Continuing the progression of releasing regular previews prior to the official launch of Update 2, Microsoft announced the release of CTP4. This release marks the first version of Update 2 that is designated as "go-live", meaning that it will receive full Microsoft support (note differences between TFS2012 go-live and VS2012 go-live below). The is intended to be the last CTP before the formal release of Update 2.
CTP4 continues promoting the overall theme of Update 2 – "Modern Application Lifecyle and Modern App Development". To serve that end, the first of the features released is an updated preview of the LightSwitch HTML Client. John Stallo, Lead Program Manager, comments that the two main goals of this release are to support the creation of mobile, cross-platform web clients and the publishing of programs to the SharePoint 2013 app catalog.
The browser-based test management area of VS2012 receives further refinement with the ability to edit text for results and test case steps inline, without requiring software to be installed in the environment being tested.
Microsoft's Brian Harry also noted that the back-up & restore power tool (formerly a separate download) will be integrated into Update 2. TFS administrators should also benefit from the ability to preserve their TFS configuration in-place after an upgrade.
Developers whom require Git support may want to wait before installing CTP4 as a separate, yet-to-be-released, update to the Git extension is needed to provide this functionality. Harry states that this will be available "within the next day or two". This support is not part of Update 2, and will continue to require a separate download as Harry notes that this allow Microsoft to more rapidly evolve the offering.
Note that the go-live status of CTP4 applies to Team Foundation Server 2012 exclusively. This is not true of CTP4 for VS2012, and as a result CTP4 for VS2012 should not be applied to production environments.
