Does Visual Studio 2008 work well with Windows 7 pro 64bit

Question

I am just about to buy a Dell Studio 15 Laptop with Windows 7 Pro 64bit Has anyone faced any issues in installing or working with Visual Studio 2008 on Windows 7 Pro. Or do I need to go for Windows 7 Pro 32 bit?

[EDIT]
Any issues with any other development tools, what about VS2008SP1, Azure Add ons, Sql Server 2008 express, Virtual Server 2005 etc ?

[EDIT 2]
Could you all please list the development applications (specify 32/64bit) you have installed on you 64bit windows 7 (also specify the version of Windows 7 used)

Answer 1

I've been running VS2008 on a Dell D830 (the one I'm using right now) running Win7 x64 for over two months. No issues whatsoever. Just run the development environment as admin and you're good.

Answer 2

I am using VS 2008 in Windows 7 64 bit from September 2009. So far no issues. Just remember Win 7 64 bit required min of 2GB RAM and 32 Bit requires 1GB of RAM.

Answer 3

I'm using VS 2008 on Windows 7 64-bit and have been since RC with no issues.

Answer 4

I own ALMOST that exact laptop. A Dell Studio 16 with Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate (RTM) installed. It runs perfectly. Visual Studio 2008 runs perfectly, too. I also run the same setup on my desktop and it runs well there.

The following tools are installed and work flawlessly:

1. VS2008SP1
2. Altova XMLSpy 2010
3. AVGFree 9.0 AV
4. BeyondCompare 3.x
5. CodeSmith Pro 5.1
6. ReSharper 4.5.x (5.x EAP works too)
7. ASP.Net MVC
8. Office 2007 Ultimate
9. SQL Server 2008 64-bit (2005 32-bit Express worked fine too, but I don't have that installed any longer. I am sure 2008 Express 32-bit would work as well.)
10. All Modern Browsers
11. TortoiseSVN 64-bit
12. VisualSVN
13. WinRAR x64

Another reason to go with 64-bit is because that laptop will take up to 8 gigs of RAM, and you need a 64-bit OS for that. Save yourself a reinstall and go 64-bit now :)

Other notes about this laptop that I can tell you:

The laptop starts up and shuts down in just seconds. It's perfect for Win7.

You will be very happy, Binoj!

I have more information about my setup here. Aside: I also talk about how the performance improved when I added an SSD. I'm including this slightly OT stuff because I think it would benefit you personally, as your laptop is nearly identical. Note that in the blog post I have the RC installed, but I have been running the RTM for quite some time now and it works great!

Answer 5

I have several friends running that config for several months with 0 complaints.

Answer 6

Visual Studio 2008 has some random 64-bit OS issues, but they aren't specific to Windows 7 x64. It has some bugs where you can become unable to save documents in certain situations, and you're sometimes unable to change Visual C++ project properties. Nothing so crippling that I'd suggest going back to 32-bit, and I was able to overcome every issue I came across by using the editbin tool on devenv.exe and marking it as not-large-address-aware.

You also can't do mixed-mode (native + managed) debugging against a 64-bit process, but if you work in 32-bit processes exclusively, it doesn't matter. You also can't use Edit and Continue in 64-bit .NET apps.

I'm pretty sure that all of those issues have been fixed in the current VS2010 builds.

Answer 7

One caveat to note, if you target "Any CPU" or specifically "x64" you will be unable to use "Edit and Continue".
That is, you will be unable to break execution, change code, and then continue execution. This can significantly slow down development in some cases, and is not immediately apparent until you use it. To get around this, ensure your target is "x86" unless you absolutely need to target 64 bit.

Ultimately having multiple build profiles will be the only real solution if you want to use "edit and continue" while building on a 64 bit OS.

Answer 8

No problems at all running Visual Studio (2008 or 2010) in 64-bit Windows 7 (Ultimate edition here). Visual Studio is a 32-bit app, but that is not a problem.

As far as I know, the only constraint on Home Premium that may be a concern for some developers is that you can't join a domain.

IIS is not installed as a default configuration on any edition of Windows 7, but it can be configured from the control panel that configures Windows features. (link on Programs and Features control panel)

Other useful programs that run fine in 64-bit Windows 7:

• Microsoft Expression Suite
• Visual Studio 2010
• Adobe CS4

Answer 9

Im using Windows7 Home Premium x64 with both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta installed. No issues found.

Answer 10

There are problems debugging the form load event with visual studio 2008 and 64 bit windows 7. Throw an exception in form load and see what happens!!

Answer 11

I am using win7 64x pro + VS2008sp1/2010pro + sql2008 std, no issues with speed or others, but recently I had copied a project from old laptop (xp pro 32 bit) and noticed some issues.

As noticed by some other users issues with load event, debug and continue are noticed by other collogue, but on all similar machines debugging Episerver projects takes almost 30 min to run default page. The same page used to load in seconds in old configuration.

Other projects on VS2008 or VS2010pro works like charm. Are there any issues with Episerver's dlls copied across? Does any one noticed similar issues?

Sanjay.

Answer 12

I was wondering if it's possible to install VS2008 on Win 7 Home Premium (because Win 7 released in 2009 :D) but now I know at least it's possible, but with some bugs, so now I'm wondering whether I should uninstall Win 7 then install XP

Answer 13

I am using VS2008 SP1 and Team Explorer on Windows 7. I first used it with the 32-bit version and things were great. Then my machined got paved by IT with the 64-bit version. I now have issues with VS windows coming up funny, windows not repainting themselves etc. These issues are really annoying. Co-workers with 64-bit have the same issues, ones with 32-bit are happy. So if I had the choice I would go back to 32-bit.