Get the Software Tools Featured at MIX08

Attendees at MIX08 were provided with copies of developer tools and a fast download location to grab newest copies of the software.  Now most of these tools are available for free download!

Expression Studio Beta (download)
The second release of Expression Studio adds a wealth of new features including support for Microsoft’s new Silverlight technology across all the tools. Enhanced designer developer workflow makes the process of building great user experience even better!  If you’d only like to install individual components of Expression Studio (Web, Blend, Design, Media, Encoder), go here.
NOTE: ASP.NET 3.5 is required as a pre-requisite to install Expression.

Expression Media 2 for MAC (download)
Expression Media 2 now allows catalogues to be shared amongst team members with file locking and improved network performance. Improved keywording of assets, new file formats and the ability to share photos as Silverlight galleries once you have sorted them on the new multi-monitor light table!

IE 8 Beta (download)
Over the last ten years the intensity of web usage and reliance on the web have increased dramatically.  The evolution of the web has introduced a new set of opportunities, immersive experiences, online services and standards. Daily life without the web is simply hard to imagine.  •       Interoperability and Compatibility
•       Browser capabilities that enable new, innovative experiences
•       Built in tools that help both first time and experienced developers and designers get pages built
Internet Explorer 8 will take the web experience beyond the page and introduce a new way to seamlessly experience the best of the web whether you are a web developer writing to standards or an end-user discovering a new online service.

IE 8 Virtual Machines (download)
The IE VPC’s allow designers and developers to test their sites on multiple versions of the browser, without having IE installed side by side.  There are workarounds to get IE installed side by side, but they are unsupported and don’t necessarily work the same way as IE6, IE7 or IE8 would work when installed properly. The best way to use multiple versions of IE on one machine is via virtualization. Microsoft has recently made Virtual PC 2007 a free download; we’ve taken advantage of that by releasing a VPC virtual machine image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, with either IE6, IE7 or IE8 to help facilitate your testing and development.

Expression Blend 2.5 Preview (download)
Use Expression Blend 2.5 to create and modify managed Silverlight 2-based applications. Expression Blend 2.5 for Silverlight 2 includes all of the features in Expression Blend 2 but has not reached the quality level of Expression Blend 2 for WPF or Silverlight 1 development.

Deep Zoom Composer (download)
We are pleased to present a technology preview of Deep Zoom Composer, a tool to allow the preparation of images for use with the Deep Zoom feature currently being previewed in Silverlight 2 Beta 1. The new Deep Zoom technology in Silverlight allows users to see images on the Web like they never have before. The smooth in-place zooming and panning that Deep Zoom allows is a true advancement and raises the bar on what image viewing should be. High resolution images need to be prepared for use with Deep Zoom and this tool allows the user to create Deep Zoom composition files that control the zooming experience and then export all the necessary files for deployment with Silverlight 2.

Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008  (download)
This package is an add-on to the RTM release of Visual Studio 2008 to provide tooling for Microsoft Silverlight 2 Beta 1. It provides a Silverlight project system for developing Silverlight applications using C# or Visual Basic.  The components included are:

• Visual Basic and C# Project templates
• Intellisense and code generators for XAML
• Debugging of Silverlight applications
• Web reference support
• Integration with Expression Blend

Note: this will also install Silverlight 2 Beta 1, Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1, KB949325 for Visual Studio 2008.

Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1  (download)
If you are not installing the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 which includes the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK, you can download this SDK to create Silverlight Web experiences that target Silverlight 2 Beta 1. The SDK contains documentation, samples and other tools for building Silverlight applications.

ASP.NET MVC Preview 2  (download)
ASP.NET MVC provides a framework that enables you to easily implement the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern for Web applications. This pattern lets you separate applications into loosely coupled, pluggable components for application design, processing logic, and display. ASP.NET MVC also greatly facilitates test -driven development (TDD).

ASP.NET server controls for Silverlight(included as part of Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008 download)
You can integrate the rich behavior of Microsoft Silverlight into your Web application by using the familiar model of ASP.NET server controls. The MediaPlayer server control lets you integrate media sources such as audio (WMA) and video (WMV) and take advantage of rich built-in media player skins. The Silverlight server control lets you add your own Silverlight XAML content to ASP.NET pages, using a custom JavaScript type or a Silverlight 2 managed-code XAP package.

ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview (December 2007) (download)
The ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions Preview is a preview of new functionality being added to ASP.NET 3.5 and ADO.NET. The release includes the ADO.NET Entity Framework runtime, ADO.NET Data Services, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, and new additions to ASP.NET AJAX.