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Design time Side by Side poll (installing different versions of visual studio)

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I became involved in the Side by Side and compatibility work items after making the mistake of voicing the fact that I did not like these scenarios. Life can laugh at you that way well enough on it’s own, but in Microsoft a comment like that is like playing with fire. I have grudgingly come to accept runtime side by side behavior, I make no claims of understanding the path forward (how do you go from three to four runtimes?) and I am now looking for information on design time side by side.

You have probably noticed by now that there is more than one version of the framework, we tried to mask this at first by making our second framework a point release but now that 2.0 is coming out there is nowhere to hide. I am really trying to get a feel for how people are using our design time components (Visual Studio). It would be extremely helpful if you could leave some feedback with your thoughts/opinions.

1. Have you installed VS2002 and VS2003 Side by Side on the same machine?
2. Are you thinking about installing VS2003 and VS2005 (when it releases)?
3. If you are a developer that needs to use two versions of VS are you just using different boxes or Virtual PC / VMWare?
4. What are the most important install / uninstall scenarios (the ones we need to get right)?  For example, a trial scenario where someone has VS2003, installs VS2005 trial, migrates all their work and then uninstalls VS2003 and activates VS2005.

I would really appreciate any feedback, I will compile this information and present it to the side by side working group so your vote definitely counts. Thanks for your help.
Rambling out

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    Have you installed VS2002 and VS2003 Side by Side on the same machine?
    Yes

    2. Are you thinking about installing VS2003 and VS2005 (when it releases)?
    Yes, definately. We have many products at various points in the product lifecycle, not all will be able to go to VS2005 at the same time.

    3. If you are a developer that needs to use two versions of VS are you just using different boxes or Virtual PC / VMWare?
    While I am a fan of VPC, the illusion in my opinion is not yet perfect enough that I have decided to go 100% virtual. Thus I will continue to use a single development machine that is a real machine and leave the VMs for obscure one-off testing chores mostly.

    4. What are the most important install / uninstall scenarios (the ones we need to get right)? Um... How about "Side-by-side"! Meaning, VS2003 and VS2005 should no more interfere with each other than 2 completely unrelated products. Of course only release builds would absolutely have to meet this requirement.
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    Have you installed VS2002 and VS2003 Side by Side on the same machine?
    Yes.


    2. Are you thinking about installing VS2003 and VS2005 (when it releases)?
    I am assuming that I can install it side by side (see below).

    3. If you are a developer that needs to use two versions of VS are you just using different boxes or Virtual PC / VMWare?
    No. Side by side by side installation is what we're doing (see below). We're starting to use Virtual PC (as we slowly roll through hardware upgrades) but I doubt we would use multiple Virtual PCs with one version of VS.Net in each Virtual PC.

    4. What are the most important install / uninstall scenarios (the ones we need to get right)? For example, a trial scenario where someone has VS2003, installs VS2005 trial, migrates all their work and then uninstalls VS2003 and activates VS2005.
    Inside of a Virtual PC image:
    1. install base OS
    2. Install VS 6
    3. Install VS.Net 2002
    4. Install VS.Net 2003
    5. Install VS.Net 2005
    6. save Virtual PC Image
    7. run image until something bad happens
    8. restore virtual PC image saved in step 6
    9. patch
    10 goto step 7

    We have about 75 person years invested in a set of VS 6 (ASP 3 / VB 6) applications. While new applications are being done in VS.Net 2002/2003, it will be a long time before we have the staffing to migrate the ASP 3 / VB 6 applications to VS.Net 200x. In the VS.Net 2005 timeframe, we will need to run the above scenario because we will have applications running using VB 6, .Net 1.0, .Net 1.1, and .Net 2.0, partially on Windows 2000 Server and partially on Windows Server 2003.

  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2004
    VS2003 and VS2005 must be fully supported side-by-side. This will certainly be true for the desktop applications but for Compact Framework applications we will need to target CF 1.0 (since CF 2.0 will not run on >WM2003 or >CE 5.0) hence will need to still use VS2003.
    My £0.02
  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    September 26, 2004
    The comment has been removed