I've had a copy of Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, Standard Edition, for about five years now; and I've finally decided to give Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Professional Edition, a try because I can get it for free from my university anyway.
That thing is two CDs, a prerequisites CD, and seven MSDN Library CDs I haven't even bothered with yet. The installation took an hour and a half.
Anyway, it seems like Microsoft has made big changes since Visual Studio 6.0. They've integrated all the Visual tools in a snazzed-up version of the Microsoft Development Environment IDE from Visual J++ and Visual InterDev 6.0 and made the whole thing much more Web centric.
Maybe I'll fool with it more later, but my impression is that it is a 500-pound monster compared to the 200-pound monster that is Visual C++ 6.0. I'm glad I've still got Visual C++ 6.0 installed.
