If you do not already have Blend 2.0 installed you can download a free trial of it. <a href="http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/sl2rc0.aspx">http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/sl2rc0.aspx</a> Do things in this order and you could save yourself a lot of time: Install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack Preparation Tool Removes beta's and other updates not compatible with RC0 Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Make sure Visual Studio is up to date