After googling, I have only found only this sad forum question. Is it true I can't install EF4 on VS 2008 SP1? And if I can, how to do it - just install .NET 4 beta 2?
+2
A:
EF4 is part of the .NET 4 / Visual Studio 2010 wave of prodcuts. I don't know of any way to install EF4 into VS 2008 SP1, nor have I heard Microsoft saying anything about that being possible later on. It's a new version which only works with the new version of Visual Studio, I'm afraid.
marc_s
2009-12-05 16:20:21
thought it was part of .NET 4 beta 2, so it could work back-to-back with .net 3.5 sp1. anyway, another reason to try out new VS:)
chester89
2009-12-05 16:26:36
it **IS** part of the .NET 4 beta - but that **IS** .NET 4 - **NOT** .net 3.5 sp1 !
marc_s
2009-12-05 22:09:27
A:
Entity Framework 4 requires .NET 4.0 (that is why it is called Entity Framework 4 and not Entity Framework 2, which would have been entirely more logical, depending on what you call the first version of Entity Framework that came out with .NET 3.5 SP1).
VS 2008 (with or without SP1) does not support .NET 4.0. If they release a new service pack for VS 2008 such that it would support .NET 4.0, you may be able to do what you want to do. That is unlikely to happen.
The fact that the forum question you point to was answered by a Microsoft person makes the answer feel pretty authoritative to me, but it seems that you are trying to work around it anyway. Good luck with that.
Michael Maddox
2009-12-06 10:58:09