Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance Automation Toolkit Download

October 2008

The Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) expands the capabilities of Visual Studio by allowing architects and developers to run guidance packages, such as those included in Software Factories, which automate key development tasks from within the Visual Studio environment.

The Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) is a guidance package which allows architects to author rich, integrated user experiences for reusable assets including Software Factories, frameworks, and patterns. The resulting guidance packages, composed of templates, wizards and recipes, help developers build solutions in a way consistent with the architecture guidance. In order to use GAT, you must first install the GAX. For more information about the GAT, see Introduction to the Guidance Automation Toolkit.

Downloads

GAX and GAT must be downloaded and installed separately. GAT requires that GAX is installed first.

If you have a previous version of GAX installed on Visual Studio 2005, it will be updated to the February 2008 release of GAX. You are no longer required to uninstall GAX and the corresponding guidance packages (with an exception of GAT, which must be re-installed).

• Guidance Automation Extensions (February 2008) Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio
• Guidance Automation Extensions (February 2008) Release for Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Update
• Guidance Automation Toolkit (February 2008) Release for Visual Studio 2005
• Guidance Automation Toolkit (February 2008) Release for Visual Studio 2008

System Requirements

Guidance Automation Extensions

• Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, Professional Edition, or Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with SP1, or Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition, Professional Edition, Team Suite, or Visual Studio 2008 with SP1
• Windows XP with SP3, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Vista or Windows Vista SP1

Guidance Automation Toolkit

• Guidance Automation Extensions (February 2008) Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008
• Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition, Professional Edition, or Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with SP1, or Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition, Professional Edition, Team Suite, or Visual Studio 2008 with SP1
• Windows XP with SP3, Windows Server 2003 with SP2, Windows Vista or Windows Vista SP1

New in this release

This release of GAX and GAT includes the following improvements:

Support for Visual Studio 2005 and/or Visual Studio 2008

• This version of GAX will run on either version of Visual Studio. If you don’t have GAX installed, you can install GAX to support Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 or both. The installer will automatically determine which versions of Visual Studio you have installed.

Note: The previous version of GAX (July 2007 CTP) was released only for Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. You cannot use it on Visual Studio 2008. You must use the February 2008 release instead.

Updating GAX

• If you have a previous version of GAX installed on Visual Studio 2005, it will be updated to the February 2008 release of GAX. You are no longer required to uninstall GAX and the corresponding guidance packages.
• Guidance packages that are registered with the previous version of GAX will automatically be registered with the current version of GAX (GAT, however, will require an update – see the information below).

Visual Studio side-by-side support

• If you have Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 running side-by-side, you can have GAX running against both versions. Guidance packages developed and registered through GAT for a specific version of Visual Studio (2005 or 2008) will only be available in that version. Guidance packages designed for Visual Studio 2005 and installed through an MSI will only be available in Visual Studio 2005. Installation of any guidance package through an MSI that does not explicitly prompt for the version of Visual Studio to install to, will install to Visual Studio 2005 by default.

Note: You cannot have multiple versions of GAX installed on the same machine.

Improved Uninstaller

• During GAX uninstallation, you can click the Check Installed Packages button for the list of all registered guidance packages. If you proceed with GAX removal, the uninstaller will only attempt to automatically uninstall those guidance packages that were registered manually using GAT. If you have guidance packages that were installed through an MSI(s), you should not proceed with removing GAX. Instead, you should use the Add or Remove Programs tool to uninstall these guidance packages.

Warning: You must remove all guidance packages prior to uninstalling GAX. The Add or Remove Programs tool will NOT be able to remove the remaining guidance packages after GAX is uninstalled.

In addition, February 2008 release of GAX fixes the following issues:

• A blank error message was displayed if you attempted to uninstall GAX before uninstalling GAT or other registered packages when running Windows Vista.
• A FileLoadException error was displayed if you used the Guidance Package Manager on Visual Studio 2008 Professional.
• GAX and GAT would not properly validate and recognize custom Visual Studio project types when unfolding templates for custom project types registered only in the experimental hive.

