VS.NET 2003 and VS.NET 2008 co-existence

Question

I was in the process of converting a VS2003 project (.NET 1.1) to VS2008 (.NET 2.0) and had converted all the C# (easy enough). I got a new machine and did the C# conversion on VS2008. We had a C++ layer that wasn't working under .NET 2.0 because of some memory protection issues.

The C++ layer was pretty old and was written by some sub-contractors years ago - its not great code...

My old machine had an install of VS 2003 with our C/C++ layer (that talked to Visibroker) I hadn't finished converting the C parts when the hard disk on that machine crashed.

I haven't got time to fix the .NET 2.0 conversion of the C++ bit so still need to build under VS 2003.

Question is: Can I install VS 2003 after VS2008? Will it mess things up? Installing it in a VM isn't an option because of company policy.

thanks

Answer 1

I've run vs2003 and vs2008 simultaneously. I believe the worst case scenario for installing 2003 after 2008 would be needing to reinstall 2008.

I would go ahead and try, but I wouldn't start unless I had most of a day to do it.

Answer 2

I was in the same situation some time ago and installed VS 2003 on a (virtual) PC that had VS 2008 already installed. Unfortunately I don't remember whether I had done a "Repair" of the VS 2008 installation after installing VS 2003, but I think it just worked.

Answer 3

I just had to do this last week. Installing 2003 after 2008 works just fine. The only thing that seems to have been messed up is that now all of the VS icons look like the old 2003 ones in Windows.

Answer 4

Installing vs.net 2003 after 2008 will be fine, the only problem is, the vs.net version auto-checker may not work. For example, if u install 2008 after 2003, and right version of vs.net will be opened if you double click on a project file or solution file, according it's actual version. But if it's reversed, the .net 2003 version checker will override 2008, and it won't be able to open vs.net2008 if you double click on a older version project file. Simply reinstall 2008 will fix the issue.