I want to install VS beta 2 pro on my Vista Ultimate PC, and to have it work
with a Windows 2003 Server on another PC. I wanted to try both SharePoint
Designer 2007 and the Expression Suite. Reading through the various
documents, I come across some ambiguities that I would like to have cleared
up before starting.  On my Vista I have .Net 1.1 and also .Net 1.0 running,
and even VS 2002. I need those for various reasons.

The installation readMe for VS beta 2 states :
2.1.1 : "If you have installed an earlier version of Visual Studio, such as
a Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" Community Technical Preview (CTP), then you
must uninstall it in the following order...". Since this does not explicitly
restrict to which earlier version of VS the uninstall "must"be done, it is
not clear whether this VS beta 2 really can coexist with other VS versions.
It is not clear whether the uninstall "must" be done for a previous beta
only, and not for other, non beta VS versions.

2.1.7 : "Installing Visual Studio 2008 on the same computer as Visual Studio
2005 causes Visual Studio 2005 repair of .NET Framework 2.0 to fail". This
makes me worry  about what to expect if prior versions of VS (prior to VS
2005) are installed on the same computer.

2.1.15 : "Visual Studio SharePoint Workflow features have specific
installation requirements...  To use the SharePoint workflow tools in this
release, you must install the following products and components in the
specific order listed ... Windows 2003 Server ... .NET Framework 2.0 & 3.0
... Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 ... ". Confusing. Does this mean
that in order to use VS SharePoint Workflow features I need to install VS
beta on a Server 2003, instead of using as a server my other PC running
Server 2003 ? I am not really familiar with SharePoint (Designer or
Services), installing the trial versions was meant to make me familiar with
these new products, so I need to have this cleared up before I start
installing the lot. And why do they state ".NET Framework 2.0" as an explicit
requirement ?

2.2 "Uninstalling ... 2.2.1 On machines with previous versions of Visual
Studio...", where they discuss the implications for VS 2005 and later, but
there is no mention of the uninstall impact to previous versions of VS,
before VS 2005. VS 2005 would have "some of its features stop working", but
what with the previous versions ? And maybe a hint of which features might be
affected would give an idea of the impact ?

As for the installation readMe of FrameWork 3.5 beta 2 :
2.3.1.6 "Microsoft Blend will check for a specific earlier version of
Windows Presentation Foundation during installation and then fail...". Does
this mean that Blend will not work at all with VS beta 2 ? (another remark
about this statement : knowing the subtle change of product names occurring
so often, this statement had me also confused because of use of the name
"Microsoft Blend" instead of "Expression Blend")

Another remark of general confusion :
when will they learn to put at least one date in all of those documents, at
least the creation date if not the last update date (supposing that they will
update the documents instead of having them around with outdated
information).