Microsoft Visual Studio Standard 2005 [OLD VERSION]

Customer Reviews

Excellent experience with this tool

2007-11-27
Used this version for a 150,000 line code base of desktop applications. Very very happy with it. Of course, there are many "wish it did X" items, but it is overall I am very pleased. After SP1, almost never have IDE crashes or other non-user code problems.

Still wondering why anyone would buy the Pro edition vise this (Std) edition for $350 more..

A Development Standard Tool

2007-09-17
Any serious or amature developer should be required to use and know Microsoft Visual Studio Standard 2005. I know there are a lot of super-geeks out there who love to hate on Microsoft and prefer to stick to "real" or open source code that isn't dominated by the MS Juggernaught.

Those feelings aside- the reality of the world is that most companies use Microsoft software and server implementations in real world business, and Microsoft does provide the tools to get that work done. If you are at all interested in .NET, J#, C++, or ASP; this tool is the way to go. I was also happily surprised to learn that Visual Studio also can help code other documents like XHTML, XML, HTML, and CSS, which is really nice when you have to pay this much for the product.

Seriously though, if you are buying this for yourself, buy the Standard edition, let whoever you work for buy you the professional edition.

Visual Studio 2005 Rocks

2007-06-18
Awesome IDE. I appreciate using it daily. Beats using Xemacs in my real job, hands down.

Decent Product, Steep Learning Curve

2007-06-07
This product was good, but not great. It's a bit sluggish at times, even running with plenty of available resources (e.g. when it's the only thing running on a box with a gig of ram and a decent processor). It also has a fairly steep learning curve. Once you know how to do things it's great, but when you don't you stumble a lot. A lot of the features, while powerful, aren't very intuitive. My primary IDE before this was Eclipse, so I was already accustomed to another IDE that handles things differently a lot of the time. Some things MVS did better; some things Eclipse did better. In the end, as I've said before, it's a good product, but not great. A little rough around the edges. When it boils down to it if your development environment is MS, this is probably the product for you.

Reports could be improved

2007-05-31
When I loaded Visual Studio the SQL Server component did not load correctly - only the Configuration manager loaded - on reading the reports on the procedure I was informed that my computer was below the minimum hardware requirements, this despite me running a 2 GHz machine with 512 RAM and plenty of disc space.

A little bit more granularity might help me locate the problem.

Worst Visual Studio ever Published

2007-02-05
- Marketing Information: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition is a comprehensive developer tool for building high-performance, client/server-based Microsoft Windows, Web, Smartphone, and Pocket PC solutions. Product Information - Software Sub Type: Programming Tool - Software Name: Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition - Complete Product - Features and Benefits: Streamline the development of your client/server solutions: - Speed development using intuitive, WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop visual designers, a time-saving code editor, and an enhanced debugging environment - Automatically package and publish applications with a few easy clicks - Simplify interactive Web development. Easily manage consistent, reusable Web site layouts using time-saving Master Pages Take advantage of the powerful, enterprise-class Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0: - Significantly reduce the amount of code you have to write and debug for common programming scenarios with hundreds of reusable controls - Tackle any development task. Create robust applications using the .NET Framework 2.0. Microsoft Visual C++ - also included - fully supports native and managed code. - Enhance Web application performance. Easily pre-compile Web applications for dramatic performance improvements. - Language Support: English - Suite Contents: - Microsoft Visual Basic - Microsoft Visual C# - Microsoft Visual C++ - Microsoft Visual J# - Tools for building Windows and Web solutions - SmartPhone and Po

Almost enough to get the job done.

2006-12-29
Hi all, I've been writing code for over 5 years now and work as a developer for a software company. I'm also MCAD Certified. We use VS.Net 2005 exclusively and the reviews that you will read below about this program sucking are not true. I believe the reason users may think this program sucks is because they don't know how to use it. It's just like anything else, if you don't know how to use the program you won't benefit from its features. Now one thing I will tell you is that when you want to create a Windows Service you WILL need the Professional version of VS.Net 2005 to do that. Other than that I have created atleast 25 web sites ranging from personal sites to enterprise e-commerce, numerous desktop apps that range from single managed apps to apps that use WIN32 API, ie old COM stuff, Class libraries, Server Controls and .Net Remoting objects. So unless you need to create Windows Services this is the package for you.

Useful product, but still a challenge

2006-09-08
I primarily write in VB/VBA -- not at a really advanced level, mostly focused on data management -- and am trying to make the transition to asp.net. So my comments are directed along these lines.

The IDE itself is generally very good. Layout, menus, etc. are fine, intellisense is fantastic and the error messages are actually pretty useful.

That said, getting asp.net to function the way you want it to (if you're moving from VB) is still quite challenging and time consuming. Some examples -- if you add a database to your project, VS won't recognize it until you exit and restart; changing column widths on a grid view is a bit of a challenge (just google "Gridview column widths" and read away) -- mine wouldn't work until I shut VS down and relaunched; master pages are great, but incredibly finicky -- some of my pages appear with the designated breadcrumb, some don't, go figure; three tier data architecture is incredibly challenging b/c the ObjectDataSource is very picky -- after a few days of playing around with it, I abandoned a three tier set-up for a two tier one. Etc., etc.

MS is doing quite a bit to push people from the COM world into the .Net world and certainly VS 2005 is much more accessible than VS 2003. But when the language itself is still so buggy, the best IDE in the world only helps you to better focus your frustrations. My op is VS for asp.net still has a long ways to go before it becomes nearly as accessible as VB/VBA.

As a follow-up, some of the issues that I cited above are easily addressed by a better understanding of the IDE (i.e., fixing my unfamiliarity with the IDE). However, there are still numerous areas where the separate pieces of asp.net take an inordinate amount of time and effort to fit together properly (the object data source being the best/worst example I've hit). Six mos. of pretty regular use have only reinforced the views that I originally expressed -- very good IDE, an ambitious concept, but one that still needs a fair amount of work.

Don't know what is wrong with these bad reviewers?!

2006-09-03
I guess the people who wrote all the bad reviews for this product aren't very accomplished visual programmers. One guy said he never even used Visual Studio 2003; what kind of modern programmer has never even tried the main development platform of pcs? What kind of serious programmer never even looks at the latest platform for years and years?? (Visual Studio 2003 has been around for years and was the best platform until 2005). I run an IT dept and VS 2005 will do just about anything any programmer can ask it to do, but many people give up and lash at things without even reading the instructions or knowledge base articles or taking any classes to get caught up on modern technology and methods. VS 2005 isn't perfect but it is the best Windows development platform since Microsoft started making windows. I've been waiting for years for some of the new features that finally came out in this release.

best VS yet...

2006-07-10
I've been using the MS IDEs since back when it was still called "InterDev" - and I have to say this is the best one yet. Naturally there are some things that are not 100% intuitive to everyone. Not everyone thinks the same way, or develops the same way - so of course some things aren't going to make sense to people. Welcome to life...
However, after spending 5 minutes learning how to use it - one finds performing tasks that used to be difficult (or even impossible) in previous versions to be extremely simple. Want a strongly typed dataset? no problem. Want to build a website and only have to define 1 or 2 templates for the whole thing? no problem. Want to take advantage of caching, simply by adding a couple lines of code to the top of a page? yup - got that too.
Granted - some of the things that make VS2005 so great are more because of the features of .net2.0 - but this version of visual studio makes those features easy to use and understand.
Definately worth the money.