What’s New in Visual Studio Tools for Applications

New functionality enabled in Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0 includes:

Dynamic Programming Model: Enables you to dynamically control the IDE view presented to the user as the state of the application changes, allowing the user to relate the application view to the IDE view easily.  The end result is simpler discoverability of host object model capabilities.

ClickOnce Deployment: Simplified deployment option that your customers can use for add-ins to get auto-update and offline capabilities.  You can also build streamlined installation and un-installation of Visual Studio Tools for Applications enabled add-ins.

ISV Integration Enhancements: Significantly improved toolset including revised ProxyGen, simpler integration API, custom exception serialization, and better integration-time error handling and messages.

.NET Framework 3.5: Add-in activation and execution environment.

New Visual Studio 2008 Features: WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) and LINQ (Language-Integrated Query) support.