UPDATE: This post is outdated. ASP.NET MVC 1.0 has been released already!
Today we’ve made the Release Candidate 2 for ASP.NET MVC available for download.
This post will cover some of the changes with ASP.NET MVC we made in response to internal and external feedback since our last Release Candidate.
Let me provide the quick and dirty summary, and then fill in the details.
- Setup will now require .NET 3.5 SP1
- Bin deployment to 3.5 host without SP1 still possible
- New server-only install mode
Now onto the details
Setup Requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
The new installer will require that .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 be installed on your machine. For your development environment, we recommend that you also install Visual Studio 2008 SP1, but this is not required.
The reason we made this change is that we were including the System.Web.Routing.dll and System.Web.Abstractions.dll assemblies with the MVC installer. However, it does not make sense for us to co-ship assemblies which are part of the Framework as this would negatively affect our ability to service these two assemblies.
Bin deployment to 3.5 host without SP1 Still Possible
We are not taking a runtime dependency on SP1 other than our existing dependency on System.Web.Routing.dll and System.Web.Abstractions.dll. Thus you can still bin deploy your application to a hosting provider who has .NET 3.5 installed without SP1 by following these instructions.
Note that in such a configuration, you take on the risk of servicing those assemblies. Should we release any important updates to any of these assemblies, you’ll have to manually patch your application. However, you will still enjoy full CSS (formerly PSS) support for this configuration.
New Server-Only Install Mode
We’re adding an option to the installer that enables installing on a server that does not have Visual Studio at all on the machine, which is useful for production servers and hosting providers.
The installer will no longer block on a machine that does not have Visual Studio installed. Instead, it will continue the standard MVC installation without installing the Visual Studio templates. The assemblies will still be installed into the GAC and native images will also be generated.
Certain other requirements have also been relaxed. For example, if the machine on which the installation is performed contains Visual Web Developer Express Edition 2008 without SP1, the installation will still proceed, but with a warning prompt. You can also automate this installation by invoking the installer using the command line (all on one line):
msiexec /i AspNetMvc-setup.msi /q /l*v .\mvc.log MVC_SERVER_INSTALL="YES"
Summary
As a result of these changes, we realized it would be prudent to have one more public release candidate. As I mentioned, there are very few runtime and tooling changes. Most of the changes are in the installer and we want to make sure that the installer is rock solid before we call it an RTM.
Based on all your feedback from the first Release Candidate, as well as our own investigations and testing, we are confident that the Release Candidate 2 will be solid and lead to a strong RTM.
In case you missed it above, here’s the link to the download page. You can find out what else has changed in the RC 2 release notes.
And before I forget, as usual, we published the source code and our MvcFutures assembly on CodePlex.
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