I never really liked Visual Studios - especially after the whole incompatibility BS that happened when they switched their whole frame work many years ago.

Ok I sometimes crawl under a rock, but what is this about? Also, what do you use instead for C++/C#?

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I don't program in C#

For C++ I use QT

Edit: the whole "framework BS" is why old Window games will not run on newer versions of Windows ( unless you have DosBox )

scuse me for asking without investing my own search time, ..offhandedly,

suppose a person were to be interested in using this

(i jest, i have XP, i'm confident it's incompat w/o even chkg)

but just suppose/pretend,

and, also suppose they knew c++, but nothing about compilers or IDEs,

then, how would they learn to use it? is there a place that instructs you, rigorously, about the basic IDE features, so when some SDK says to do something or link something, you know how or at least what the thing is? you know... some place that doesn't presume you already know how to use the IDE...


i'm dreaming for sure, i've been extremely punished in life by MS for not having enough friends/money/contacts..

Edit: the whole "framework BS" is why old Window games will not run on newer versions of Windows ( unless you have DosBox )

I don't see what that has to do with Visual Studio. In fact, I'm still not sure I see precisely what you're getting at. Could you be more specific? There are many reasons why old Windows games don't run on newer versions.

Yeah, I'm with Oberon on this and going to pull a [citation needed] - lets face it you can play DX9 games which came out a decade ago so I think we are ok compatibility wise.

I've heard that Intellisense should have been greatly improved. I never thought it worked in the first place so that doesn't say much, but has anyone actually tried the latest version of 2015?

I've always used visual assist x for intellisense, the c implementation has always been terrible compared to their c# in my experiance. I'd love to drop visual assist if 15's been signifigantly improved.

I've been using Visual Studio 2015 RC for a while now and while I have no experience with prior versions, coming from the Java world, the C++ Intellisense and refactoring capabilities of VS are extremely lackluster compared to what Eclipse and IntelliJ are capable of. To some extent it may be due to limitations of the language or runtime model, but I'd definitely recommend getting something like Visual Assist. It may not be free but it's quite cheap for what it offers (obviously check out the trial first, it may not click for you).

I've heard that Intellisense should have been greatly improved. I never thought it worked in the first place so that doesn't say much, but has anyone actually tried the latest version of 2015?

I've always used visual assist x for intellisense, the c implementation has always been terrible compared to their c# in my experiance. I'd love to drop visual assist if 15's been signifigantly improved.

I've been using Visual Studio 2015 RC for a while now and while I have no experience with prior versions, coming from the Java world, the C++ Intellisense and refactoring capabilities of VS are extremely lackluster compared to what Eclipse and IntelliJ are capable of. To some extent it may be due to limitations of the language or runtime model, but I'd definitely recommend getting something like Visual Assist. It may not be free but it's quite cheap for what it offers (obviously check out the trial first, it may not click for you).

There are several reasons why, mostly relating to the complexity of the language (i.e. most vexing parse). C++ in general is just not a very refactoring-friendly language and unlike Java or .NET the binaries don't have the massive amount of metadata to help out. Heck, today I've been going through a large code base trying to find all the function-level static variables and even that small thing is a giant pain in the rear to parse out.

Doesn't exactly let MS off the hook though with IntelliSense - especially when third parties do it better, but MS is also in the middle of rewriting their entire C++ compiler so they can support the new C++11/14/17 features. So I imagine embedding the compiler front-end into the IDE for IntelliSense (like they did with Roslyn) is probably a risky proposition right now.

Yeah, I'm with Oberon on this and going to pull a [citation needed] - lets face it you can play DX9 games which came out a decade ago so I think we are ok compatibility wise.

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A whole website full of game developers, and no one remembers the .net framework issues - especially the backwards compatibility of old frameworks with new frameworks [*1] ?! I am not THAT old !

This *seriously* messed up a lot of folks, since all Visual Studio projects are dependent on the .net framework. .

(( *1 - 1 and 2 are generally not compatible with 3 and 4 - even with redistributables )).

