Visual Studio 2005 or 2008

Question

So I've been using Visual Studio 2003 for about 4 years now and really I don't have any problems with it but lately I've been able to use VS 2005 some and I like a lot of the features it offers over 2003 as well as some of the .NET 2.0 additions. So now that I'm finally going to upgrade should I really buy the old version now that 2008 is out? I have several concerns going to 2008: I have not used it so I am not sure how much has changed from 2005 I am currently use VS 2003 on both XP Pro and XP Pro x64 Edition and do not plan on moving to Vista but everything I read about VS 2008 is about Vista. Can you create .NET 1.1 or 2.0 applications on VS 2008? (On a related note can you create .NET 1.1 applications on VS 2005?) I am currently using Perforce for my Source Control and while I have read it will work with 2008 I haven't found any actual users that have tried it. I develop very little for the web and most of my software are client/server applications and it seems from what I've read that 2008's focus is web related. Sorry if I seem to be a bit picky and naive but I am a self-employed programmer and I have a very limited budget for this kind of thing so I would like to make sure I make the right choice. If you can help me answer some of my concerns that would be great. I have downloaded the trial for 2008 but I am not sure it will be able to give me enough of an idea if it is the right thing after all most of my projects are 6 months to several years so 90 days may not be enough to let it show its true colors.

Alan · Answer

I don't know where you'll be able to buy VS 2005 now apart from Amazon but just as a matter of interest you can still download the free 2005 Express versions from here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/2005/

Toad · Answer

Thanks that is just the kind of reply I was looking for. I am a little disappointed you can't use .NET 1.1 but I guess I'll just have to settle for 2.0! Now one last question: Does anyone know where I can buy it? I've spent the morning looking and thus far the only places I've found it are eBay and Amazon Marketplace users and I would really prefer to buy it from a reputable dealer but it appears that MS has made them all go to 2008 already.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

You cannot build .NET 1.1 apps using VS 2005 as it uses .NET 2.0 and same applies to VS 2008. As per commercial application development goes it will take a while till companies jump on .NET 3.0 and 3.5. Right now companies are in phase of migrating from .NET 1.0/1.1 to 2.0 and it will be around for a while. I would say 3-5 years. If you do not use Visual Studio advanced features you can always go for Express versions and they are absolutely free. At this point I would not buy VS 2008.