ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview Released

Sep 14, 2011 aspnet aspnetmvc suggest edit

Today, during his //BUILD keynote, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer preview. Note those words, developer preview. This is not even a Beta release. But there sure is a lot of cool stuff inside.

One great thing about this release is that the runtime libraries (our assemblies) as well as our JavaScript libraries are available as NuGet packages. So if you write packages that depend on the ASP.NET MVC 4 runtime, you can have them depend on our packages.

Also included in this release is NuGet 1.5 which was released just recently. If you already have NuGet 1.5 installed, you may notice there’s a new update available. This new version includes support for Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview. There are no other changes in it.

I’m also giving a couple of talks at BUILD that you’ll be able to watch online that cover some of the features within ASP.NET MVC 4. To find out more about the release, visit our ASP.NET MVC 4 information page.

Install it

You can install it via the Web Platform installer:

Or if you prefer to download the installers directly, visit the download details page.

We also published an ASP.NET MVC 3 installer for Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview if you’d like to try that out.

Closing Thoughts

I’m excited about this release and will be interested to hear your feedback. I also want to recognize the heroic efforts of the ASP.NET MVC team (and NuGet and ASP.NET Web Pages) to get this release ready in time with all the features that it contains. I’m privileged to work with such great folks. Smile

Found a typo or mistake in the post? suggest edit

Comments

54 responses

Troy Goode • September 13th, 2011
Release Notes page gives a 404 :-/
http://www.asp.net/asp.net/learn/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes-rtw
Andrei • September 13th, 2011
I think the http://asp.net/mvc/mvc4 should note that it's Developer Preview. Other people can think it's RTW
Travis • September 13th, 2011
@Troy www.asp.net/learn/whitepapers/mvc4-release-notes
haacked • September 13th, 2011
We had some technical difficulties with the release notes. We're working on it. :)

