We went from having copies of MSVCRT in every applications directory.... which caused DLL hell.

Then they tried forcing it to appear in System32 only, which caused another type of DLL hell.

Then they tried 'side by side', which caused a myriad of issues and would cause perfectly working applications to stop working just becuase you installed a service pack.

Now they're back to putting everything back in the applications directory.

In all this time MS never actually thought of using a lib directory (system32 would do even, although that's way too full already) and putting the version number of the library in the filename. Something that unix got right 40 years ago.

Oh yeah "business alignment", thanks so much for that stuff. Hey I wonder if it tracks "lines of code written" or just lets me know which "feature" I'm supposed to be "coding" that day.

Surely if it was introduced in an earlier version, the man means "perpetuated", not "perpetrated".

I still use VS 2005. Most .net 2.0 functions are supported by mono unless you’re doing something with com or whatnot. I love developing Linux applications on VS2005; monodevelup makes me angry, does that make me a bad person?

The one without aero.

>"Visual Studio is locked so closely to Microsoft's platform that it cannot be prized apart and assessed in isolation."

Where do you want to assess it, in a shoebox? If you're referring to the fact that it's in a Virtual PC image, that's how they usually preview Visual Studio releases before it comes out as it is still unstable and in an experimental stage. That's how software works if you need to release a pre-beta: You strictly define the environment.

I'm not sure if the first few paragraphs were meant to be 'attention grabbing' for lack of content in the article or not, it doesn't seem like you really were paying attention at the PDC.

So, not entirely unlike Visual Studio .Net, 2003, 2005, and 2008 then.

@Anonymous Coward No, I wasn't referring to the way the pre-beta is delivered; I like the use of the VM.

Tim

@Neoc you are correct: perpetrate first, perpetuate later :-)

Tim

How about a new feature called "usability" where it can run OK on a machine with 2GB of RAM, and average hardware. I've never found a machine that can load/edit/run a large web app with decent performance. Oh yeah, and the latest SP causes it to crash *all* *the* *time*.

Fix it first, then improve it.

@Tony Hoyle you don't have to install to the app directory, you can install to System32 which I believe will be the preferred approach - as I understand it, it is "like VC 6". Yes, there is a risk of DLL hell.

Tim

Putting version numbers in the filenames is the easy part. Just rebuilt the CRT from source (which is provided with VS2005 onwards) and call it whatever the hell you like (Except MSVCRT). There are even mak files provided to make the rebuild even easier.

On a side note, this allows you to turn any optimisations off that you may not want - e.g. Frame Pointer Ommission.