One of the great features of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 has been the ability to support processing on machines with multiple cores. Both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 support 256 processors. Computers with that kind of processing power aren’t available at commodity prices. Yet you probably have a 64-bit computer with dual cores and many with quad cores.

In order to take advantage of all those processors, you need the ability to write parallel code and to debug that code. And in the past, writing threads has been challenging.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 brings it all to life. You can download the edition you want to try from Download Beta 2. You’ll have your choice of each edition in Visual Studio 2010 or .NET Framework 4, including the free Express versions.