Whoops, looks like they're up now! :)
MisterJames • September 13th, 2011
Phil great stuff...especially in the mobile apps space.
Have you guys thought about a model for template generation that opens the door to third-party providers? The new MVC template is a great improvement, but I'd love the chance to pick a template while the project is being created. Even if it's something I have to buy offline and throw in a dir (but would prefer in-tool support, of course).
Cheers.
haacked • September 14th, 2011
MisterJames would need to understand what you mean? When you launch an MVC 3 or MVC 4 project, the set of templates in there is extensible and you can add your own.
Breno Ferreira • September 14th, 2011
Great stuff!!!
Are you guys going to release tutorials and documentation about how to create Recipes?
Regards,
Breno
Eric Hillenbrand • September 14th, 2011
We tried to load the Windows 8 Developer with Visual Studio 11 developer and installed the MVC4 developer. Issue is, when we open the Visual Studio 11 NEW PROJECT, we do not see MVC4 projects loaded. Is there something that we are missing?
Thanks!
Rick • September 14th, 2011
This looks great. The mobile views will be especially neat. One question - will the choice of view automatically vary output cache?
shiju varghese • September 14th, 2011
Really Great.
Mubeen Jassani • September 14th, 2011
nice...
looking forward to your session at BUILD!
Venkat • September 14th, 2011
great..
When can we expect the release canditate? Looking forward for the RTM Source.
Adam • September 14th, 2011
The mobile development stuff is great. MVC3 seems miles away from MVC2, especially with Service Locator, Razor and helpers.
MVC4 seems more like MVC 3 and a half. That shouldn't take away from the hard work you guys are doing.
But my MVC1 application (which I only wrote two years ago,) is already 2 versions out of date! I've had a few people ask me, is MVC a good long term platform to use since it changes so much, so quickly.
I'm not sure this is true, but maybe you should call it MVC 3.5? I think every project hits a point of stability. Just think of all the people who still using FoxPro and VisualBasic 6! Maintained by thousands of happy programmers every day!
ehm...
... yeah, I see your thinking...
Long live MVC4...
Justin • September 14th, 2011
Excellent Phil! Heading over to the information page now.
Do you have a target date set for RTM?
Sam Gentile • September 14th, 2011
Excellent! We use MVC 3 but we really need the mobile support in MVC 4. However, when I click the link for the MVC 4 for VS2010 Preview it will not download the MVC 4 preview via the Web Platform Installer 3.0 saying "The product you are trying to install is not supported on your operating system." I am on Windows XP latest SP and I could always install and work with the other MVC versions. Is MVC 4 not supported on Windows XP? That would be a deal breaker for us.
Sam Gentile • September 14th, 2011
Hud. I got it by using a different link. On the http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc4 page if you click the button at the top labled "Web Platform Installer for Visual Studio 2010" it works but if you click the link further down "Install ASP.NET MVC 4 using the Web Platform Installer
ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Platform Installer for Visual Studio 2010 " you get the experience I reported.
Sam Gentile • September 15th, 2011
Using the mobile stuff via the tutorial. Looks very promising and could solve our Mobile woes.
Ranjini • September 15th, 2011
@Sam, thanks for reporting the issue that one of the links doesn't work. MVC4 is absolutely supported on XP and I am glad you were able to install it through the button. We will look into the other link shortly.
Ranjini • September 15th, 2011
@Eric Hillenbrand: VS11 preview that comes with Win8 doesn't support web projects. Please install the full VS11 Developer preview and install MVC4. That should show the MVC4 project templates in VS11.
Ranjini • September 15th, 2011
@Sam: The links for the install button and the hyperlink on the page are the same. Not sure why you ran into an issue with the link. Please do let us know if you run into other issues. Thanks!
www.microsoft.com/.../install.aspx
www.microsoft.com/.../install.aspx
John • September 15th, 2011
When will the videos be up for these talks? I really want to see the one on mvc4 + mobile apps.
Horst • September 15th, 2011
Please, please provide a full installer without WebPI!
Kevin LaBranche • September 15th, 2011
Way to go! I am already loving MVC4 and have created a project from scratch as well as upgraded one and besides a little hiccup with WPI not wanting to install on my work PC (did on my home pc) it's been good.
haacked • September 16th, 2011
Hi All, I updated the post with a link to the full installers that do not require Web PI.
Horst • September 18th, 2011
Thanks for the full installer. Outstanding service!
chris • September 18th, 2011
AAAAARRRGHHHH I am just starting to learn MVC 3.0 and the .net 4 framework (moving from .net 2) .. and what happens another version of MVC is on the way already? little bit off putting.. when is MVC 5 6 7 8? coming out??
haacked • September 18th, 2011
@Chris relax and take a deep breath. This is an early Developer Preview. If you look at the history of ASP.NET MVC, we've released a new version every year. That's the rough cadence you can expect with our releases. Is that too often?
Beyers Cronje • September 19th, 2011
@haacked, once a year per release is perfect. I for one wouldn't even mind a 6 month release cycle.
chris • September 19th, 2011
@haacked, I think what you are doing with MVC is great I love the concept, but I do think your tempo on releases is a bit fast, due to the fragmentation it will bring. Already I have seen jobs advertised for MVC2 and MVC3 separately and soon MVC4? It doesn’t give me, the developer, much time to learn a new methodology and put it into practice before I have to start looking into the next version.
