Visual Studio 2008 Web Deployment Projects (WDP) Releases to Web

Just some time ago I made an announcement on our team blog about release of WDP 2008... It has been a very exciting journey to reach at this point...

We had received an enormous participation for December 2007 CTP and community had provided us with a lot of interesting feedback... We had to balance out between features and timeline as usual... There are many customers who were not able to move ahead with Visual Studio 2008 installations because of unavailability of WDP 2008 and we did not hold so many folks from using VS 2008 hence releasing early was definitely important...

That said, I think the current version of WDP 2008 is a fine balance of speed to market and features... In fact I think this release has quite a few value added features:

• New Features of Visual Studio 2008 Web Deployment Projects are as below... You can read in detail about these features on the post which announced December 2007 CTP of VS 2008 WDP (Click here to go to the December 2007 CTP post)
  • Migration from WDP for VS 2005 to WDP for VS 2008
  • Replacing WDP output only if Pre-Compilation succeeds
  • Creating IIS Applications
  • Using aspnet_merge.exe version which is installed with Visual Studio 2008
• Core WDP Features
  • You can read more about this core features in the VS 2005 WDP white paper on MSDN...
  • A tutorial on Web Deployment Projects can be found at Scottgu's blog...

To find out more about the release visit the link below:

http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/01/25/announcing-rtw-of-visual-studio-2008-web-deployment-projects-wdp.aspx

At the end I feel really proud to to call out the efforts of the heros behind WDP, my team members... Alison Lu has done a great job of testing WDP and reproducing every possible scenario that we heard from blogs, forums or connect system... Wendy Wei our dev on WDP got to the bottom of multiple issues that were raised... Bill Hiebert is our Architect and is always the support mechanism of the team... Anna Lidman is our Release Manager and makes our release process so smooth that we practically have forgotten the pains of going to the web... Tim McBride is our Dev lead and John Dundon is our test lead on WDP and have always been great partners to work with...

I hope you enjoy this release of WDP as much as we have enjoyed releasing it and hope it makes your pre-compilation and deployment challenges easier to deal with...

Happy Deploying!!

Register for Beta Exam 71-571: Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Developing

You are invited to take beta exam 71-571: Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Developing if you have experience using Windows Embedded CE. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form. The 71-xxx identifier is used for registering for beta versions of MCP exams, when the exam is released in its final form the 70-xxx identifier is used for registration.
By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

71-571 : Microsoft Windows Embedded CE 6.0, Developing counts as credit towards the following certification(s).

· MCTS: Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Developer

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Availability

Registration begins: January 24, 2008

Beta exam period runs: January 29, 2008– February 18, 2008

Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.

Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.

Regional Restrictions: India, Pakistan, China

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Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: EMBCE
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.

To register in North America, please call:•

Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)

Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact:•

Prometric: http://www.register.prometric.com/ClientInformation.asp

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Test Information and Support

You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
Find exam preparation information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-571.mspx

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Frequently Asked Questions

For Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) help and information, you may log in to the MCP Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/or contact your Regional Service Center: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/support/worldsites.asp.

•What is a beta exam?

•Where can I learn more about the registration process?

•Where can I learn more about the beta exam invitation process?

•Where can I learn more about the new structure of Microsoft Certification?

•Who do I contact for help with this beta exam or other MCP questions?

Tips & Tricks: Web Server Settings for Web Application Projects now can be stored per user as well as per project

Web server settings, which are accessible inside Web Application Projects (WAPs) property pages (Web section)  allow you to specify settings associated to to Visual Studio Development Server or IIS.  Many a times in a team development environment it is preferred that these settings are shared across the teams providing consistency; at the same time many other teams prefer that these settings be developer specific.

To support both of these scenarios in Visual Studio 2008 the web server settings now has an additional checkbox as highlighted below:

By default this check box comes checked and it implies that these settings will be stored in the project file (i.e. .csproj or .vbproj) and when opened in an XML editor will look as below :

When the check box above is unchecked then the settings are transferred to .csproj.user / .vbproj.user file located in the project folder and "SaveServerSettingsInUserFile" node value is changed to True in the project file...  This setting is especially useful when a team wants to allow per developer settings while checking in the project files in a source control system like TFS or VSS.

If you are using Visual Studio 2005 then we have created a hotfix to support this model. The explanation above still holds true for VS 2005, although in VS 2005 you will not have the property pages checkbox to make the change to "SaveServerSettingsInUserFile" property.  You will still be able to make the change manually in .csproj and .vbproj file.  You can read more about this in the KB Article 942844.   Hope this will help...

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