Outside The Box

Finally, the long awaited service pack 1 for Visual Studio 2005 is released! The service pack has been in the pipeline since soon after Visual Studio 2005 shipped last November, with release dates slipping month after month. The latest official release date was announced as “early 2007″. Perhaps this was an intentional attempt to alleviate some of the waiting pains with a suprise release (or maybe just the Microsoft rumor mill on autopilot).

Be prepared for a long install. The download page warns that it could take an hour or more to verify digital signatures before the service pack installation even begins.