I was scanning the usual sources for an update on Visual Studio 2005 and Team Foundation Server over the last couple of days and I have now managed to verify a few of the rumours I had been hearing. To summarise a few of the main pieces of news;

• Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition August CTP = Now Available
  • Release Candidates (RC) of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 expected to be available for the start of PDC in Los Angeles. (Around 12th Sept)
    • Team Foundation Server Beta 3 expected to ship simultaneously with Visual Studio 2005 RTM in November timeframe. This will include a Go-Live license allowing the Beta version to be used in a Production environment.
      • Team Foundation Server due for release in the first quarter of 2006 (It will not ship as RTM with the rest of Visual Studio 2005 in November)
        • MSDN Subscribers rumoured to be able to download RTM versions of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 on or around 16th October 2005.</UL>
        [UPDATE/NEW from Rick LaPlante’s Blog]
        • The TFS RTM install will continue to use all of the data/files customers have accumulated with the go-live version of Beta 3 with no data loss. Read the complete story on Somasegar’s Blog and of course Rob Caron’s invaluable source of VSTS information.

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