Answers to a few VS 2008 Trial Edition, TFS 2008, and SourceSafe Questions

Below are some answers to a couple of questions about the recent VS 2008 release that I've seen the last few days:

When will the trial edition of VS 2008 Professional be available for download?

We shipped a free trial edition of VS 2008 Team Suite on the web last week.  You can download it here.  We are hoping to publish the free trial edition of VS 2008 Professional on the web later this week.  Both can be used for free for 90 days after you install them.  If you aren't a MSDN subscriber and want to get VS 2008 immediately this is a good way to get started.

Can you convert a trial edition installation of VS 2008 to a purchased edition, or do you need to reinstall it?

Commercial versions of VS 2008 ship with a PID product key.  You can upgrade a VS 2008 trial edition install to use this PID without needing to reinstall VS 2008.  You can do this in one of two ways:

1) Pull up VS Setup from the add/remove programs tool in Windows.  Enter the PID of the license you purchased and your upgrade is complete (no DVD or separate setup required).

2) Launch setup from the DVD you purchased.  If it is the same version of the VS trial edition, there is an option with it to enter the full PID to upgrade the trial edition.

Where can you find a standalone VS 2008 Team Explorer installer?

VS 2008 Team Explorer can be used as a standalone rich client for accessing VS 2008 Team Foundation Server.  You can download a copy here.

Can you use VS 2008 with TFS 2005?  Can you use VS 2005 against TFS 2008?

Yes - you can use VS 2008 clients against Team Foundation Server 2005.  Likewise, you can use VS 2005 clients against Team Foundation Server 2008.  You can download a 90 day free trial edition of TFS 2008 here.

If you are using TFS today (or thinking about it in the future) you should also make sure you are subscribed to Brian Harry's excellent blog here.  Make sure to check out his blog post covering TFS 2008 features, as well as his blog post covering TFS 2008 Installation Questions.

What is the status of using Visual SourceSafe with VS 2008?

We are working on an update for Visual SourceSafe 2005 to make it work with VS 2008.  We had originally planned to have it available last week, but found a last minute bug that has delayed it a few weeks.  We are now planning to make it available in a few weeks.  Brian Harry has more details on this in his blog post here.

Hope this helps,

Scott

48 Comments

  • Hello,

    I have been trying to download the Visual Studio 2008 Express. Its round about 62 Mb.

    The download comes along with SQl Compact Edition and SQL Design Tools and i see no way to avoid that download.

    I already have Sql Express Management Studio and I do not want to clash this with another download of Sql Compact.

    Can some one from the team guide me, how to avoid this download and also please clarify, what's the motto behind giving this, when we already have Sql Express 2005 as separate download.

    BTW, VWD Express 2008 does not come with such type of downloads, it offers SQL Wizard Tool and thats ok and welcomed.

    Pl. Foucus more on this Compulsory SQL Compact Download and a Tip how to avoid this.

  • Will there be a Visual SourceSafe 2008 later on?

  • I had a different question: When will Web Deployment Projects be available for VS2008? I made the incorrect assumption that they were already available when I migrated my project to VS2008.

  • I'm expecting VS2008 Team Developer probably in January as part of the benefit of Certified Partner, Custom Developer Competency. If I install the Trial VS2008 Team Suite, can I upgrade to full license when I receive my DVD in January? When I install VS2008 Team Suite Trial, do I get the opportunity to just install the Developer Edition components (so I can upgrade to full license when I receive it)?

  • A question about reporting services.

    I have installed VS2008, but I cannot open my reporting services projects. How do I install this part ?

  • Hi Scott
    I already install VS2008 Team suit 90 day trail, but I am wondering if I can deploy projects that I develop with this trail to clients without worry that my program may stop when the trail period end.

  • What about localized editions of VS2008 ?

  • Hi Speednet,

    >>>>>>> I had a different question: When will Web Deployment Projects be available for VS2008? I made the incorrect assumption that they were already available when I migrated my project to VS2008.

    The Web Deployment Projects download should be available within the next 10 days.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Kiran,

    >>>>>>>I'm expecting VS2008 Team Developer probably in January as part of the benefit of Certified Partner, Custom Developer Competency. If I install the Trial VS2008 Team Suite, can I upgrade to full license when I receive my DVD in January? When I install VS2008 Team Suite Trial, do I get the opportunity to just install the Developer Edition components (so I can upgrade to full license when I receive it)?

    Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure on this (I've never installed the team suite trial myself).

    Sorry!

    Scott

  • Hi Abdullah,

    >>>>>>>> I already install VS2008 Team suit 90 day trail, but I am wondering if I can deploy projects that I develop with this trail to clients without worry that my program may stop when the trail period end.

    You don't have to worry about any of the applications you build with the 90 day trial not working after 90 days. The 90 day timeout only applies to Visual Studio 2008 itself - not the applications built with it.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Bart,

    >>>>>>> I have installed VS2008, but I cannot open my reporting services projects. How do I install this part ?

    I believe reporting services is an optioin you can check during setup. When you do a file->new project do you see a reporting services node/option? If not, re-run VS setup and make sure you install that support.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Tiaz,

    >>>>>>> What about localized editions of VS2008 ?

