C++ and the use of old Visual Studio versions

visual studio

Based on the behavior of some of our customers, I have come to wonder if many c++ development shops decided to just stop at vs2005. Is this just a quirk of the dozen or so large organizations that we deliver DLL+IMPLIB to, or is there a general groundswell of disinterest in the industry at large in upgrading?

Note that there's no MFC at work here, just a Windows compile of C++ code that is also delivered on linux and whatnot. And the question is, "Is it my imagination, or is it that big companies that build things like search engines in C++ have just stopped upgrading?"

NOTE

None of the answers so far appear to report actual personal experience with making a decision to upgrade or not, but rather either offer general principles or report very vague hearsay.

Best Answer

Any upgrade including buying a new version of VS costs money. In many cases there is no real benefit in getting "the latest thing" that justifies the cost. Waiting has its benefits:

  • Any intial bugs are fixed and you potentially save time that may have been wasted with a bad comiler
  • Time taken to upgrade and familiarize yourself with the new evnironment.
  • The product becomes cheaper after some time too and dirt cheap after the next "next" version arrives.

Besides, do you really need the latest? VS 2010 is only useful if you are doing Azure applications. If you dont use Dot net you might be better of with VS6!

Companies will always try to sell you a new compiler claiming that it does things faster and better etc. Reality: Visual Studio 2010 takes 10 minutes to load on the average 4 year old systems used in my company; that too after closing all other applications. We will not just be paying for the new Visual Studio but also have to upgrade our PCs and OS. These add up to the cost. We are better off with VS2008 running on Windows XP

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