Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Standard

Other products by Microsoft

Product Features

• This DVD-ROM includes Visual Basic 2008, Visual C# 2008, Visual C++ 2008, Visual Web Developer 2008, MSDN Library 2008, SQL Server (express version), Windows SDK v6.0a, and .NET framework v3.5.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000WM1Z46
• Item model number: 127-00166
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 1, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #809 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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Product Description

Product Description

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, Standard Edition, Win32, English

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, reliable, quite a change from VC++6.0, November 10, 2008

By	P. Newell "euspane" (Dallas, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I made a sea-change jump from VC++6.0 to Visual Studio 2008. I miss my old ClassWizard, but it only took a day or so to get familiar with the new methods. Probably the hardest thing to get used to is the change from Alt + E + I to launch Find-In-Files to using Ctrl + Shift + F. Even after weeks of using VS2008, I still do the old key combination.

The executables produced are great and the program functions reliably.

I would easily buy it again.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adoptance problems, June 24, 2009

By	Forest Hale "LordHavoc" (OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

By all counts Visual Studio is a good development environment for C++ programming on Windows, and it is the standard to which others are compared.

However VS2008 compatibility issues with VS2005 compiled .lib files have bitten me on several projects as an independent contract programmer in the game industry, and it seems that extremely few companies (at least in the game industry) actually migrate to VS2008, so this product has proven far less useful than I had hoped, as it can not compile most of them without significant work (recompiling libpng/zlib/libjpeg and others that are frequently included as a .lib file in projects, and requesting updated SDKs from middleware vendors).

Be warned that this slow adoptance afflicts other software industries as well, they simply do not update to each new VisualStudio version, if you are an independent contractor you may want to purchase VS2005 instead (or in addition to VS2008).

Overall I like VS2008 more than VS2005, it just does not suit my needs as well as I would hope.

Reasons to buy Visual Studio 2008 Standard when compared to the free Express version:
ATL and MFC libraries - necessary to compile IE ActiveX plugins and most graphical applications.
x64 compilers and debugging environment - VS2008 Express can be patched with the VS2005 Platform SDK to do x64 compiling but it's a hassle to use, and has no x64 debugger.

Features I really wish Visual Studio had but it does not:
A performance profiler - I recommend AMD Code Analyst if you're looking for a free one, I hear that Intel VTune is worth it if you can afford it.
A memory debugger - I develop cross-platform, so I simply use valgrind for this on a Linux system, but it is a sorely missed feature in Visual Studio (there are many commercial packages available, but all inferior to valgrind).

Visual Studio 2008 is well worth the money, just watch out if you are an independent contractor and may need 2005 as well.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars VS 2008 Rocks, July 10, 2009

By	D. Zoeller (Indiana) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

VS2008 is an excellent development tool. I couldn't survive without it.

In case you're wondering the main difference between Standard and Professional is that Standard doesn't have the Tools for Office development (which I didn't care about).