ith the release of Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft has also updated the .NET Compact Framework. Unlike its desktop counterpart, there is no version 3.0 of the .NET Compact Framework. Instead, to align with the .NET Framework versioning on the desktop, the latest version of the .NET Compact Framework is now 3.5, up from its previous version number of 2.0.

The .NET Compact Framework 3.5 adds new APIs and, most notably, it now supports the new Language Integrated Query (LINQ) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) features that are standard on the .NET Framework (the WCF feature will be covered in more depth in an upcoming article). On the Visual Studio 2008 front, there are new tools to make testing and development work much easier and robust.