migrate your previous Options settings into the new version of Visual Studio .NET, select Options from the Tools menu to display the Options dialog box and review your settings. Most option settings should appear as you last set them.
Note In cases where the default value for an option has changed, or where one Option enables or disables another, your previous setting or the previous default value will generally override the option's current default value.
For more information, see
Migrate Options Dialog Box and
/migratesettings.
Web References
The Start Browsing for XML Web Services pane in the
Add Web Reference Dialog Box now provides Web links to both local and Internet sources of available Web services. Use this pane to locate the desired Web service, then enter a Web reference name to use in your code, and select Add Reference. The new reference will appear in Solution Explorer under the Web References node for the active project.
Web links to sources of available Web services include the following: <UL type=disc><LI>Web services on the local machine - select this link to list Web services available on your own Visual Studio .NET developer machine. <BLOCKQUOTE class=dtBlock>
Note Internet Information Services (IIS) must be installed and running on your local machine for this link to return information. For help on using IIS, see the Help for the IIS Control Panel or MMC snap-in, and