Dynamic Help Removed in VS 2010

If you are like me you love and cherish the dynamic help feature in Visual Studio. In fact, I never actually learned how to write code because this feature is so useful. I would just click on a class I had no idea how to use and up pops links to the msdn documentation, which probably holds the code I need to write already.

This feature has been removed from VS 2010. Though you are still free to locally install the msdn documentation, there is no dynamic feature. Today is a sad day.

Installation order for Visual Studio and SQL Server

If you plan on installing the full version of SQL server (instead of the express version) with Visual Studio, I prefer to install Visual Studio first, preferably without the express instance of SQL server.

If you’re doing a fresh install of VS 2008 and SQL 2008 on Windows 7, install in this order:

1. VS 2008, WITHOUT SQL Server Express -> requires doing a ‘custom’ install
2. VS 2008 SP1
3. MSDN Library for VS 2008 SP1 (if you’re so inclined)
4. SQL Server 2008
5. SQL Server 2008 SP1