Hi,

This week, developers at the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) not only got their hands on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, they also got Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.

Visual Studio 2008 has only been on the market for a few months (Microsoft_released_Visual_studio_and_Dot_net_Framework_35.aspx) but Microsoft is letting no grass grow under its feet by getting to work on the new version.

Scott Guthrie also said VS2010 was built using the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Microsoft's library for rich visual displays, and this will result in flash and polish not usually seen in something as mundane as a compiler. VS2010 will offer features like multi-monitor support, richer code editing and richer code visualization.

Visual Studio and .NET 4.0 will also allow for customizing the widgets on applications, and for adding the Ribbon UI first introduced in Office 2007. Its support for multi-touch is similar to that found in Windows 7 and also in Microsoft Surface,

The CTPs of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 are available for download from a joint portal the two share.

You can also find the Dot net framework poster here. And of course, here is the DeepZoom version! (use your mouse wheel or click and control-click to zoom in and out) [You will need Silverlight installed for this.]

Download the .NET Framework 4 Poster PDF for high quality printing.

Vikram