by
Parvez
12. December 2010 20:10
I have been using Visual Studio for more than a decade. Today I just realized how it has become an integral part of my professional life. I wanted to share how it has evolved from the first time it was introduced in 1997.
This blogpost is by no means a technical reference to the different versions of Visual Studio, but a way of showing respect to the Visual Studio Team at Microsoft.
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Visual Studio 97
 CodeName: Boston.
It was released in 1997. It included Visual Basic 5 and Visual C++ 5 for Windows programming, Visual J++ 1.1 for Java and Windows programming and Visual FoxPro 5.0 for database.
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Visual Studio 6.0
 CodeName: Aspen
It was released in 1998. This version remained for next four years, as Microsoft transitioned to the .NET Framework. It was the last version to include Visual FoxPro.
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Visual Studio .NET 2002
 CodeName: Rainier
Internal version Number: 7.0
It was released in 2002. Major change was the introduction of a managed code development environment using the .NET Framework.
Visual Basic was changed considerably to fit the new framework. and was called Visual Basic .NET.
Visual Studio .NET environment was rewritten to partially use .NET. First Service Pack for this VS was released in March 2005.
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Visual Studio .NET 2003
 CodeName: Everett
Internal version Number: 7.1
File Format version: 8.0
It was released in 2003. This version included the .NET Framework version 1.1 and this was the first VS version to support developing programs for mobile devices using ASP.NET or .NET Compact Framework.
First Service Pack for this VS was released in September 2006.
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Visual Studio 2005
 CodeName: Widbey
Internal version Number: 8.0
File Format version: 9.0
It was released in 2005. “.NET” moniker was released from Visual Studio 2005. This version introduced the version 2 of .NET Framework.
Visual Studio 2005 was upgraded to support all new features introduced in .NET 2.0, including generics and ASP .NET 2.0. VS2005 also included a local web server separate from IIS, that can host ASP.NET applications during development and testing. VS 2005 also supported all SQL Server 2005 databases.
VS 2005 also added extensive 64-bit support while the development environment itself was only available as a 32-bit application.
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Visual Studio 2008
 CodeName: Orcas
Internal version Number: 9.0
File Format version: 10.0
It was released in November 2007 to MSDN subscribers alongside .NET Framework 3.5. Its Service Pack was released in August 2008.
VS2008 was focused on development of Windows Vista, 2007 Office System and Web Applications. New WPF XAML based Visual Designer(codenamed Cider) was also included.
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Visual Studio 2010
 CodeName: Dev10
It was released in 2010. The IDE has been redesigned which clears the UI organization and reduces the complexity. The new IDE better supports multiple document windows and floating tool windows.
The whole IDE has been rewritten using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), while the internals have been redesigned using Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) that offers more extensibility which enables a better add-ins support.
VS2010 supports developing applications targeting Windows 7. It has integrated support for developing Microsoft Silverlight applications, including an interactive designer.
VS2010 no longer supports development for Windows Mobile prior to Windows Phone 7. A new set of developer tools have been provided for developing applications for Windows Phone 7.
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I would like to salute the Visual Studio Team for making our lives easier and providing us with such wonderful development Tools.
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