Greetings fellow Web Developers,

I've been developing in Visual Studio.NET 2003 for a couple of years, and have recently gotten a beta version of 2005, which I haven't yet installed. From what I can tell, there are many excellent reasons to upgrade to 2005/2.0, but I wanted to check a couple of things first...

Can VS2005 open and allow me to work on my old 2003 projects?

Can 2005 and 2003 work side by side?

Will my Beta version of 2005 be expiring soon, now that it's been released, leaving me in a bind until I can come up with another $599?

Any other conversion issues I should be aware of?

Thanks.

Aaron

Hi Aaron,

1. No: .NET 2003 and .NET 2005 are two completely different things. VS.NET 2003 targets .NET 1.1 and VS 2005 targets .NET 2. There are "upgrade wizards" to convert 2003 projects to 2005, but there is no way back. Also, I don't think any ASP.NET project can be converted successfully because of the many differences.

2. Yes. I have VS 6, VS.NET 2003 and VS 2005 running side by side without a problem.

3. I suggest you check out the RTM Express editions of Visual Web Developer 2005, Visual C# 2005 and VB 2005. All of them are free. These versions have a lot in common with their bigger brothers like the Standard and Professional versions. For personal / hobby sites and even small development shops, they should be more than enough.
If you like what you see, you can always upgrade later and transfer *all* of your knowledge / experience to the full versions; unlike the transition from the free Web Matrix to VS.NET 2003.

HtH,

Imar
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Imar Spaanjaars
Everyone is unique, except for me.
While typing this post, I was listening to: Scum by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (Track 9 from the album: Your Funeral...My Trial) What's This?

Woops, I forgot to say thank you. How rude of me.

Thanks again, Imar!

Aaron