If you were one of the few thousand folks in the US to have had the opportunity to join us at one of the many Visual Studio 2008 Install Fest or DevCares events in December, read on for some important news.

First and foremost, if you installed VS2008 at the events, you are probably running close to the limit on the 90-day trial copies we handed out at the events. The good news is that the full fledged versions of VS2008 Professional Editions started shipping a week or so ago, so if you registered your code shortly after getting your trial disc, you should have your free copy of VS2008 in your hands right now.

Rest assured — you don't need to reinstall the product. In fact, all you need to do is go to the Visual Studio 2008 entry in Add/Remove Programs (Windows XP) or Programs and Features (Windows Vista) and select Modify/Change. You'll have an opportunity to enter a license key from the media we shipped.

Here's the important news: if you haven't registered for your free copy yet, you have until March 1, 2008. After that time, we won't be taking any more registrations. And if you didn't have a chance to join us for one of our exclusive Install Fest events, no worries: Launch Events are (literally) right around the corner! February 27th is the BIG launch, with numerous local launch events following that through about May 2008. Find a launch near you and have a chance at another free copy of Visual Studio 2008, plus a chance at several other prizes.

See you at Launch!