Microsoft just released Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate (RC) & is now available for MSDN Subscribers. It will be available publicly by this Wednesday, 10th February 2010. If you are a MSDN Subscriber, you can download it from MSDN site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-in/default(en-us).aspx
Visual Studio 2010 RC has a “Go-Live” license, means you can develop softwares/applications using it & publish it. As you all know the features of Visual Studio 2010 in the Beta release, but I am again posting the link of Visual Studio RC features & walkthrough guide here so that it will be beneficial for the new users.
Go here & have a look into the Visual Studio 2010 RC features and walkthrough guide: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd441784.aspx
One update regarding the RC release is it doesn’t support Silverlight 4 but you can load/create Silverlight 3 projects using that. According to Scott in his Blog Post: “Silverlight 3 projects are supported with today’s VS 2010 RC build – however Silverlight 4 projects are not yet supported.  We will be adding VS 2010 RC support for SL4 with the next public Silverlight 4 drop. If you are doing active Silverlight 4 development today we recommend staying with the VS10 Beta 2 build for now.” Hence, those who are actively working on Silverlight 4 should work on Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 instead of upgrading to the Release Candidate.
Complete this survey for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Release Candidate: https://mscuillume.smdisp.net/Collector/Survey.ashx?Name=VS2010-RC
Last but not least, if you have any issue working with the RC version of Visual Studio 2010 or if you find any bug or if you have any future suggestions please never forget to report it at Microsoft Connect site: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio

Kunal Chowdhury

About the Author

Solution Architect & Former Microsoft MVP

Kunal Chowdhury is an enterprise solution architect and former multi-year Microsoft MVP. He is the author of three technical books: Windows Presentation Foundation Development Cookbook, Mastering Visual Studio 2017, and the Mastering Visual Studio 2019.

He publishes technical articles on .