So Microsoft, when is VS.NET 2002's service pack released?

When VS.NET 2003 was announced, Microsoft made it clear that it wasn't a service pack for VS.NET 2002 you had to pay for, it was a new release and that they'd release a service pack for VS.NET 2002 'shortly' after the release of VS.NET 2003. Well... it's been 3 months now today, since VS.NET 2003 is on the market and no sign of any service pack for VS.NET 2002.

This got me thinking. First I thought: what if VS.NET 2003 is the service pack for VS.NET 2002? Then, VS.NET 2004 is the service pack for VS.NET 2003. This way, Microsoft can make money out of fixes. However, I don't think they make a lot of money on the upgrade kits they sell for 29$ a pop. No, the reason why the service pack isn't there must be something else. What I've concluded now is that Microsoft is not releasing a service pack for VS.NET 2002 at all. This will force people to migrate to VS.NET 2003 and thus .NET 1.1, because of the unpatched bugs in VS.NET 2002.

If that's true, I truly fear we'll not see any service pack for VS.NET 2003 either, because I think Microsoft will of course want to migrate the .NET developers to VS.NET 2004 and .NET 1.2 a.s.a.p. after the release of Whidbey. I hope I'm wrong and Microsoft proves me wrong by releasing the fixes for VS.NET 2002 and will commit themselves to us, customers, that they'll release fixes for the bugs in VS.NET 2003.

Of course, some people might wonder why on earth would anyone still want a service pack for VS.NET 2002. To those people I'd like to say: start talking to some VB.NET developers using VS.NET 2003 and use VS.NET 2003 yourself for 8-12 hours a day non-stop. If you ask me, I'd go back to VS.NET 2002 any day, but I can't, simply because bugs that are fixed in .NET 1.1 (and were already fixed last year!) like the bugs in the binary deserializer stop me from using .NET 1.0 in my current GUI application.

5 Comments

  • What more do you REALLY need to see that MS is committed to their customers? Geez man. You sure do complain about MS a lot. Ever hear the phrase "biting the hand that feeds you?"





    You could get a lot more done with MS if you had a more positive attitude. They're still figuring some of this stuff out, just like we are.

  • What's wrong with critizism? I'm not biting the hand that feeds me. If I can't ask Microsoft why there isn't an SP for VS.NET 2002 released, the world really is in trouble.

  • Hey Robert, since when is being critic bad???


    Do you eat everything your holy "hand that feeds you" decides to give you?

  • Frans,





    Can you go into a little more detail about what you don't like about VS 2003? We are about to make the switch...





    Thanks


    Don

  • Robert,





    Ever heard of the prase:


    'Customer is king' ?





    We don't get fed by Microsoft. MS is just one of the firms that deliver IDE's for .NET (Borland is another one).


    If you want to use a good product, then critizism is a way to get things done.





    If you buy a new car, wich has some production faults, but in a new edition, or a new version of that type of car, these glitches are fixed, what do you expect? You expect that they will fix your car. You don't expect that the manufacturer says: "Oh, we fixed that in our new version, if you want it fixed, buy the new version of that model".

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