Visual Studio 2005 represents one of the most significant developer tools releases since the introduction of Visual Studio nearly a decade ago. It offers all types of developers a wider spectrum of development possibilities and a greatly advanced design experience. By expanding the Visual Studio product line to include the Visual Studio Team System and the Visual Studio Express Editions, Visual Studio 2005 delivers a compelling toolset for everyone, from hobbyists to enterprise developer teams.

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 continues Microsoft’s investment in market leading development tools. Service Pack 1 addresses issues that were found through a combination of customers and partner feedback, as well as internal testing.  The issues addressed range in severity from places where the syntax coloring was incorrect to customer reported crashes in various scenarios. In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product Feedback Center and Microsoft Connect. Overall, Service Pack 1 offers customers improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance for Visual Studio 2005.

Through further advancement and feedback, Service Pack 1 also provides over 70 improvements for common development scenarios including:

• New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling
• Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server
• Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007
• Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition
• Additional support for project file based Web applications
• Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support

For developers using Visual Studio 2005 on Windows Vista, Microsoft provides an update to Service Pack 1 called Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista. This update builds on the improvements made in SP1 and delivers a first class experience for developers wanting to take advantages of the new features in Windows Vista. For more information, see Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista Release Notes.

For more information, see the Microsoft Download Center:

• Visual Studio 2005 SP1 (includes SP1 updates for Standard, Professional, and Team Editions of Visual Studio 2005)
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server SP1
• Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions SP1
• Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista

In addition, see the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 release notes, as well as the Visual Studio Service Pack 1 servicing page.

You can find the complete list of issues addressed in Visual Studio Service Pack 1 here: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/content/content.aspx?ContentID=4324.