Microsoft has released to manufacturing Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1, which features fixes for user-reported issues. Service Pack 1 of the development platform also includes more than 70 improvements for common development scenarios, including new processor support for code generation and profiling, as well as performance and scale improvements in Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server.
Unfortunately one of the biggest pluses to VS2005, its x64 support, is one of it’s greatest failures. None of the new fancy features in 2005 actually work with 64-bit code. The new unit testing framework and the new profiling capabilities (I believe only available in the more $$$ versions) are fantastic. Unfortunately they only work with 32-bit code. Even editing code on the fly doesn’t work with 64-bit builds.
The reason for this has to do with the fact that VS2005 is still a 32-bit application. There is no 64-bit version. So even though the compiler can generate 64-bit code, all of the debugging is done via the Remote Debugger remoted into localhost. It really is quite a shame, especially for the profiler as most 64-bit developers are geared towards performance critical applications and a good profiler is an disposable tool in this environment.
Service pack or not, I don’t see descent 64-bit support really coming around until Visual Studio Orcas.
Edited for grammar, although it’s still far from perfect
Edited 2006-12-14 18:27
The IDE is 32bit. But it includes 64bit compilers.
I believe yout get 3 remote debuggers with VS2005 (x64,x86 and IA64):
• Install pathMicrosoft Visual Studio 8Common7IDERemote Debuggerx86
• Install pathMicrosoft Visual Studio 8Common7IDERemote Debuggerx64
• Install pathMicrosoft Visual Studio 8Common7IDERemote Debuggeria64
Yes there are 64 bit compilers with it but because the IDE is 32 bit, then the remote debugger must be used. Even though the debugger is 64 bit, it’s the use of the remote debugger locally which prevents all the fancy whiz-bang features from being used.
Yes there are 64 bit compilers with it but because the IDE is 32 bit, then the remote debugger must be used. Even though the debugger is 64 bit, it’s the use of the remote debugger locally which prevents all the fancy whiz-bang features from being used.
I’m not sure why you would be developing x64 apps on an x86 PC.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms184681(VS.80).aspx
“With Visual Studio 2005, you can debug a 64-bit application running on the local machine or on a remote machine.
If you are debugging locally, Visual Studio 2005 runs under WOW64, the 32-bit x86 emulator that allows 32-bit Windows applications to run on 64-bit Windows. Local debugging under WOW64 is supported on x64 only.
If you are debugging remotely, Visual Studio 2005 can run under WOW64 or on a 32-bit machine. You can debug both IA64 and x64 applications, as well as 32-bit applications running under or x64 WOW mode or on 32-bit platforms.
To debug a 64-bit application running on a remote computer, you need to install the 64-bit remote debugger on the remote computer. The 64-bit remote debugger is available on the last disc of your Visual Studio 2005 installation set.”
All the 64-bit apps ARE being developed on a 64-bit machine running Win64. But even debugging locally, Visual Studio actually uses the remote debugger connected to localhost when debugging 64-bit code. This came to me straight from the mouth of Microsoft, not from a description on their web site. And it’s for this reason that neither the profiler, unit test framework, nor edit-and-continue work on 64-bit apps running on a 64-bit machine being debugged “locally”.
Dispite this being released. It is not available for download at this time. Not even to MSDN subscribers.
I noticed that. I went looking for it on the MSDN subscribers page but to no avail. I can’t even find any documentation from Microsoft about it, only the beta.
Visual Studio 2005 should never have been released as it was, and it’s quality was less than perfect, shall we say. This still isn’t on MSDN though, let alone the supposed add-ons to SP1 for the stuff that won’t work in Vista. Hmmmmmmmm. QA anyone?
Note how Microsoft ties in various products together, both at the server and backend. You integrate with Microsoft Office through Team Foundation Server, which you’ve gused it, implies yet more licenses and a Windows Server to run it on.
Don’t worry though. There’ll be yet another version of Visual Studio and whole set of new tools some time after Vista is released, all based on .Net 3.0.
Edited 2006-12-14 20:01
Looking at my MSDN subscription, it looks like Visual Studio “Orca” was supposed to be released as CTP (???) on October 2006. I haven’t seen it yet.
It was publicly released as a VHD image: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C09B5A2D-E…
Nothing much to write home about though. I personally love the notion of CTPs being released as VHD diff-disks we can overlay on base VHD OS installations though.
It was publicly released as a VHD image
Oh, f****** brilliant. Microsoft have found out about the concept of VMware appliances, and are using their own images in order to try and get people to actually use Virtual Server.
They offer their VPC software for download free of charge…
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D58729D-D…
VS 2005 SP1 can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BB4A75AB-E…