Notes on GAT

In this release, there are two installers for GAT: one targeting Visual Studio 2005 and the other targeting Visual Studio 2008. Please select the appropriate one.

GAT for Visual Studio 2005 and GAT for Visual Studio 2008 can be installed on the same machine (that has both versions of Visual Studio) and run side-by-side.

If you are a current GAT user (July 2007 CTP or February 2007 CTP) and you are upgrading to the new version of GAX (February 2008), you must also upgrade to the new version of GAT (February 2008). In order to upgrade, you must first uninstall the current version of GAT using Add or Remove Programs tool.

Community

The Guidance Automation Toolkit and Guidance Automation Extensions are associated with an MSDN Forums site. On this forum, you can post questions, provide feedback, or members can also help Microsoft plan and test future deliverables, and download additional content such as guidance packages and training materials.

Feedback and Support

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? To provide feedback about this deliverable, or to get help with any problems, please visit the GAX/GAT forum. The forum site is the preferred feedback and support channel because it allows you to share your ideas, questions, and solutions with the entire community.

Previous Release

The Guidance Automation Extensions and the Guidance Automation Toolkit Community Technology Preview (July 2007) are available as separate downloads:

• Guidance Automation Extensions Technology Preview (July 2007 Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2)
• Guidance Automation Toolkit Technology Preview (July 2007 Release for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2)

Warning: Do NOT install the July 2007 CTP of GAX/GAT on Visual Studio 2008 final release as it was only released for Beta 2. Use the February 2008 release of GAX/GAT instead.

Authors and Contributors

The Guidance Automation Toolkit and Guidance Automation Extensions were produced by the following people:

• Program Management: Grigori Melnik (Microsoft Corporation), Bill Loeffler (Microsoft Corporation)
• Product Management: Grigori Melnik (Microsoft Corporation)
• Development: Victor Aprea (Clarius Consulting), Jose Escrich (Clarius Consulting), Daniel Cazzulino (Clarius Consulting), Oscar Calvo (Artinsoft), Allan Cantillo (ArtinSoft), and Michael Puleio (Microsoft Corporation)
• Testing: Mohammad Al-Sabt (Microsoft Corporation), Rohit Sharma (Microsoft Corporation), Lavanya Selvaraj (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Hanz Zhang (Microsoft Corporation), Mani Krishnaswami (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Gokula Thilagar (Microsoft Corporation), Prasad Paluri (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Terrence Cyril Joseph Anthuvan (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Edward Lafferty (Microsoft Corporation), Larry Brader (Microsoft Corporation), Ashish Babbar (Microsoft Corporation), Terrence Cyril J. (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Umashankar Murugesan (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Sivanthapatham Shanmugasundaram (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Deepa Javeri (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Rajeswari Santhanam (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Deepak Sachdeva (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Pete Coupland (Microsoft Corporation), Muralidharan Narayanan (Infosys Technologies Ltd), Sajjad Imran (Infosys Technologies Ltd), and Manickavasagam Shanmugasundaram (Infosys Technologies Ltd)
• Documentation: Nelly Delgado (Microsoft Corporation), RoAnn Corbisier (Microsoft Corporation), Paul Slater (Wadeware LLC) and Tina Burden McGrayne (TinaTech Inc.)

Many thanks to the following people who provided invaluable assistance:

• Bob Brumfield, Rob Caron, Scott Densmore, Jack Greenfield, Douglas Hodges, Tom Hollander, Amnon Horowitz, Edward Jezierski, Gareth Jones, Stuart Kent, Wojtek (Voytek) Kozaczynski, Julia Liuson, Stephanie Saad, Jason Weber, Jezz Santos, Blaine Wastell (Microsoft Corporation), and John Saunders (Microsoft MVP)

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