I just read on Jeff Beehler’s blog that Microsoft has released a CTP (Community Technology Preview) of the next version of Visual studio… and I don’t mean VS 2008 “Orcas”.

Virtual PC images of the new VS install were made available from the Microsoft Downloads website on August 3rd.  I’ve included a direct link to the download page.

A bit of idle speculation…?  Microsoft may have features in store for Rosario that were originally been slated for Orcas, but were bumped due to the changes in the Windows Vista feature set… WinFS anyone?

I haven’t had a chance to read over the whitepaper yet, but It seems strange to me that they would be so far along with Rosario when Orcas is still several months away from RTM.

Have a look through Jeff’s post for more details on what precisely we can expect from VS ‘Rosario’.