Free eBooks from Microsoft Press

• Free ebook: Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (10 chapters by by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines)
• Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (10 chapters by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner)
• Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (DRAFT Preview) (6 chapters by Charles Petzold)
• Free ebook: Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 (Special Excerpt 2) (newer than the ebook above; 11 chapters by Charles Petzold)
• Free ebook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft(8 chapters by Katherine Murray)
• Free ebook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) (6 chapters by Mitch Tulloch)
• Free ebook: First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (14 chapters by Katherine Murray)
• Free ebook: Windows 7 troubleshooting tips (short ebook by Mitch Tulloch)
• Free ebook: Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 (9 chapters by Charlie Russel and Craig Zacker)
• Free ebook: Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance (10 chapters from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and 6 TechNet articles)

Visual Studio LightSwitch BETA: The New MS Access Robot?

Check out this short video: Introduction to Visual Studio LightSwitch then read more here.  Access databases will be supported post-BETA!  The blurb:

"With LightSwitch, you can build custom applications that rival off-the-shelf solutions. Get a head start by using pre-configured screen templates that give your application a familiar look and feel. LightSwitch also provides prewritten code and other reusable components to handle routine application tasks, along with helpful step-by-step guidance. However, if you need to write custom code, you can use Visual Basic .NET or C#. You can deploy to the desktop, browser, or cloud (post-Beta) to share your application with others more easily without the cumbersome installation processes... Applications created with LightSwitch support exporting data to Microsoft Office Excel for fast and easy sharing and reporting. You can also attach your application to existing data sources, which makes it easy to collect, analyze, and reuse information from a variety of data sources including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Azure, SharePoint, Microsoft Office Access (post-Beta), and other third-party data sources."

Thanks to Alex Dybenko of Alex & Access for the heads-up.

Over 60 Free Controls from DevExpress!

Coinciding with the launch of Visual Studio 2010, DevExpress is offering a vast library of cutting edge controls for FREE!

Go to: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Free/WebRegistration60/

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Office 2007 (v3.0 Runtime) (x86)

This free download (1.9mb) installs the Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0 Runtime, which is required to run VSTO solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008.

XML Schema Designer for Visual Studio

XML Schema Designer - August 2007 CTP This first Community Technology Preview of the XML Schema Designer is a graphical tool for working with XML Schemas. This CTP introduces XML Schema Explorer - a tool that helps you navigate, search and work with schema sets, and automatically apears when you open or create an xsd file in Visual Studio. It is docked with the Solution Explorer tool.

Prerequisite: Download and install Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 is included in the installation.

Download ServicePack 1 for Visual Studio Express Editions

Visual Studio® 2005 Express Editions SP1 This download installs Service Pack 1 for Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Express Editions.