    We are working on the localized editions now. They will start to appear over the next few weeks.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Out of curiosity, what happened that Visual Studio 2008 Professional is later than the rest?

  • Hi Mike,

    >>>>>> Out of curiosity, what happened that Visual Studio 2008 Professional is later than the rest?

    When we release big integrated products like VS we typically do test passes across all the teams involved (and there are more than 20 sub-teams for VS). Given that there are a bunch of releases happening in parallel (lots of different products, localized versions, add-on updates, etc) we have to stage them to get everything done. For the trial products we decided to release team suite first (since it had all the features) and then the professional edition second (after we signed off on a few other things).

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • I just installed VStudio 2008. Now everything looks great, but I accidentally pushed the Web Developer option as my standard setup. Is there a way I can make the Visual Studio "First Time Setup" run again? Without reinstalling?

  • I just need to be sure I did not miss out, was there a training CD/application released with VS2008? I mean the likes of WeRock and WeFly247.

  • Hi Scott,

    can you tell me when TFS 2008 will be accessable over msdn subscription?
    Thanks
    Sascha

  • Hey Now Scott,
    Some good FAQs,
    Thx,
    Catto

  • Hi Scott, I'd like to stick with VS 2005 Pro but use 2008 Express with it for a few obvious things. Trouble is, from previous experience, getting the Express versions to behave with my local 2005 SQL Server and my VS 2005 Pro templates, which has been a real nightmare. I'm very happy with VS 2005 Pro but of course I'll need some 2008 help. Any advice or tips? Thanks. ;-)

  • Trying to build an Outlook 2007 Addin I get the following error, for which I found nothing with google & live search:

    Error 1 The "VerifyClickOnceSigningSettings" task could not be instantiated from the assembly "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.BuildTasks, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".
    System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Hosting.CodeGeneration.VerifyClickOnceSigningSettings' threw an exception. ---> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Hosting.v9.0, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
    File name: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Hosting.v9.0, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a'
    at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.Hosting.CodeGeneration.VerifyClickOnceSigningSettings..cctor()


    --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

    Error 2 The "VerifyClickOnceSigningSettings" task has been declared or used incorrectly, or failed during construction. Check the spelling of the task name and the assembly name. ISA_OutlookAdd-in_2007

  • Thanks for the info on upgrading from trial to purchased.. I would not have expected to need to run the setup program to enter the serial number.

  • Hi Scott, any reason why C# doesn't support the inline xml feature like VB does?

    thanks!

  • I'm glad I saw your post before I installed VS2008 on my new work machine. All of our source code is in SourceSafe.

    What makes it incompatible?

  • Scott, maybe a bit offtopic question, but still:

    Do you know any plans on releasing some next version of Expression Web Designer that will support Web Application Projects (not "web site" ones)?

  • Scott, installed VS team system 2008 (twice) to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I do not see an option for reporting services??? When I load a solution that has a reporting services project, I get an error message:

    "this version does not support this project type (.rptproj)"

    >> I believe reporting services is an optioin you can check during setup. When you do a file->new project do you see a reporting services node/option? If not, re-run VS setup and make sure you install that support.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • I have some questions about Source Control, is the Source Safe update to make it compatible with VS2008 or is it an updated Source Safe (e.g. new version). It sounds to me like its just a compatibility update.

    As for TFS, are there plans for 64-bit host OS support? I tried installing workgroup edition on a 64-bit 2003 Server and I got an error message saying 64-bit wasn't supported. One of the posts you linked to mentioned "Longhorn" Server support, but I recall (but may be wrong) that 2008 server was going to be 64-bit only. Are there plans for a update that will support 64-bit hosts or is it something scheduled for a later version?

  • Matt -

    >>>>>>> is the Source Safe update to make it compatible with VS2008 or is it an updated Source Safe

    We have only updated Source Safe to ensure that it continues to work with VS. Nearly all of our source control energy is going into TFS from this point forward.

    >>>>>>> As for TFS, are there plans for 64-bit host OS support?

    We do not currently support running the TFS application tier on a 64-bit OS. You can run a 64-bit version of SQL and host that on a separate server if you want. We expect to add full 64-bit support in our next major release of TFS.

    Hope that helps,
    jeff

  • thanks for the answer. still waiting eagerly for the trail edition

  • I've been using VS2008 with VSS2005 and haven't seen any issues. I added a new project to VSS and check in/out files daily. Is it just specific features that are broken?

  • Scott, do you know when VS2008 will be available for Volume License customers?

  • Hi Hayden,

    >>>>>>> I just installed VStudio 2008. Now everything looks great, but I accidentally pushed the Web Developer option as my standard setup. Is there a way I can make the Visual Studio "First Time Setup" run again? Without reinstalling?

    You can change your keystroke setting preferences by using the Tools->Import and Export Settings menu item. Chose clear settings, and then you can pick a different profile to use.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Keni,

    >>>>>>>> I just need to be sure I did not miss out, was there a training CD/application released with VS2008? I mean the likes of WeRock and WeFly247.