There issue is, sooner or later Microsoft is going to phase out 3.x, causing more problems for older programs developed in the .net framework . I cringe every time I remember what happened when XP was shiny and new with 3.x, and a lot of stuff simply stopped working.

Here is your *expletive* [citation needed]

1.0 and 1.1

.

Windows 98

Windows 98 Second Edition

Windows Millennium Edition

Windows NT Workstation 4.0 with Service Pack 6.0a or later

Windows NT Server 4.0 with Service Pack 6.0a or later

Windows 2000 Professional

Windows 2000 Server

Windows 2000 Advanced Server

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server (version 1.1)

Windows XP Home Edition

Windows XP Professional

Windows Server 2003 family (version 1.1)

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2.0

.

x32-bit based systems

Microsoft® Windows® 98

Windows 98 Second Edition

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional with SP4

Windows 2000 Server with SP4

Windows 2000 Advanced Server with SP4

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server with SP4

Microsoft Windows XP Professional with SP2

Windows XP Home Edition with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002 with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition with SP2

Windows XP Starter Edition

Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition

Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition

Windows Server 2003 Web Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Datacenter Edition

x64-bit based systems

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition

.

3.0 and 3.5

.

32-bit based systems

Windows XP Professional with SP2

Windows XP Home Edition with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002 with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 with SP2

Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Windows XP Professional Reduced Media Edition with SP2

Windows XP Home Reduced Media Edition with SP2

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition with SP2

Windows XP Starter Edition

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with SP1

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with SP1

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition with SP1

Windows Server 2003 Web Edition with SP1

Windows Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition with SP1

Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition with SP1

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition

Windows Vista Starter

Windows Vista Home Basic

Windows Vista Home Premium

Windows Vista Ultimate

Windows Vista Business

Windows Server 2008 Standard 32-Bit

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 32-Bit

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter 32-Bit

Windows 7 (all 32-bit editions)

Windows 8

x64-bit based systems

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 Datacenter x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter x64 Edition

Windows Vista Home Premium x64 Edition

Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Edition

Windows Vista Business x64 Edition

Windows Server 2008 Standard x64 Edition

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise x64 Edition

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter x64 Edition

Windows 7 (all 64-bit editions)

Windows 8

.

4.x

.

Windows 10

32-bit and 64-bit

The .NET Framework 4.6

--

Windows 8.1

32-bit, 64-bit, and ARM

The .NET Framework 4.5.1

The .NET Framework 4.5.2

The .NET Framework 4.6

Windows 8

32-bit, 64-bit, and ARM

The .NET Framework 4.5

The .NET Framework 4.5.1

The .NET Framework 4.5.2

The .NET Framework 4.6

Windows 7 SP1

32-bit and 64-bit

--

The .NET Framework 4

The .NET Framework 4.5.1

The .NET Framework 4.5.2

The .NET Framework 4.6

Windows Vista SP2

32-bit and 64-bit

--

The .NET Framework 4

The .NET Framework 4.5.1

The .NET Framework 4.5.2

The .NET Framework 4.6

Windows XP

32-bit and 64-bit

The .NET Framework 4

.

.

You mentioned DosBox but I can't think of many DOS-era games written in .NET :)

And you don't need .NET to program C++ applications in Visual Studio, it works fine without it.

Having to install fifty different versions of the MSVC Redistributable to play different games is a pain point though. Especially since none of them clean up their temporary files and just dump it into your partition root.

When running apps, the way multiple .NET frameworks work is you install all of them that you need side-by-side. That's how it has always worked. Some versions of Windows come with one or more versions of the framework pre-installed, but you have always been able to manually install any other versions you need.

When developing apps, Visual Studio (for the last few versions) has an option in the project settings that lets you pick which framework you want to build your project for.

1) You are still able to install .net 1.1 on the latest version of Windows and play games that requires it (like LOTRO), not sure about .NET 1.0 (however they should share the same CLR)

2) You can still target .NET 2.0-3.5 (they should share the same CLR) on Visual Studio 2015, just checked.

3) I always used dosbox to run 16-bit games on Windows 64 which lack of 16-bit emulator.

edit:1.0 and 1.1 have some CLR differences...