You're asking for something that doesn't exist and never will. No software
publisher is going to "guarantee" that a software package won't cause an
issue when installed on a particular computer.
Think about what you are asking for.  How can the publisher test on all
possible configurations?

FWIW, I have both VS 2005 and VS 2008 on an XP SP2 machine, and on a Vista
SP1 and no issues have surfaced.

If you understand the premise of the .NET Framework, you'll know that this
is an irrelevant question.

The Frameworks don't interact with each other at all, they exist
side-by-side and do not share any codebases.

The same is true for the Visual Studio products.

-Scott

Hi Juan,

As for VS 2005 and VS 2008, side by side installing is offically
supported(also for former VS versions such as VS 2002 and VS 2003). Here is
the MSDN document on this:

#Installing Visual Studio Versions Side-by-Side
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms246609.aspx

Also, some other engineers has published some blog entry for some
particular scenarios you may encounter in side by side scenario:

#Link to an article about managing side-by-side file associations for
Visual Studio add-ins
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2007/06/22/3464822.aspx

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead

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--------------------

<e#Nh6L5iIHA.5956@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl>

Hi,

Considering the many replies I have gotten from my "innocent" question, and
the fact that some are almost contradictory to others, I am obliged to make a
constructive criticism to the newsgroup, all who contribute to it and the
Microsoft fellows who intervene to straighten up the bending branches.

First, it is really too bad that legitimate questions be laid off as non
sense. When one asks if VS2005 can coexist with VS2008 one is of course
asking for a substantial answer. While well meaning "I've had no problems
yet" answers are helpful, they are sure far from the question. Truly off and
very "superior sounding" when someone "answers" by saying how dumb it is to
ask the question, as in "Think about what you are asking for". Indeed, I have
thought about it and I know there are no absolute guarantees in software - or
life for that matter, that's what makes it a difficult question not an
invalid one, especially when asked properly ("Is this the official position
of Microsoft...?"). Certainly not very thankful for such a "profound"
contribution, if contribution at all.
Then comes the "belief in the propaganda" answer: should be easy to see how
irrelevant my question was, of course the .NET framework is the solution to
all problems and we should always take promises for facts.
This contributor is also questioning my question, believing that if
something is supposed to work one way, it surely will (wake up!).

A breath of fresh air: Sylvain Lafontaine comes with the first approximation
to a real answer - I guess the others just get paid by the number of replies
or just like to be noticed.
He (or she) points out things aren't as simple as the previous contributors
and reveals the interactions between the installations, to the point that
installing VS2008 implies placing the SP1 on .NET 2.0. Aha! This kind of
subtle under the covers interactions are the ones that break the promises and
bring the ugly surprises. It seems finally someone really knew what he/she
was talking about and placed a valuable answer with some depth to it. the
others were probably just bored.

So? Is this behavior what we want in our newsgroups? Basically: post a
question and get empty and sarcastic replies?

My proposal: let he who really has something to offer make a reply, let the
ones who think the question is absurd watch and learn: time will tell if it
was indeed absurd.