Microsoft ship Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0

Product teams at Microsoft today announced that they have shipped the final versions of Visual Studio .NET 2005, SQL Server 2005, and version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.

The disc images of VS.NET and SQL Server are available for MSDN Subscribers to download now. The formal launch date for the products is set at November 7th, which is presumably when boxed copies will be available.

Both the x32 and x64 versions of the .NET Framework 2.0 (both runtimes and SDKs) are available to the public.

New features include:

Visual Basic: Edit and Continue; "My Classes"; enhancements to Windows Forms development

Visual C#: Refactoring tools; Generics; new debugging capabilities

Visual C++: Enhancements to source browsing, editing and debugging; numerous security enhancements; further improvements to performance.

Web Development: Master Pages; Personalization; Web Parts; declarative data access to databases and business objects.