Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2005 [OLD VERSION]

Customer Reviews

Good IDE but Poor Choice for Older C++ Code

2007-02-23
Like other reviewers, I have found that older C and C++ projects (VS2003, VC++6, etc) usually will not work with Visual Studio 2005. You'll get tons of compile errors and warnings, unresolved linker symbols, etc. and you will spend a LOT of time changing your program to make it work, if you can make it work at all. And the import wizard did not help much in this respect.

Also, I found it troubling that there are a lot of nice formatting and Intellisense options for C#, but not for C++. There is some rudimentary formatting and Intellisense functionality for C++, but it is much more limited than what you get for C#. So, one of the nice features of VS is missing for C++. Why? It seems this is the MS way of getting us to use their chosen language, C#. It certainly makes me wonder about the future of C++ at Microsoft.

That said, there are still lots of nice features in Visual Studio 2005, and for new C++ projects its not too bad (except for limited formatting and IntelliSense functionality). I could get new projects up and running quickly and painlessly, and I liked the many build/debug features used in VS2005.

Worst Visual Studio ever Published

2007-02-05
If you are starting from scratch; this may work.

But if you have thousands of lines of C++ code that you'd like to port to the new runtime, forget about this crap.

This code has compiled in Visual Studio 2002 and 2003 with only minor adjustments. Upgrading to 2005 has been basically a brick wall.

I attempted the port. After a few dozen iterations, I started hitting problems with attributed ATL service classes that could not resolve base class references. Code that is executed in the compiled binary in the previous release; but that this new compiler reports as missing. And I still have 89 errors. Since I don't have the source, I cannot fix this with any kind of macro. Nice box you've painted me into Microsoft. The upgrade is not important enough for me to mess with this stuff. I have a deadline end of month.

Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2005

2007-01-18
Although I have not used the product as much as I would like, from installation to using the help documentation, I believe I will benifit in upgrading from the Microsoft Visual Basic 6 product. Lots of good improvements.

Only game in town

2007-01-03
I don't find the product as easy to work with as its predecessors, but this is the way Microsoft is pushing application development, so it is a "must-have".

Almost there...

2006-12-07
This is the best Visual Studio in awhile, but its still not there yet (especially for C++ developers, but its closer). On the positive side, C++ developers now have the cleaner syntax of C++ / CLI (there are battles raging about that name) which apparently is on a fast-track ISO certification. We shall see what happens. On the downside: still no STL / CLR dotNET. However, MS has a beta for DL, but its containers are not compatible with dotNET (yet). Good idea to stick with C# until this is fixed.

The UI tools continue to soar ahead for all the dotNET languages, and I don't see any difference between C++ and the others in that department anymore.
VB and C# both pick up edit & continue, good for me `cause I like grew used to it in C++. Call graphing is still only in C++.
The IDE UI is tabbed, and has line revision colors on all languages. Line numbering is optional, as always, but its still simply absolute lines (not code lines). This can be a pain going cross-platform with C++.

Datatips are pretty capable and improved, and can drill down into containers easily.
The help system is pretty much a flood. Too much information, and there is no way to directly determine where its pulling its information from. This bites when you have multiple Visual Studios & associated MSDNs & would like confirmation that its pulling the collections correctly.

As for the packaging, Visual Studio 2005 Professional edition comes with 2 product CDs, 3 MSDN CDs, and a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition DVD, a small product guide booklet, and two posters (one thats useless, and one of dotNET 2.0 namespaces).

3-stars, as the help system needs some work, and VC++ lacks an effective STL under dotNET.
Here's hoping for VS2007:)

The Best

2007-10-30
VS2005 is the best tool ever. i'm using it with Windows XP. and my applications are maily Database applications and Graphics. i program in C++ Win32 Applications , Dot Net(also C++). the performance is amazing. I faced only one problem when connecting to Oracle via Instant Client 10. and read more than one line in GetString(); i dont know is this MS or Oracle Bug or my own . at this point, the debug message does not give a moderate programmer a clue where is the real problem. but still i use MS 2005 on Daily bases and i love the performance and appearance and its compatibilty with all other applications/libraries. it is fun

Useless for existing VS 2003 projects

2007-07-26
As usual, Microsoft has released an unbelievably buggy, product that wants to force you to start all your work from scratch, even after the release of the first service pack. Trying to convert ANY project created with Visual Studio 2003 will result in a myriad of problems:
1) Forms that won't load and present with various cryptic messages with no specifics;
2) Random crashes that cause VS to close mysteriously
3) Applications that will appear to run then at some point come up with errors claiming that you may have corrupted memory.
etc.

I admit that I have not started a brand new major project since all the issues on old projects failed in one way or another.

Visual Studio 2005 Professional

2007-06-27
WOW, can't believe all the enhancements from VS2003! If you are a MicroSoft developer then this is the product for you.

Nice, but I've seen better.

2007-06-19
I was impressed by the improvements made in Visual Studio 2005 over its predecessors. I have found C# support to be quite good, and web development sees to be also one of the best ones that I've tried.

However, for Java, C, and C++ development, it is light years behind its competitors. I have had excellent success with Eclipse for these three languages -- although Eclipse has not been that great with C# support. Regardless, I have found that Eclipse does put VS to shame in some of the most basic developer tasks, and I find that my hand motions are much more pronounced when I develop in VS (more clicking, etc.)

Overall, VS is still a nice product, although I am starting to question whether it's really worth all that money for C, C++ development.

Fast, efficient development environment

2007-02-27
I've used development environments as diverse as the LISP environment on dedicated Symbolics machines, Smalltalk, Centerline C++ on Sun,Borland's C++ IDE in the early 90s, and Borland's Delphi. After working extensively in Delphi for years for both Windows and Web applications, I switched to Visual Studio for Web Development in 2003. I can say without a doubt that Visual Studio 2005 is the most productive environment in existence.

Everything about this environment save one thing (more below) is extremely well done. Some highlights in no particular order:

* The Intellisense tools are smooth and very quick (especially compared with Delphi)
* The project model is clean, simple and easy to modify (just copy files).
* Preparing a web site for distribution or upload is ridiculously easy
* C# is easily the most productive language available for general business development (I once mentored C++ for new developers at Bell Labs and have written my own Smalltalk environment so I don't say this lightly)
* Microsoft has made enormous strides in making web development as easy as VB's original drag and drop model
* The environment is easy to customize with macros, etc. and features a stellar array of productivity-enhancing features (outlining, refactoring, snippets, etc.)
* There is a broad selection of third-party tools that integration with Visual Studio.

Now, for all of its advantages, the one area where they could stand significant improvement is in the help system. For example, the help screens for most environment objects is essentially nothing more than the inheritance tree. It does essentially nothing to educate you about *how* a feature is used. This has been a problem for Microsoft for years and, unfortunately, VS 2005 has done nothing to improve the situation. Thus, you will want to have lots of web and/or written resources on hand when developing.

I cannot comment on the team development features as I work alone on the software sold by my company.

In balance, I've simply never seen a better development environment.