The Moth

With Orcas Beta 1 you also get NETCF Beta 1 with a build number of 7066. The last public NETCF drop was in the January CTP (and remained unchanged in the March CTP) with a build number of 6282. I documented what was new in that build of v3.5 compared to v2.0 and added a couple more later. Those new APIs are all still in build 7066 and in addition we also get the ones below:

* System.Delegate gets a new CreateDelegate static method and the two associated properties: Method and Target.

* There are new types in the System.Security.Cryptography (in mscorlib): AsymmetricKeyExchangeDeformatter (and the Formatter) and RSAPKCS1KeyExchangeFormatter (and the Deformatter).

* X509 in System.dll: X509Store, X509CertificateCollection, ClientCertificates property on System.Net.HttpWebRequest and 4 enums in System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates (OpenFlags, StoreLocation, StoreName, X509FindType).

* DataGridCell was moved from system.windows.forms.datagrid.dll to system.windows.forms.dll

In addition to the list above (inc. the ones from my links above), I previously mentioned the headline NET CF features. Well, finally in this Beta 1 drop you can play with those! The LINQ implementation in System.Core.dll is now compatible with the desktop naming and we also get the LINQ to XML implementation in System.Xml.Linq. The Compact WCF implementation resides in the new assemblies System.ServiceModel.dll (dependencies of which include the new System.Runtime.Serialization.dll) and Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Mail.dll. For a "Hello World" example, check out Mark's two blog posts.

If at this point you are ready to play with this stuff, then first visit this download page for two reasons:
1. It includes some additional new features that are not visible at the public API level that I describe in my posts.
2. If you proceed with the download you will actually be able to compile projects referencing the Compact WCF assemblies. Simply remove your existing "Microsoft .Net Compact Framework 3.5 Pre-Release" and install the download (same build number as above, but with correctly signed assemblies).