Microsoft released Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview along with a whole host of other goodies, like a preview of Windows 8, at the Build Conference on Friday, September 16. When this article was written, it was less than two weeks old. Microsoft would love to have you download it and try it out.
This article is a review of the features and GUI aspects of the new VS11. And I have a few things to say about Metro style apps as well.
To run VS11 Pre, you'll need the latest equipment ... and software. Microsoft almost doubled the hard drive requirement to 5.5 GB. (Hard drives are cheap these days, right?) But the software requirement is a little stiffer. Although the production release next year will run on any supported operating system, you need Win7 or Win8 (or a server) to run it now. As of this review, it wouldn't install on Vista. (The message is "Setup Blocked")
Metro Style Apps - Fizzle or Future?
You also need Win8 to develop anything in the new Metro style and this requirement is likely to be part of the production release. In other words, it's unlikely that you will be able run Metro apps on any Microsoft desktop OS other than Win8. There are a number of reasons why. First, these new Metro apps may be coded in HTML 5 and Javascript which only runs natively in Windows 8. Second, Metro is designed for touch screens. It just doesn't work with a "mouse and keyboard" paradigm because touch screens have a fundamentally different interaction model. It's simply not clear that you can successfully mix Metro apps with desktop apps no matter how flexible virtualization becomes.
One way that you might get a sort of backward compatibility with previous versions of Windows would be to make all of your apps run in a browser. Today's IE9 supports HTML 5 and Javascript. The browser as OS could be the way we're going anyway, or maybe not.
So, suppose you plan on investing a minimum of a few million in a new system. Do you go with Metro where you can target Win8 and all the touchscreens and phones? Or do you go with traditional windows where you can target literally everything? (Yah, Apple and Google will call you a sissy in their TV commercials.) I'll concede that for some types of apps, Metro does make sense. How may apps? You'll have to make that choice.
Of course, this problem might fade out of existance as people upgrade their OS ... as long as they upgrade the way they work with computers to a touchscreen paradigm at the same time. There is a good chance that people will decide that a mouse and a keyboard really is the way they want to work and then Metro will start to seem clunky and distracting instead of Windows forms. I think you should expect this to be a controversy for a few years at a minimum, and maybe, just maybe, Metro style apps will go the way of flared pants and hula hoops. (You do remember flared pants and hula hoops, don't you?)
Microsoft created a new OS, they're supporting a new style of GUI. (Well ... new for them.) And they now have new development environment. All this will make it possible for your new Metro app to penetrate new markets. But once you're there, you've burned your bridges for anyone running even today's Win7. I'm not sure how many developers are a going to flock to Metro when it becomes a commercial reality for machines of all sizes next year. It may take longer than the time it takes for customers to upgrade their OS.
I'm also not sure these concepts have hit home with most people yet. Count me in the "wait and see" camp about Metro style apps, so this review is based on a Win7 OS.
Downloading and Installing VS 11 Pre
When you download, you'll need a fairly good Internet connection. I live where I can only get wireless Internet. It took me over four hours to get it downloaded and installed using the Microsoft Web Installer. But the good news is that it does run without problems beside VS 2010. (Ah, that America was as enlightened as South Korea where superfast Internet is both cheap and available everywhere!)
Along with VS11 Pre, you also get Framework 4.5. And you get the Visual Studio SDK. And you get SQL Server Code Name "Denali" CTP3. This is probably why the hard drive space requirement almost doubles.
On the next page, we dive into all the new stuff that makes downloading VS11 Pre worthwhile!
