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Visual Studio 11 Beta Training Course

Version: March 2012

The Visual Studio 11 Beta Training Course includes hands-on labs to help you understand how to take advantage of the variety of enhancements in Visual Studio 11 and the .NET Framework 4.5, how to support and manage the entire application lifecycle and how to build Windows Metro style apps.

Target Audience

This training course is designed for developers who are familiar with Visual Studio and the .NET Framework. The course focuses on new features in Visual Studio 11 Beta.

Dev Environment, Languages and Web Prereqs.

If you want to execute the labs in the Visual Studio Development Environment, Languages and Web units download and install the following prerequisites.

Application Lifecycle Management Prereqs.

If you want to execute the labs in the Application Lifecycle Management unit download the following virtual machine.

Units

Visual Studio Development Environment

With Visual Studio 11, we have concentrated our efforts to help you code faster, build faster, debug faster, and deploy faster. To support these aims, we have added numerous productivity improvements to the development environment.
Languages

Learn about the improvements in managed languages, including a new pattern that will make asynchronous programming similar to - and about as straightforward as - synchronous programming.
Web

ASP.NET 4.5 includes new core functionality like WebSockets, anti-XSS encoding, granular request validation. It also includes Web Forms improvements like model binding, support for HTML5 and unobtrusive JavaScript. And there have many performance improvements in ASP.NET. Visual Studio 11 includes full editor support for CSS 3, HTML 5 and JavaScript. The upcoming version of ASP.NET Web Forms introduces a number of improvements focused on improving the experience when working with data. MVC 4 makes it easier to develop mobile Web applications.
.NET Framework

The .NET Framework is an integral Windows component that supports building and running the next generation of applications and web services. The key components of the .NET Framework are the common language runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework class library, which includes ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Windows Forms, and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). The .NET Framework provides a managed execution environment, simplified development and deployment, and integration with a wide variety of programming languages.
Application Lifecycle Management

There are many obstacles that can get in the way of any development team seeking to deliver a working and fully functional solution. Many of the problems are caused by a lack of clear and effective communications between developers, project managers, and customers, while others might simply be a result of a lack of discipline resulting from developers' and project managers' misuse or misunderstanding of the development process. Consequently, adaptable and easy-to-use tooling is critical to help overcome many of the issues that can arise when producing a potentially complex system. Visual Studio 11 and Team Foundation Server 11 help to address these concerns by supplying a collection of tightly integrated tools intended to support and manage the entire application lifecycle.
Windows Metro Style Apps

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview introduces a new development platform for creating Metro style apps. Metro style apps are designed to leverage special hardware capabilities and context information to create an experience that is tailored for the user. Your customers experience these apps in an immersive, full-screen environment. Your app takes center stage with Windows Consumer Preview, while the operating system chrome recedes into the background.

Please visit the Getting started with Metro style apps section of the Windows Developer Center for tutorials and information on building Metro style apps with Visual Studio.

Visual Studio 11 Beta Home page
What's New in Visual Studio 11 Beta
What's New in the .NET Framework 4.5 Beta
What’s New for ASP.NET 4.5 and Web Development in Visual Studio 11 Beta
Visual Studio Team Blog
Windows Dev Center
Metro style app development
Building Windows 8 Blog