Features Of Visual Studio 2013

 

Integrated Development Environment

A powerful environment for creating modern applications

A clean, fast and powerful development environment will let you focus on creating value and accomplish 

tasks quicker. Visual Studio consolidates all tasks involved in a software development project into a single

 integrated development environment with innovative capabilities to make development more productive

 for any application that you target.

Core Capabilities

Customizable & Unified

• The Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) consolidates all development tasks into one tool
• Visual Studio is highly customizable: multi-monitor support with continuous layouts across sessions                                         and hundreds of configurable settings that synchronizes across devices
• With a powerful Integrated Debugger, IntelliTrace, Performance & Diagnostic Hub and profiling tools                                        Visual Studio delivers a full set of capabilities needed to build and optimize your apps
• Project round-tripping supports teams working on different versions, allowing them to upgrade Visual                                   Studio at their own pace.
• Visual Studio is built with deep Extensibility, giving developers and partners the ability to integrate their                              own tooling & SDKs – with thousands of extensions available today

Connected Experience

• The Visual Studio IDE is a connected experience that enables team collaboration, working across                                       devices and the ability to deploy to and manage remote systems
• The Connected IDE experience makes working across devices easier, enabling synchronized settings                                    and seamless Team Explorer connectivity to Visual Studio Online
• With Team Explorer developers can connect to Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio Online to                               collaborate, share source code, or request code reviews
• With Server Explorer developers can interact with remote servers such as SQL Server and SharePoint.                           Windows Azure SDK extends it to remote Azure services such as Websites, SQL Databases, Virtual Machines,                            etc.

Develop & Design

The Code Editor

• In Visual Studio, the Code Editor supports languages such as C#, VB.NET, C++, HTML, JavaScript, XAML,                              SQL and more – all with syntax highlighting & IntelliSense code completion
• CodeLens (Ultimate only) shows code information in the editor, so you stay focused on your work. Easily                find references and unit tests that are passing or failing. Plus, get change history for methods and classes                             when you use Team Foundation Server version control or Git. And, you can communicate with your team from the editor with Lync
• Code Map makes it easy to understand your code's design. Create code maps directly from the                                                 editor so you can visualize references alongside the code. SeeArchitecture, Design, and Modeling
• Other productivity features include: Peek Definition for in-line reference review, powerful code                                      refactoring tooling and capabilities to detect duplicate code

Design Compelling Applications using Blend

• With Blend for Visual Studio developers & designers are provided with an advanced design-centric                                            tool for building Desktop (WPF), Silverlight, Windows Phone and Windows Store Apps
• For Windows Store developers building HTML apps, Blend provides a rich toolset and high-fidelity                                            design surface for authoring HTML & CSS, easily and predictably
• For Windows Store developers building XAML apps Blend, provides a powerful design surface to                                                create and test beautiful store apps
• For Windows Phone, Silverlight and WPF developers Blend is a powerful tool for building                                                  beautiful applications
• Connecting Blend to Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio Online enables designers and                                                developers to collaborate with the team through source code and ALM capabilities

What's new in Visual Studio 2013 Integrated Development

 Environment (IDE)

With Visual Studio 2013 it just gets better when your IDE is connected. New roaming support, notifications 

and a new Visual Studio Updates experience means you get fixes and features sooner. In this video, Cathy

 Sullivan will demonstrate many of the new productivity improvements, how Visual Studio takes understanding 

your code to the next level, and other IDE enhancements

Improved developer productivity using CodeLens (Ultimate only)

CodeLens provides deep insights into your code as you work on it, right in the editor via fighter-pilot

 style head-up-displays. In this video, David Starr shows how CodeLens and Team Foundation Server 2013

 make understanding source code and collaboration a lot easier and bring new productivity without leaving 

the code editor

Code Editor Enhancements for all developers

The Visual Studio Code Editor is the heart of a developer’s day-to-day experience. In this video, 

Ala Shiban shows what new editor capabilities have been added to make development even easier,

 and new features such as enhanced scrollbars, peek definition, auto bracket completion and more

Development Platform Support

Create applications across the desktop, devices, and the cloud

Visual Studio 2013 offers a unified development environment for building applications targeting the 

full range of Microsoft platforms such as desktop, Windows Store and Windows Phone apps, as well as

 mobile web apps, web applications and cloud services, and much more. No matter your choice of

 programming language, the application you target, or whether you are modernizing an existing 

client / server application or developing a new cloud service across devices, Visual Studio provides 

the development environment you need.

Agile Software Development

Adopt agile practices on your terms

Incrementally adopt the agile practices that best fit your team. Quickly plan, manage, and track work 

across all your backlogs and teams with easy-to-use, fully integrated tools for agile planning and portfolio

 management. Provide real-time visibility with customizable Kanban and task boards, while continuously 

monitoring status with flexible reporting. Agile tools are available in Visual Studio Online and Team

 Foundation Server.

