Visual Studio .NET 2003 on Windows Vista Issue List

The information below identifies the known issues you will face when using Visual Studio 2003 on Windows Vista. While Visual Studio 2003 is not supported on Windows Vista if you choose to run it then we advise you to do the following:

• Run Visual Studio with elevated administrator permissions
• Be a member of the "Administrators" group on the local machine
• Right-click the Visual Studio icon and select the "Run as administrator" option from the context menu

Note:  You can create a shortcut to Visual Studio and select the option to always run with elevated administrator permissions. Using this shortcut would be the equivalent of the right-click method described above.

If you use SQL Server 2005 (including the SQL Server Express Edition), you should review the information about using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 on "Microsoft Windows Server Longhorn" or Microsoft Windows Vista.

General IDE Issues

Title: Text editor insertion cursor displays incorrectly on Vista

• Description: Creating a new text file may result in the text insertion cursor failing to appear. The text files is created normally and will accept any text typed, however the cursor will not appear.
• Workaround: Insert a line break in text document and the cursor will appear.

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General Debugging

Title: Script debugging will fail on launch unless internet explorer is launched as admin

• Description: Low-rights IE does not have access to the DCOM interfaces needed for debugging with VS 2003.
• Workaround: Launch internet explorer as admin before attaching the debugger

Title: Remote debugging will fail due to firewall configuration

• Description: Firewall will need to be manually configured; this is expected since VS 2003 does not automatically configure the firewall on any Operating System.
• Workaround: Please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=833977 and http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=841177 for configuring firewall.  The KBs are for XP SP2 but the information also applies to Windows Vista.

Title: Web debugging fails due to permissions level in IE

• Description: A developer attempting to debug a web application launches IE and browses to the application website. When putting Visual Studio into debug mode, IE will launch a new (second) instance of iexplore.exe as a low integrity process while shutting down the first instance. The debugger attaches to this first instance, which is not executing any user code.
• Workaround: Start Visual Studio with elevated administrator permissions or use the debug menu to attach to IE has been launched as admin.

Title: SQL Debugging not available

• Description: SQL Server 2005 is not supported for debugging by VS2003 on any operating system, additionally SQL Server 2000 is not supported on Windows Vista.
• Workaround: The only available SQL Server debugging style is “remote” from VS 2003 on Windows Vista targeting the SQL Server 2000 server on another operating system.

Title: It is not possible to JIT Debug an elevated /privileged process

• Description: When trying to JIT Debug, the JIT Debugger will fail.
• Workaround: None.

Title: IIS Configuration issues

• Description:  By default the Windows Vista installation of IIS does not support creation or debugging of ASP.NET 1.1 applications.
• Workaround: Follow the steps located at http://www.iis.net/default.aspx?tabid=2&subtabid=25&i=993 to correctly configure IIS for ASP.NET 1.1 and VS 2003 debugging.

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Visual C#

Title: ODBC Adapter Creation fails from the Wizard

• Description: The DataAdapter wizard can cause Visual Studio to hang after clicking on the "New Connection" button.
• Workaround: None.

Title: Dataset generation for SqlDataAdapter generates errors

• Description: Generating a dataset for sqlDataAdapter will cause an error message about the DataAdapter not being configured to show multiple times.
• Workaround: Keep selecting OK on the error message dialog box; the wizard eventually proceeds to create a dataset successfully.

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Visual Basic

Title: WebForms Dynamic Help fails for HTML Controls

• Description: In some cases no dynamic help for HTML controls will display in the Web Forms Designer
• Workaround: None.

Title: Dynamic Help does not display the help contents when HTML controls or tags are selected

• Description: When a developer selects a control or tag from a web form the Dynamic Help Window does not display help links for various controls and tags.
• Workaround: None.

Title: User controls may appear to not upgrade correctly

• Description: When upgrading a Visual Basic 6.0 application, user controls may appear to upgrade incorrectly but when the project is executed the application runs properly.
• Workaround: None.

Title: Web classes fail on Windows Vista

• Description: Web classes will fail due to fundamental changes in the behavior of IIS 7.
• Workaround: None.

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Web Forms

Title: Debugging an ASP.NET applications fails

• Description: After creating a web application in http://localhost a developer attempts to debug the application and receives the “cannot start ASP.NET or IIS debugging” failure dialog from Visual Studio.
• Workaround: The DEBUG verb may not be registered with the ASPX handler. Register the DEBUG verb with the ASPX handler to enable debug to automatically start.

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Visual C++

Title: General recommendations for running Visual C++ and user created applications on Windows Vista

• Description: The Visual C++ IDE and user created deployment packages need elevated permissions.
• Workaround: Currently there are no known issues if the Visual C++ IDE and user created deployment packages are run with elevated administrator permissions.

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