Denny Boynton

I was holding an ArcCouncil meeting in St. Louis last week and one of the attendees expressed their frustration with the seemingly 43 places you have to go to download and use the Visual Studio "Orcas", the Silverlight tools and Expression Blend. So, I'll try to clarify this right here and now:

Visual Studio "Orcas": Here is the URL for the public download site: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F10FB5DF-E369-4DB4-B9A7-845DBF793368&displaylang=en. Unfortunately, this site requires you to download nine WinRAR files individually. Once you have the complete package downloaded, just execute the first RAR file and it will extract the rest of the files in order to put the files on your machine. Yes, this is kind of a pain I know, but please remember, it's still beta 1.

If you have access to an MSDN subscription, you can download "Orcas" from there as an ISO or you can get a VPC image as well.

Either of these download routes will get you everything you need to run and use VS "Orcas" and the .NET Framework 3.5. Be aware that there is no handy-dandy uninstaller for most of the stuff that gets installed and some of it will likely cause problems with Visual Studio 2005, so don't install this on a machine that is critical to your daily existence.

Silverlight: The URL for all things Silverlight is http://www.silverlight.net. There are some great resources available to help you get started building cool Silverlight applications. There are two versions of Silverlight you can download. First there is Silverlight 1.0 Beta and is available here:

Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/eula.aspx?id=fbc0ab04-4ad9-664d-07f4-d4592dd8e157

Mac: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/eula.aspx?id=fe2cbe3f-e0bd-f4d2-bb74-f9ccff3c7e96

Second, there is Silverlight 1.1 alpha. This is the version that has the .NET CLR built into it. It is available here:

Windows: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/eula.aspx?id=e2c1a44f-0b5c-face-28c8-08a26f2e0b3c

Mac: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/eula.aspx?id=03d833f1-549b-dc3b-af75-f74b1ebb9351

Finally, you can download the ASP.NET Futures package that will provide server-side controls to enable you to build Silverlight into ASP.NET pages. You find that here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9323777E-FE78-430C-AD92-D5BE5B5EAD98&displaylang=en

Expression Blend: The ship date for Blend was April 30th. If you want to look at and use the 1.0 version of Blend, you can download a fully-functional trial at http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/products/download.aspx?key=blend. The site will provide you with a key that you can enter into the software that will enable the trial for 180 days.

If you want to use Blend to build Silverlight applications, you'll need the Blend 2.0 May CTP which you can find here: http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/products/download.aspx?key=blend2maypreview.

Those are the essentials. Want some info on other technologies? Send me your feedback!