Maybe, as mentioned in a post above, an intermediate release which adds some functionality (such as the mobile apps), without changing the framework much? I think this may increase the general engagement with developers?
Hope that makes sense.
Chris.
Anthony • September 19th, 2011
Can MVC 4 work on .NET 4.0? How safe is .NET 4.5 to install in production? Can .NET 4.5, MVC4 and (VS11 DP) coexist with VS2010 and .NET 4 and MVC 3?
haacked • September 19th, 2011
ASP.NET MVC 4 does work on .NET 4.0. I would not install .NET 4.5 in production as it is a developer preview and there's no Go Live for it yet. They can all co-exist.
Fırat Esmer • September 19th, 2011
Thanks for the great news!
Harry Pfleger • September 20th, 2011
During the install of MVC3 tool upgrade I get the following error:
Returning IDOK. INSTALLMESSAGE_ERROR [A later version of NuGet is already installed. Setup will now exit.]
and the setup does not finish...
Any ideas... Thankx, Harry
haacked • September 21st, 2011
Hi Harry, this is a known issue when installing MVC 3 after MVC 4. Go to Add Remove Programs and uninstall NuGet. This doesn't actually remove NuGet from VS (the installer is a bootstrapper to install the Visual Studio extension). After you do that, install MVC 3.
Joe • October 12th, 2011
Does MVC4 support Spark view engine beside aspx and razor?
haacked • October 12th, 2011
@Joe just like every version of ASP.NET MVC, MVC 4 supports plugging in any view engine.
Joe • October 12th, 2011
Sorry for missing explanation in previous message.
As far as I know the package ASP.NET MVC3 supports/contains aspx and Razor, but no Spark. I mean, in MVC3 (VS2010) if one is going to add view he has only choice aspx or cshtml (Razor). There is no spark.
OK there is surely way to "force" Spark integrated in VS2010 after installing MVC3, but there are too many manual works.
I hope MVC4 will integrates more view engines in VS2010.
Saeed Neamati • October 17th, 2011
The most major drawback of MVC 3 was bad support of Razor, in JavaScript. I truly love Razor and I think people should admit that it's really powerful. However, IDE can't support it that good. I hope in MVC 4, things get better.
Thanks.
Shyam • October 21st, 2011
Just that, Microsoft would have named their next development suite as Visual Studio 2012 instead of 11
Asta • November 10th, 2011
Hi Haacked,
Do you know of any tutorial that discusses the development of a database driven asp.net MVC 4 mobile web application with jquery layout?
I wanted to learn how to use the gridview, datalist, formview, data binding, etc... When developing asp.net MVC 4 mobile web application.
Thanks in advance!
Bojan • November 10th, 2011
There are great features in MVC 4, especially mobile templates and features to support mobile apps.
Great work!
dandreica • November 16th, 2011
Are there any plans for MVC 4 to resolve the OutputCacheAttribute issue which prevents it from using declarative cache profiles?
More details here: thenullreference.com/...
asp.net1 • November 21st, 2011
great news!!!
Starforce • December 8th, 2011
I just want to know when RTM version will be release? Not big into betas.
Steven • December 22nd, 2011
So I have VS 2010 and 11 installed. I have MVC 4 installed. I see the projects in 2010, not in 11. I tried to reinstall MVC4, and it specifically says for VS 2010, and that it is already installed.
So back to an earlier question, is there a way to use MVC4 in Visual Studio 11. (And yes I have the full developer preview of Ultimate VS 11 installed.)
Thanks
Tadeusz • January 20th, 2012
When will be released ASP.NET MVC 4 Developer Preview 2, or maybe beta 1
Tadeusz • January 21st, 2012
What about native integrating knockout.js and partial views, (something like generating unobtrusive client validations from existing server site validations)? Example: by using the return PartialView("_ViewName", ViewModel) first time, we’ll send view model json data and unobtrusive knockout code generated from the partial view, but any subsequent usage will send only new json data and only the name of the partial view. In most my scenarios, it saves bandwidth and server resources. The most important, it allows strongly typed html helpers in such partial views, so we remove many error sources just by simple compilation. We save a lot of time during testing modifications in applications, also less TDD tests will be necessary to cover all important behaviors (comparing to classic manual typeless client solutions). We will be more productive and develop better applications.
Nestor Lopez • January 25th, 2012
I agree, the pace of releases is too fast. I know this is a "tradition" of MVC development team, but it is not a good one. In the development of medium to big applications, one to three years of work are commonplace. We choose to develop in MVC 3 a few month ago (just released), by the time we can deploy the first modules to the customer, the application will be based on an obsolete platform. That hurts us commercialy, not only technically. Take a look at the Android controversy about fragmentation and the efforts to put the platform under control again. In any other aspect, MVC is by far the most amazing framework we have been able to use and enjoy.
Oleg • January 27th, 2012
When will be the official release of MVC 4.0?
Chuck • January 31st, 2012
How do I uninstall MVC 4 Dev Preview? Its not in the add/remove programs control panel thingie, but I know its on my machine.
Bill • February 4th, 2012
Chuck, it should show up in Add/remove. Does in Win7 for me. Standard VS 2010 environment, No VS 2011 preview.
Estee • March 28th, 2012
Same as Oleg, I would like to find out when will be the official release of MVC 4.0?
Venky Mokka • March 30th, 2012
just like every version of ASP.NET MVC, MVC 4 supports plugging in any view engine
Griffin Dorsey • March 29th, 2013
ASP.NET is a platform for support more than 40 languages like c#,Perl..etc.Developer choose language and create application easily.Thanks for sharing worth information.