Since releasing in November 2005, Visual Studio 2005 has taken some lumps on stability issues, some founded, others unfounded. Today, Microsoft hopes to eleveate those issues by announcing the release of Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Beta. VS2005 SP1incorporate fixes that have been addressed since ship date and include the following types of fixes.

The Hotfixes and General Distribution Release Updates released between Visual Studio 2005 Release to Market and the end of the Service Pack customer beta period.

Any fixes addressing security issues categorized by the Microsoft Security Response Center as “Critical”, “Important” or “Moderate”.

Fixes for product reliability and stability issues, including those reported by customers via the Product Feedback Center, and the crashes most frequently reported via Watson.

Fixes for common “eligible” functional issues reported by customers via the Product Feedback Center. “Eligible” functional issues are those that do not require breaking changes, architectural changes, or Design Change Request level feature work and that do not create unacceptable product quality risk and/or cost of implementation.

Fixes for the top customer and supportability issues as reported by Customer Support Services.

The beta period ends October 30, 2006. To sign up, be sure to fill out the nomination form.