Catalyst Development

SocketTools 5.0 Service Pack 3 has been released and offers developers new features, improved performance and full compatibility with Visual Studio 2008 and the Windows Vista operating system. This service pack update is a complete release of the product with the latest improvements to all of the SocketTools components. If your customers are migrating to Vista, or you plan on upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio, you’ll want to ensure that they have a simple, trouble-free experience with your software. Upgrading to SocketTools 5.0 helps ensure that your applications continue to run smoothly, and best of all, there’s no additional coding required on your part. The SocketTools 5.0 components are source compatible with version 4.0 and 4.5, simplifying the upgrade process so that you can spend your time improving your software, not rewriting it.

Microsoft has released Visual Studio 2008 to MSDN subscribers, and this service pack also includes assemblies built targetting the .NET 3.5 Framework, as well as continued support for the 1.1 and 2.0 Frameworks. The examples included with all editions of SocketTools have also been updated for Visual Studio 2008. Please note that we will continue support both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2003 .NET. However, if you are currently developing on Windows Vista or are planning to upgrade from Windows XP, we do recommend that you upgrade to Visual Studio 2008. Most applications developed using earlier versions of Visual Studio can be migrated easily, and the interface to the SocketTools components remains the same regardless of which version of Visual Studio you’re using.

If you downloaded the SocketTools components for the Visual Studio “Orcas” beta release earlier this year, we recommended that you remove those pre-release components and uninstall your current copy of SocketTools prior to installing the SocketTools SP3 update. If you have an active SocketTools Subscription license, then these new components are available to you free as part of the current update to your subscription download.