MS Set to Deliver Visual Studio Service Pack

Microsoft plans to issue a service pack for Visual Studio on Friday, as well as a version of the update specifically aimed at fixing issues with the software for those running Windows Vista. The company said the updates will be available by midday ET.

The fixes come from customer and partner feedback, as well as the company's own internal testing. The companies responsiveness to customer comments could be measured in the percentage of bugs addressed, the Redmond company pointed out.

"In some areas, more than 50% of the bugs addressed were reported by customers through the MSDN Product Feedback Center," a Microsoft spokesperson told BetaNews.

Issues remedied include errors in the syntax coloring functionality, and fixes for problems that caused the application to crash, the company said. Users of the software should notice improvements in the performance, stability, and responsiveness of Visual Studio due to the upgrade.

Visual Studio will now support modern processors, such as Intel's Core Duo chip, to make the application faster and more responsive. Additionally, performance and scale improvements were made to Team Foundation Server, and additional support is provided for project file-based Web applications.

Microsoft said it understands that many developers are using Vista, thus a version of the service pack is being provided specifically for those users. Known issues with running Visual Studio 2005 on the next-generation operating system have been addressed, the company says.

The update is currently in beta, however the company plans to release a final version of the service pack sometime in the first quarter of next year, following the general availability of Vista set for January 30.