Microsoft has publicly announced the availability of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2. This version of the beta includes the high-end versions — Team System — as well as the Express and Professional Editions.
If you are an MSDN subscriber, you can go here to log in and download beta 2 immediately. If you are not an MSDN subscriber, you can go hereto order a copy that will be mailed. Although I’m an MSDN subscriber, I went ahead and ordered the CD/DVD. There was no charge when I ordered.
Also released in a second beta are the Express Edition versions of Visual Studio 2005. You can download the express editions from here. The Express betas require that you register them within 30 days; however, this doesn’t cost. The five development Express editions have all been released:
- Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
- Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
- Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
Equally important to the release of the betas is the release of the Go Live licensing. Beta software licensing generally prohibits applications created with the software from being deployed into a live environment. The Go Live licensing is an addendum to the standard EULA that provides a means for applications using the following to be launched:
- Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 family of products (except Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server)
- .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 2
- .NET Compact Framework Beta 2
- SQL Server 2005 Express Edition April CTP
For more on Go Live go here.
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http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/