Those people lucky enough to be covered by an MSDN Universal/Premium subscription often tend to forget that not every developer using Microsoft Developer Tools has the same ability to simply download the latest bits and pieces from the MSDN Subscriber download site. I know myself, I tend to assume that all developers I talk to have access to the Subscriber downloads site. Admittedly, the majority do tend to work for organisations that have enterprise agreements in place with Microsoft and therefore do have access to the site, but that shouldn’t be mistaken to mean everyone.
Rob Caron has posted some good news today for those people interested in using the trial version of Team Foundation Server, but aren’t able to download it from the Subscriber download site and don’t want to wait for it to be posted to them if they sign up for the trial. Here is an excerpt from his post…
Are you eager to try Team Foundation Server, but you don’t have an MSDN Subscription to access the download, or you don’t want to wait to order and receive a CD in the mail?
We just put the English 180–day Trial Edition on Microsoft Downloads to make it more accessible. We also plan to make localized versions (e.g., Japanese, French, etc.) available for download once they’re ready.
The download is a CD image file (.ISO) that is around 447 MB, so be sure you have a reliable connection with adequate bandwidth for a successful download. Microsoft Downloads doesn’t have a file transfer manager like MSDN Subscriber Downloads, which helps with files of this size.