The Visual Studio 2010 SDK includes project templates that help developers create tool windows, menu commands, isolated shell projects, and editor extensions. The editor extensions include text adornments, colorizers, and margins.

The Visual Studio 2010 SDK also includes build tasks that help developers build and debug extensions. Building and debugging are managed in a second instance of Visual Studio named the experimental instance. The experimental instance provides a test bed for extensions without changing the primary installation of Visual Studio.

The SDK also puts shortcuts to online documentation, samples, and other developer resources on the Start menu.

System Requirements:

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows XP (x86) with Service Pack 3 - all editions except Starter Edition
• Windows Vista (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions except Starter Edition
• Windows 7 (x86 and x64)
• Windows Server 2003 (x86 & x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions
  • Users will need to install MSXML6 if not already present
• Windows Server 2003 R2 (x86 and x64) - all editions
• Windows Server 2008 (x86 and x64) with Service Pack 2 - all editions
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64) - all editions

Prerequisites:

• Visual Studio 2010 Professional or better