Before i go nuts and install 2012 can 2012 and 2010 live on the same machine at the same time??
yes
Perfect, thanks 
Excellent news, but I will admit there are parts of VS 2012 where the GUI designer should be shot, for example when looking at the properties window with say WPF where the labels are all similar and you have expand the properties windows to differentiate the labels after like 15 characters. For example whoever designed the attached screen needs to be stopped before they design another screen. I know some of those guys at Redmond, and I know that some of them have PhDs but now I’m starting to wonder what Cracker Jack box they got them out of, either that or this is likely the work of someone where this is their first application, unacceptable for a developer tool group.
And will Hydra start magically playing nice with Windows 8?
I do all my Gadgeteer development (including Hydra based projects) from a 64 bit Windows 8 Enterprise system, so I doubt its a Windows 8 issue, more likely a driver issue.
Usb3?
2012 is just plain ugly and many argue more difficult to use since things (such as icons) are no longer as clear as they are in 2010. Really the big change is simply the metro style (there are some other changes in .net 4.5 that are nice, but that is not dependent on 2012). i have no plans to move to it in protest of the microsoft ill-fated Metro theme and the overall new tablet based experience they are trying to push to desktops. I know many larger companies feel the same and do not plan to migrate to 2012 as well. I hope there is nothing going forth that will prevent us from using vs 2010 w/ gadgeteer and .net mf.
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@ dizzy - I hated Windows 8 at first, but then I found this third party Start Menu utility IObit Start Menu 8 for Windows 8 Free download, Bring Windows 8 Start Menu back - IObit, and I updated my VS 2012 Express applications to “Update 2”, which added a “Blue” theme to the list of themes. The blue theme is not too bad.
Also I suggest the registry change that disables the all-uppercase menus. That was a horrible idea, and whoever is responsible for it should be fired, along with whoever decided that “light” and “dark” were good themes and none other were needed.
I’ve been using 2012 for almost a year, I don’t mind it. It’s a lot faster than 2008, I luckily skipped 2010 at work.
2012 was a great improvement over 2010 in my opinion. Grumpy old men will always find change a thing to complain about, though 
Typically I use this 7 port powered hub for my Gadgeteer development http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e2d2/?srp=5 but today I tried hooking a Hydra up to one of my USB 3 ports and see if it would work (also note I installed the latest SDK version and successfully tested this on both VS2010 and VS2012). I’m using a Alienware M18XR1 and let Windows 8 install all the drivers.
Is Love Electronics still going?
The forum is gone, and no blog posts since September.
I like my Argon R1, but I can only hear crickets 
@ mtnrbq - last I heard they were getting ready to release the designs and the source, but nothing since. The forum got closed because it was hit with massive amounts of spam and it became un manageable.
I’ve emailed James, haven’t heard back yet. Keep you posted.
I do love my Argon too, it’s a lovely board.
@ ian - i don’t consider myself a grumpy old man (in my own mind anyway :)) and i am usually a first adopter…but windows 8 i tried and hated. i’m not the only one if msft sales is any indication - far worse than the vista debacle.
-the pc manufacturers are blaming windows 8 for dismal pc sales
-the ui experts are criticizing msft for forcing the tablet experience on a desktop
-the consumers are crying out that they hate, including long time msft fans like myself
what we have here is a company saying “consumers don’t really know what they want…we know what’s best for them. they’ll use it and they’ll like it damn it!” - not.
the numbers don’t lie with regards to who’s right with this debate.
i hope to god microsoft do what they did after vista and bring out something like the absolutely wonderful window 7/aero style…heck bring back windows 7 i say and keep windows 8 for the tablet, where its well suited (if still ugly).
Is it just me or VS2012 is five times slower at debugging NETMF than VS2010? This is the only reason I’m now using VS2010…
@ dizzy - I think comparing Win7 -> Win8 UI changes to VS2010 -> VS2012 UI changes is an apples -> oranges discussion. Win7 -> Win8 UI changes were drastic and I’ll agree very incomplete. VS2010 -> VS2012 UI changes are so minimal that it’s really just nitpicking to complain about the differences. IMO, the positives outweigh the negatives.
@ andre.m Damn. So it’s not just me and reinstalling everything won’t help. It’s a true showstopper for me. Is there a workaround or a thread discussing this? Can’t find anything…
@ dizzy don’t think for a moment that Windows 8 for the desktop is a finished product as what we have today is merely a bridge that allows some folks to get to the other side to start preparing that side for when the rest of the folks come over. Windows 7 is going to be around for a long time (I’ve stated in the past that Windows 7 was going to be the new Windows XP in terms of being a long lasting standard as Windows 7 is a killer OS), but Windows 8 is the future and Microsoft is wise to start working on it now as OS changes take time. Me, I’m crossing over the Windows 8 bridge to start work on those apps as I have one last Windows 7 app to finish and ship and then I think I’m pretty much all Windows 8 based products going forward (and of course Gadgeteer).
As for the UI, the reality is most people don’t know what they want as they don’t really know why they like some things and not other things. For example the color thing in VS2012 is driven by the placement of rods and cones in your eyes (ie your peripheral vision becomes increasingly grayscale as you move out) so help prevent distractions you keep color in the focus areas. One thing that the designers had to deal with (or forgot) was the idea that lack of color in an icon, actually conveyed information as to the unavailability of the function for example (ie the disabled icon), so this is something that users are having to unlearn which is always painful (and really you have to ask if its worthwhile).
My posted complaint with the excessive length labels was really a Shannon Information Theory abuse in that the meaningful/distinct bits of information were hidden which made the rest of the displayed information meaningless and hence a total UI failure. Now while this is a UI issue, its not without its problems within the design aspirations of WPF and XAML which no doubt will continue through refinement iterations for awhile before they get it ‘right’, so for now its a matter of is it ‘good enough’ and it is IMHO.
Now people who know me also know I’m a numbers guy (started life as an engineer and obviously not an English major), so it should be easy to test debug performance of VS2010 vs VS2012 with the use of a stopwatch, which I usually have within arms reach and I’d suggest that every developer should have a stopwatch in their developer kit. So lets post some numbers and see what the skinny really is, but lets do it in a different thread.
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