Microsoft has just released the Community Technology Preview (CTP) for the Next Generation of Visual Studio development tools, code named Visual Studio “Orcas”.

Disclaimer: This release is far from stable with respect to what stage of the development cycle. This is part of the Beta phase and should not be used for production

For the early adopters, its being provided as a Virtual PC image and I’m looking forward to testing it out.  There are quite a few improvements and enchancements over Visual Studio 2005.

Feature Highlights

• The LINQ Project Information
  • LINQ to SharePoint - Its magically delicious!
• ADO.NET
• Web - ASP.NET AJAX and other major improvements here
• Major changes to the IDE
• Click once deployment for Office applications
• Visually add Vista “Look and feel” to native C++ applications
• Windows Communication and Workflow Foundation integration

If you are interested, Download CTP Next Generation Visual Studio “Orcas” and submit feedback.