WCF Project Templates in Visual Studio 2005

In VS 2005, if you want to use WCF  project templates and also generate WCF proxy code by choosing the “Add Service Reference” item in the context menu as shown below, then you will need to install the following items on your dev machine:

• Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit for Windows Vista™ and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components (Despite the title, this is also supported on XP/2003)
• Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (WCF & WPF), November 2006 CTP 

I was a little disappointed to find out that the VS05 Fx3.0 extensions are only available as a CTP.  The final release of this functionality has been revised and released as part of Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas).  Also, it would have been nice if VS08 supported BizTalk project templates since it supports generating assemblies for multiple target framework versions.  Maybe there will be an extension to VS08 that will support BizTalk project templates in the future? This way I can save some space on my HD by only keeping around VS08.  I hope so….

 WCF and WPF Visual Studio Project Templates

 Add Service Reference Item in the context menu