Visual-studio – Switching from VS 2005 to VS 2008 but sticking with .Net 2.0, should I

visual-studio-2008

I'm currently using VS 2005 as most of the programs I maintain are written for .Net 2.0, I have one new program that requires .Net 3.5, should I switch to VS 2008 and can I do so without any problems with my .Net 2.0 programs? What should I watch out for?

PS I mainly work with Winform apps if that makes any difference.

Thanks

Best Answer

I would personally upgrade not just the IDE but the target framework if you possibly can. The benefits of being able to use LINQ are huge in my experience, for a wide range of problems.

If you really want to stay with .NET 2.0 you can use the "Target Framework" option of VS2008 as explained by abatishchev - but be aware that "2.0" really means "2.0SP1". If you accidentally use a 2.0SP1-specific type (e.g. DateTimeOffset) then your code won't run on a vanilla 2.0 machine.

Even if you're using .NET 2.0, you can still use most of the C# 3.0 benefits though.

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