Out of morbid curiousity, I decided to install Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop on my Windows 7 machine. The required prerequisites included the notorious in-place upgrade to .NET Framework 4.5 and the new Windows SDK 8.0 for Windows 8. Here’s what I found:
- The .NET 4.5 in-place upgrade does indeed reuse the same directories and registry keys as .NET 4.0. This somewhat complicated my InnoSetup version checker, but more importantly means that uninstalling 4.5 completely removes all 4.x assemblies. Going back to .NET 4.0 required reinstalling that version from scratch.
- The new Windows SDK 8.0 no longer ships with any compilers – not even the .NET compilers that used to be freely available even before the C++ compiler joined the club. You need either Visual Studio 2012 or some unspecified third-party compilers to write programs. Since VS2012 already includes the SDK, the separate download is now rather pointless for most users.
(2013-02-13: Turns out you can rig a command-line setup using the compilers that ship with the .NET Framework itself.)
- Speaking of Visual Studio Express, although technically free it installs as a “trial” edition that stops working after 30 days unless you complete an amazingly onerous registration page, clearly designed to let Microsoft spam you in any way imaginable. Apparently this was also the case for the 2010 versions, which I wasn’t aware of.
- Visual Studio 2012 is ugly. I had thought Microsoft’s screenshots looked rather bland and depressing, but I wasn’t prepared for the sheer sledgehammer of desolate ugliness that appeared on my monitor. A featureless, colorless, chromeless, near-black rectangle of misery, punctuated with screaming menu titles. MetroTwit shows how to make a beautiful Metro application. VS2012 is the opposite.
And with that, I rolled back to .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.
2013-04-05: VS2012 Update 2 finally added a blue theme to approximate VS2010. You can further customize the appearance with the Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor.
2014-02-23: VS2012 has been replaced with VS2013 which you can get at the new download page. I’m happy to report that my major complaints have been fixed in VS2013 Express. The new default color scheme is much more pleasant, and while Express still defaults to a 30-day trial you can now “register” simply by logging in with your Microsoft account – no additional information necessary.
Th ugliness of VS 2012 does not really matter if it is more performant than 2010 version. I mean, we can “adjust” to the new UI after a while, the one that we cannot easily “adjust” is to wait forever to do it’s thing…
The worst thing in this case is the infamos in-place upgrade. See here:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/wpf/thread/c05a8c02-de67-47a9-b4ed-fd8b622a7e4a
True, I linked to that MSDN Forums thread in my earlier post about .NET 4.5: https://news.kynosarges.org/2012/08/01/no-net-4-5-for-xp2003/
(I forgot to add a link back to post, will add it now, thanks for the reminder.)
Good point about performance, I didn’t try VS2012 long enough to find out whether it’s faster than VS2010. I only mentioned the new UI because I was really shocked when it popped up on my monitor. The default appearance is probably the ugliest Windows application I’ve ever seen! The Color Theme Editor should help, though.
Just for the sake of discussion: I am currently evaluating C++ Builder XE3 (of Embarcadero). Very “outdated” (in terms of VS 2012) UI but way more beatifull and performant (especially the later)…
I’m enjoying the new UI of 2012 (after switching to dark theme): I prefer working in dark room with low light which focuses me on what’s on my screen, I want only bright colors on what I want to focus on. Having all the shiny gradients on the buttons and toolbars which I may whant to use once in half an hour at most totaly disturbes me and makes my eyes burn!
I love the new look as I loved that of Expression Blend 4, and I dont see why people prefer all the gradients everywhere instead of a clean useful look.
Sorry for bad english