Team Collaboration

Effective team collaboration that removes barriers between roles

Extend the software development process to business stakeholders, operations, and end users, so that

 every aspect of the lifecycle is connected and traceable by connecting the development team. Facilitate

 cross-team activities such as code reviews, code annotation, stakeholder feedback, and lightweight 

requirements definition. Real-time communication among team members is captured in Team Rooms so 

it can be reviewed and referenced later.

Debugging & Diagnostics

A modern set of tools which enable debugging and diagnostics for all applications

With Visual Studio 2013 developers are empowered with a variety of tools that help them develop, 

optimize, debug and diagnose applications no matter the chosen platform or language. The Visual 

Studio Integrated Debugger provides a first class experience enabling features such as breaking code 

execution to inspect flow & memory values, the ability to debug against remote servers or devices and

 a great experience for understating and resolving Exceptions. For optimizing the software

, Visual Studio provides the Performance and Diagnostics Hub, which makes it easy to find performance 

bottlenecks in your app. When software is deployed, developers and operations can work together to

 collect IntelliTrace performance and Exception logs that greatly reduce the complexity of debugging 

issues in production environments, and can be setup to facilitate proactive monitoring in combination 

with System Center and Team Foundation Server.

Testing Tools

Enabling high quality software through testing tools & services

Visual Studio provides testing tools that help you adopt testing practices such as manual, automated,

 exploratory, and load testing. These testing tools capture insightful information that is provided to the

 developer in context, within the development environment, so bugs are easier to reproduce and quality

 can be assured throughout the development process. In addition, testers can be more productive 

planning, executing and tracking tests, both with the web-based test management tool or the rich

 experience provided by Microsoft Test Manager.

Release Management

Reduce your cycle time to improve your value delivery

The faster your software is deployed, the quicker you can get feedback. With release management

 in Visual Studio you can configure, approve and deploy your applications for any environment.

 Create automated deployment orchestrations for each environment no matter how complex the 

configuration. Delivering your software more frequently and easily to an environment allows your

 testers to get to work validating your system and keeps your stakeholders involved in giving 

feedback.

Lab Management

Automate your lab environment to optimize your Application Lifecycle Management

With Visual Studio’s Lab Management capabilities, you will automate the process of building, 

deploying, and running automated tests on your lab environment. Stop losing time each day 

to mundane tasks, and let Lab Management take care of them for you. Your team will get back

 valuable time that they can spend producing value for your customers.

Architecture, Design, and 

Modeling

Develop complex apps faster and more easily

Work more efficiently by visualizing your app's architecture and design. Read less

 code by creating code maps, layer diagrams, and UML diagrams. Introduce fewer 

bugs when you make changes because you better understand their impact when you

 assess the risk. Communicate more easily with your team about your app and its 

requirements by sharing diagrams. Keep code consistent with the design by validating

 them with each other during development.

Application Insights (Preview)

Know whether your applications are available and performing to your

 expectations even before your customers do

Application Insights is a new cloud-based service that collects rich operational,

 performance, and customer usage information from server and client/device 

applications – whether they run on-premises, in Microsoft Azure, a third-party

 cloud provider, or a combination of all three. With this “360 degree view” into

 the availability, performance, and usage of your applications and services, you 

can quickly detect availability and performance problems, pinpoint their root 

cause, and connect yourself to a rich diagnostic experience in Visual Studio. 

And by knowing what your customers are doing with your application, you

get the insights to continuously improve your applications and prioritize 

investments.

StepBy Step Installation Of Visual studio 2013

In this article, let’s see how to install Visual studio Professional 2013 RC (Release Candidate).

Please note: The installation for Visual studio (VS) Ultimate and Premium 2013 RC is almost simillar to VS Professional 2013 RC installation.

Steps to install VS Professional 2013:

1. First download Visual Studio Professional 2013 RC from here. Setup is around 3 GB. I recommend to download dvd iso image file.

You can also refer this post for new features in the VS 2013 RC.

2. Mount .iso file (if downloaded) , you will see following list of files.

3. Click on vs_professioanl.exe file to start the installation. You will see following screen first.

4. Read the license terms and privacy policy and accept them by selecting the checkbox in from of them. Click on “Next” button.

5. Select the features you want to install then click on “INSTALL” button to start the installation.

Setup will create system restore point first before installing VS 2013 components.

6. Once it’s done, setup will start acquiring the required components to install and will start installing core features. It will take few minutes to install it. You may required to restart your system (for once ONLY) in between the setup.

7. Once it finishes the setup, you will see the success screen as below.

8. Click on “Restart Now” button to restart your system. After restarting your system, you are now ready to use your VS Professional 2013 RC.

