Create New ASP.NET 2.0 with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Projects Using VS 2008

Visual Studio 2008 is support for framework multi-targeting. This enables you to use VS 2008 on .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 projects, and does not require you to upgrade your projects to the latest version of the .NET Framework in order to take advantage of new Visual Studio 2008 features.

VS 2008 out of the box allows you to open and edit existing ASP.NET 2.0 applications built with the separate also available on ASP.NET website. The VS 2008 multi-targeting support works just fine with these projects, and you can use the improved JavaScript and web designer support with them - while still targeting .NET 2.0 and ASP.NET AJAX 1.0.

Out of the box VS 2008 doesn't include project templates for creating brand new ASP.NET 2.0 with ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 applications. Currently web free web download for VS 2008 that enables these project templates options. You can download them here

Once these additional project templates are installed, you can use File->New Project or File->New Web Site within VS 2008 to create ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 applications that run on ASP.NET 2.0:

ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support

One of the cool new features is something we call "ASP.NET Dynamic Data Support". In a nutshell this enables you to really quickly build data driven web-sites that work against a LINQ to SQL (and in the future LINQ to Entities) object model - and optionally allows you to-do this without having to build any pages manually.

The best way to see this in action is to watch David Ebbo's awesome 17 minute screen-cast:

For more info. : ScottGu's

Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit

In the spirit of the release of VS 2008 RTM version, a VS2008 Training Kit has been released as well. It is a nice collection (self-extracting, 125MB.)

The Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management. Download it.

You can also enjoy the relevant screencasts on Channel 9: