31st of May was a good day - Microsoft has released new RCes (release candidates) of their top products:
- Visual Studio 2012 RC (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/05/31/visual-studio-2012-rc-available-now.aspx)
- Windows 8 Release Preview (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/31/delivering-the-windows-8-release-preview.aspx)
To be precise, numerous different technologies are being released together with those two, including (but not limited to):
- .NET Framework 4.5
- ASP.NET MVC 4 RC
- EF 5 RC
This version of Visual Studio is shipping with so-called "Go Live" license - it can be used to build apps that will run in product environments. It still may be risky to use it, but it’s close to RTM enough for a serious use.
When can we expect the final version? As MTS (Microsoft Technology Summit) has been postponed to mid-October due to new Microsoft products’ release, I suppose we can expect both Win8 and VS2012 released in September or early October.
Bon apettit.