    We are going to be putting out more samples and training shortly about VS 2008 and .NET 3.5. I'll link to some of them on my blog as they become available.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Sascha

    >>>>>> can you tell me when TFS 2008 will be accessable over msdn subscription?

    [Repeating Jeff's comment above]

    TFS is available now. You should be able to see it in your list of "Top Downloads" (light blue box on the bottom) if you go to the http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/default.aspx page. It'll also be available via the standard MSDN download mechanism later today.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Cedric,

    >>>>>>> Trying to build an Outlook 2007 Addin I get the following error, for which I found nothing with google & live search: Error 1 The "VerifyClickOnceSigningSettings" task could not be instantiated from the assembly "Microsoft.VisualStudio.Tools.Applications.BuildTasks, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a".

    I'm not sure what that is caused by. But if you send me email (scottgu@microsoft.com) I can help put you in touch with someone on that team who can help.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Bruno,

    >>>>> Hi Scott, any reason why C# doesn't support the inline xml feature like VB does?

    Sometimes the language decisions are driven by audience demand and preferences, and sometimes by time and resources. I'm not actually sure for this specific language feature what drove the decision.

    Sorry!

    Scott

  • Hi Gary,

    >>>>>> I'm glad I saw your post before I installed VS2008 on my new work machine. All of our source code is in SourceSafe. What makes it incompatible?

    I believe there are a few fixes that have been made for VS 2008. There is a Beta of these fixes that you can download today (just click Brian's article above for details). We'll have the final release available shortly.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Alexander,

    >>>>>>> Do you know any plans on releasing some next version of Expression Web Designer that will support Web Application Projects (not "web site" ones)?

    Unfortunately I don't know the exact plans with this - but I know several people have asked for it, so fingers crossed it is on their roadmap.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Dana,

    >>>>>>> Scott, installed VS team system 2008 (twice) to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I do not see an option for reporting services??? When I load a solution that has a reporting services project, I get an error message:

    Brian from the reporting services team just did a blog post on reporting services in VS 2008 here that might help: http://blogs.msdn.com/bwelcker/archive/2007/11/26/younger-than-yesterday-reportviewer-in-vs-2008.aspx

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Matt,

    >>>>>>> As for TFS, are there plans for 64-bit host OS support? I tried installing workgroup edition on a 64-bit 2003 Server and I got an error message saying 64-bit wasn't supported. One of the posts you linked to mentioned "Longhorn" Server support, but I recall (but may be wrong) that 2008 server was going to be 64-bit only. Are there plans for a update that will support 64-bit hosts or is it something scheduled for a later version?

    If you scroll up in the comments you'll find an answer from Jeff Beehler (from the VSTS team) to this question.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi David,

    >>>>>>> I've been using VS2008 with VSS2005 and haven't seen any issues. I added a new project to VSS and check in/out files daily. Is it just specific features that are broken?

    I believe there are a few fixes that have been made for VS 2008. There is a Beta of these fixes that you can download today (just click Brian's article above for details). We'll have the final release available shortly.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • Hi Thomas,

    >>>>>> Scott, do you know when VS2008 will be available for Volume License customers?

    I believe this will be available in December.

    Hope this helps,

    Scott

  • We used the non expiring VPC image from TFS 2008 beta 2 to start working with TFS 2008.
    But now that TFS 2008 has RTM'ed can someone explain me how to upgrade this TFS 2008 beta 2 VPC image.
    Thanks in advance.

  • >>>>>> I believe reporting services is an optioin you can check during setup. When you do a file->new project do you see a reporting services node/option? If not, re-run VS setup and make sure you install that support.

    I don't see this as an option in VS setup. I am also not seeing any SQL Server project types in VS08. Should I reinstall/repair my SQL Server 2005 installation? Thanks.

  • We do not see the Team Suite download on msdn. Only the VS Professional. Does it depend on the type of msdn subscription?

  • Hi Scott, my company policy blocks me from running window's update, is there any other way for me to get VS2008 updates, or do I need to wait for service packs?

  • You mentioned that VS2008 will work with TFS 2005. I have VS2005 using TFS 2005 already but there was no option in my Source Code Plug-in for VSTS2005, just VSS. Do I need to re-install the Team Explorer or what ?? Thanks for your help.

  • Hi Don,

    >>>>>> You mentioned that VS2008 will work with TFS 2005. I have VS2005 using TFS 2005 already but there was no option in my Source Code Plug-in for VSTS2005, just VSS. Do I need to re-install the Team Explorer or what ?? Thanks for your help.

    I unfortunately don't know the answer to this specific one. But if you send me email (scottgu@microsoft.com) I'll loop you in with someone who does.

    Thanks,

    Scott

  • Hi Scott,
    We plan to use VS2008. We downloaded a trail version.
    We have installed VS2008 on 3 machines. On 2 of them when we open or create a web project and switch to design view (or split) of aspx, nothing happens and after a while Visual Studio just disappears. The eventlog doesn't give any info either.
    I didn't find any questions or remarks on this kind of problem on the net. So I hope you know or have heard anything about this. Do you have an idea?
    thanks in advance

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