Servicing plans for VS 2003 and VS 2005

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scottwil

7 Nov 2005 4:04 PM

Comments 50

Today has been a big day, with the official launch of Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006.

We've seen some questions today in blogs and forums about our servicing plans for VS 2003 and VS 2005, and I thought it would be a good idea to communicate them here. We use "hot fixes" to address time-critical issues, and periodically release service packs that have multiple fixes. By having the combination of these methods, we hope to provide timely fixes for critical issues and also make it easy for customers to deploy fixes broadly.

We have plans for two service pack releases for the first part of 2006:

VS 2003 SP1 is scheduled for April 2006. We have done much of the work for this release already, and are anxious to get it to you.
VS 2005 SP1 is scheduled for the first half of 2006. We will be more specific about the date in a few months, once we have more customer data.

--Scott

Comments

Marlun

7 Nov 2005 5:02 PM

Will this include the Express editions?
Jeff Lewis

7 Nov 2005 5:19 PM

Is there one common place (or will there be) to get a list of the hot fixes for VS2005?

Searching for them in the msdn knowledge base is a miserable experience! ;-)
andersonimes

7 Nov 2005 5:37 PM

Thank you. Very much... I'm glad MS decided to address these issues sooner rather than later. Thanks for listening to your users.
Orand

7 Nov 2005 5:52 PM

I agree, publicly posting what hot fixes are available would be very helpful. I realize you would rather that people wait for the SP instead of applying hot fixes, but PLEASE make them available without having to call PSS and sit on the phone for an hour first.

If you're able to ship new beta and RC drops faster than hot fixes and/or service packs, something's wrong. I'd rather stay in permanent beta mode than have to live with "we might get something out in the next 8 months" once it RTMs.

It's pathetic that people are actually saying "Thank you very much" in response to your "next 8 months" announcement and calling 8 months "sooner rather than later." Shame on you Microsoft!
Dru

7 Nov 2005 6:53 PM

When will VS.Net updates be available over MS Update?
Simon Stewart

8 Nov 2005 12:35 AM

Thanks!

It's great to see Microsoft committing to something that's obviously an issue in the industry.

With that committment to Whidbey, I think I might reconsider my planned "embargo" on Visual Studio 2005. Hopefully my C# adventures will be less turbulent in 2006.

Sincerely appreciated this entry from you.
Matt Dunn

8 Nov 2005 1:40 AM

Hi Scott,

Do you also know when .NET 1.1 SP2 is scheduled for release?

Cheers,
Matt
thushan

8 Nov 2005 2:01 AM

Great news about the SP:-) thanks!
Toma Bussarov

8 Nov 2005 3:28 AM

Microsoft will release VS 2003 SP1 when??? 3 (THREE) years after its release!?

The SP strategy needs serious revising at Microsoft. I remember the days of Windows NT and Visual Studio 6 and they were the days of REGULAR Service Packs. A service pack delayed like those for VS 2003, Windows XP and so on does NOT gives much value to customers. Just because it is too late. I have already swallowed the bugs in VS 2003 and I just acept them. You even cannot persuade me that they will be fixed some day ... Can you guess why? Because in April 2006 I will be using VS 2005, I won't even try to istall a SP1 just to throw away 15 mins or so...
That's from me. I hope the author will read it.
Adam Young

8 Nov 2005 7:03 AM

Finally! I welcome this, I really do. Reminds me of the good old days of VS prior to version 7 (aka .net).

However, we have to wait until the middle of next year for a VS 2003 service pack? I don't really understand this, bearing in mind how long VS 2003 has already been out. I work in a bank where the standard desktop is updated at about the speed of a glacier moving over a mountain. We won't be moving to VS 2005 until the rollout of XP service pack 2 and .net fx 2. Which won't be for a very long time. So I guess I'm stuck with the VS2003 bugs for the best part of another year. Sigh.
Samuel Johnnson

8 Nov 2005 10:50 AM

Service packs! Thank you! I really think that Visual Studio need an Update feature much like Windows and Office have been given. This would be an IDEAL way to send out updates and fixes in a fast-paced manner. Please consider this.
Bernie

8 Nov 2005 12:10 PM

Thanks for listening to everyone, dev's and mvps, on this, except for that whole part where WE BEGGED FOR ANOTHER BETA.
Joe

8 Nov 2005 2:21 PM

> except for that whole part where WE BEGGED FOR ANOTHER BETA
Well those of you who wanted another Beta can consider RTM to be Beta 3. When SP1 comes out you can consider this as the "real" RTM. I expect the final version of Team Foundation Server and DSL Toolkit will require some updates to VS 2005, so I would expect the SP1 release to coincide with their release.
scottwil

9 Nov 2005 1:11 AM

Soma just posted a long blog entry (http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2005/11/08/490694.aspx) discussing our future work, including servicing plans for VS 2005.

He is more general in his specification of SP schedule than I was above. As we get more feedback and do more work, I am sure we will be more specific about the schedule. As Soma said, "As we get more mileage on the product usage in your production environment and get your feedback, we will firm up our plans here."

I apologize for any confusion.

--Scott
LeeB

10 Nov 2005 4:43 AM

Are there any plans for a service pack for the 2.0 framework itself? There are framework issues (in particular with ASP.NET) which were either postponed or "too late to investigate" when reported through the product feedback center.

Scott Wiltamuth's Visual Studio blog

Servicing plans for VS 2003 and VS 2005

Servicing plans for VS 2003 and VS 2005