Has anyone managed to get Visual Studio 2003 runni

Question

Yes, I know... I could set up a virtual machine running XP. Unfortunately our build environment is such that we need to be running VC2003, 2005 and 2008 concurrently and it would be much more convenient if I could run 2003 natively on Windows 7 for the few projects we have that require it.

I realize some things may not be available in the IDE, but I was able to run 2003 under windows Vista and if I could get the same base level of functionality under Windows 7 I would be extremely happy.

Right now I get an error opening the *.pdb file when I compile after switching vc2003 to run as Administrator under compatibility mode for XP SP 2.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I am having no problems with Visual Studio 2003 on Windows 7 64-bit.

1. Navigate to VS2003 devenv.exe (probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe)
2. Right-click and select Properties
3. In the Compatibility tab, check "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)"
4. Check "Run this program as administrator"

Answer 2

I'm sorry, your build environment requires you to have VC 2003, 2005, AND 2008 running concurrently? I would really bet that your efforts would be better spent simply consolidating your build environment to just one environment.

Answer 3

I have attempted to install VS2003 on Windows 7 64-bit using the Virtual Windows XP feature. I'm reasonably certain that this will be successful. The issue I ran into is that the installer wants IIS installed, and the XP installation provided by the Virtual XP doesn't have that enabled by default.

If you go to Add/Remove components, and try to add it, it will ask for the disc, which I didn't have on hand. Once I get my hands on the disc, I'm pretty sure that it will run fine.

If you haven't tried it for other apps, the Virtual XP feature is really neat...

Answer 4

I am experiencing the same issue; devenv.exe is leaving pdb files open after running the project. I have made a batch file to work around it, it closes all .pdb files open by devenv.exe:

handle.exe .pdb | awk "/devenv.exe/ { split($4, fd, \":\"); system(\"handle.exe -c \" fd[1] \" -y -p \" $3)}"

You will need to have handle.exe by sysinternals and awk by gnu in your path to make it work.

Use at your own risk. Closing handles can cause application or system instability.

Answer 5

Give XP Mode a try if you can't get it to run natively.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Answer 6

Solution i found on the web which helped: For your visual studio, use application compatibility = windows vista SP2, and NOT WinXP SP3