Microsoft promises WPF DataGrid, big performance improvement for .NET clients

Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie posts about coming service updates to client-side .NET (Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation). He says we can expect:

• A new, quicker and more efficient setup framework
• 25%-40% faster start-up for applications using .NET 2.0 and higher, and smaller runtime footprint
• More hardware acceleration in WPF, plus better video performance and data-handling improvements
• A DataGrid, Ribbon, and Calendar/DatePicker for WPF
• Improved WPF designer for Visual Studio 2008

These address common real-world complaints. I’m sceptical; when version 1.0 of the .NET Framework came out, Microsoft said it was working to reduce the runtime memory footprint for Windows Forms applications, but it never happened. Let’s hope this time it will be different.

Related posts:

1. Substantial .NET, Visual Studio 2008 update in Service Pack 1
2. Microsoft .NET gotchas revealed by Visual Studio team
3. Performance expert becomes Visual Studio Chief Architect
4. Microsoft on Visual Studio 2008 and beyond
5. Installing .NET, PowerShell on Windows 2008 Server Core: it can be done