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Just FYI, I have attached the information for installing the .Net 3.0 stuff
on your computer. You need to be running Vista or XP/SP-2, and Visual
Studio 2005 with SP-1 installed. There is a specific order to the
installation, and as far as I could tell, it's not documented on MSDN. The
instructions install both WPF and WCF extensions.

As for what to use to develop .Net 3.0 applications, you use Visual Studio
2005 (any version, I believe). For WPF, you can also check out the
"Expression Blend" product. If you have an MSDN subscription, last I heard,
this was not included. They are trying to sell the idea that it is a
product for designers, not developers. I'm learning WPF using VS2005, and
it seems to be going okay. It's not perfect, but I don't think the Blend
product is much better. The tools are pretty crude.

I think a lot of the stuff in Vista and Office2007 was written in WPF, or
at least WPF is what Microsoft is providing for developers to write
Vista-like and Office2007-like applications.

For WPF, check out this website: http://wpf.netfx3.com/

Robin S.
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Installing the Software Required to Work With WPF Applications

To configure your computer so that you can work with WPF you should follow
these steps:

1.     Windows Presentation Foundation requires Version 3.0 of the .NET
Framework. While this automatically comes with Windows Vista, if you are
using Windows XP you will have to download the installable from the
Microsoft Website.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5
-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

Once this has been installed you should see an entry at
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework which reads "v3.0".

2.     Download and install the Windows SDK. This is required in order to
provide the help files for WPF. You should do this before installing the
extensions to Visual Studio (Step 3 below) because the help files must be
present on your computer in order for them to be linked to Visual Studio.
Of course you will find it much more convenient for help to be available
just by pressing F1 with a particular term highlighted rather than being
forced to manually open the help file and to search for a particular term
via the search box.

The Windows SDK for can be downloaded from the following location.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C2B1E300-F358-4523-B479
-F53D234CDCCF&displaylang=en

Even though this SDK is labeled "Windows SDK for Windows Vista", when you
begin to install it, one of the screens indicates that it is also the
correct version for Windows XP, provided that you already have Service Pack
2 installed.

3.     Even if you are running Windows Vista you will need to install the
Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WCF and WPF.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=F54F5537-CC86-4BF5-AE44
-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en

4.     To verify that you have correctly followed these instructions, open
Visual Studio and select Create a new Project. Look for an entry below the
C# or VB node in the treeview of project types which reads "NET Framework
3.0". When you select this entry you should see in the details pane to the
right an entry under "Visual Studio installed templates" called Windows
Application (WPF). Create a new application and select a term which is WPF
related (eg. Application or Window). Press the F1 key and if the correct
context sensitive help comes up, you can be confident that you have
succeeded. Congratulations!

Thus wrote Dale,

What is Vista specific development? Save for some Vista specific goodies
in WPF, and IIS 7, Vista specific development means pretty much Win32 development
to me. All of .NET 3.0 works on XP and 2003.

Also note that the Orcas extensions CTP only applies to WCF and WPF. The
WF extension is final.

Cheers,