Here you are done with the installation of the Visual Studio Professional 2013 RC.

Now Just open the installed VS 2013 program from your system. You will see following welcome screen. You can sign in to your Microsoft account by clicking on “Sign In” button, else you can just skip the step by clicking on the “Not now, maybe later” link.

If you sign in with your Microsoft account, Visual studio will sync your VS settings between different devices and connect to online developer services.

9. If you click on the “Sign in” button, you will see the following screens.

10. If you are not interested to sign in, you can just skip this step and can sign in to your Microsoft account later. Once you have done with that, you will be asked to select a theme for your visual studio. You can select either Blue, dark or light theme. Also you can set your development settings from the screen. Off course you can change these settings later at any time.

11. Now click on the “Start Visual Studio” button to launch the application.

Sql Server Installation

SQL Server : Step by step installation guide for SQL Server 2012 (Denali)

I have so exciting news! Microsoft has released SQL Server 2012 RTM (Code name “Denali”) on March 6 for manufacturing and download the evaluation edition from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29066

As my laptop is 32-bit system, so I have downloaded the following files from the above link. Likewise, you can download the files for 64-bit system(x64) too. :) Finally, check your system requirements from the same link.

ENU\x86\SQLFULL_x86_ENU_Core.box
ENU\x86\SQLFULL_x86_ENU_Install.exe
ENU\x86\SQLFULL_x86_ENU_Lang.box

After downloading the above files, your system will look like below:



Double click the “SQLFULL_x86_ENU_Install.exe”, it will extract the required files for installation in the“SQLFULL_x86_ENU” folder as shown below:



Click the “SQLFULL_x86_ENU” folder and double click “SETUP” application.



Checking your system requirements for installation.



When you see “SQL Server Installation Center” screen, it means that your system configuration is perfect for “Denali”installation. :)



Click installation from the left pane and select “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation”.



In the “Setup Support Rules” Click "OK" button when you have failed 0. Otherwise fix the issue and click "Re-run"button.



Here, I left default edition “Evaluation”, but you can also choose “Express” edition from the drop down list. (Leave the product key as of now, later you can convert to licensed version at any time, refer the above link.



Press “Next” button.



Select the “I accept the license terms” and click “Next” button.



I have installed in “Offline” mode, So I got the above error message otherwise, it does windows update automatically and will continue the process. :)

Press “Next” button.





Press “Next” button, if all status are passed. Otherwise fix the issue and press “Next” button.



I left the default feature “SQL Server Feature Installation”, if you do not want to change the option then  press “Next”button.



Select the features and change the “Shared feature directory” if you want, otherwise press “Next” button.





Press “Next” button if failed count is 0.



As I have already 2 instances, so I have selected “Named Instance” and given the instance (server) name.  You can change “Instance root directory” if you want. Otherwise, press “Next” button.



It will not allow, if you do not have sufficient space in the disc. Press “Next” button.



You can change the “Startup Type” for SQL services in the tab. Which also can be done in the Control Panel “Services”after installation.



Change the “Collation” if you want, otherwise Press “Next” button.



Choose the authentication mode and specify the “Administrator” user. Here, I have selected “Add Current User”. Also, you can change the “Data Directories” and enable “FILESTREAM” if you want , otherwise Press “Next” button.



You can change the Analysis Services “Server Mode” and “Administrator” user. Here, I have selected “Add Current User”. Also change the “Data Directories” if you want , otherwise Press “Next” button.

Note : You can select only one server mode to use: “Multidimensional and Data Mining Mode” or “Tabular Mode”. If you want both, you need to run the setup again after the first instance setup. Refer Books online.



Here, you need to choose “Reporting Services Native Mode” and press “Next” button.




“Distributed Replay Controller” service feature is new in SQL Server 2012, here specify the user who should have permission to use this service. Press “Next” button.

Note : Distributed Replay feature helps you assess the impact of future SQL Server upgrades.
Refer http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff878183(v=sql.110).aspx



Specify the Controller Machine name which should have “Distributed Replay Controller” service. Also you can change the working directory and Press “Next” button.





Press “Next” button, if failed count is 0.



Here, you can find the list of "SQL Server 2012" features which will be installed. If you would have missed to enable any features, click “Back” button and enable. Otherwise press “Install” button to proceed.



You can see installation progress. Press “Cancel” button, if you want to stop the installation.





After the successful installation, your screen should look like below :



Wow, you have successfully installed SQL Server 2012 and to confirm the successful of installation from the screen, you can find the “Succeeded” for all the features and refer summary log file for further info.
Press “Close” button.

Now, you can play with SQL Server 2012 features.
Go to “SQL Server 2012” menu and click “SSMS”.