>No argument from me. I've had bad MS betas in the past, but the ones I'm using now are pretty good, with the exception of Office 2010.
>
Good to hear -- I wouldn't know <g>

>>For someone who has learned from a string of bad experiences to not trust anything first version coming out of Microsoft, I personally would never put any MS Beta on my computer. Ever.
>
>I think you're missing the point of an MSDN subscription. If you need just two of the products in a subscription, for example VS and SQL Server, then you're saving money. Then look at all the other stuff you get. It's well worth the cost.
>

That is certainly a valid point, especially if you are part of a bigger organization with an actual budget for software purchases, support plans, etc. I am looking at this from a small programming house's perspective, which makes $1K+ annual subscriptions look like a big chunk. Of course, if you need to test your latest and the greatest code with the latest and the greatest backends and whatnot, MSDN subscription makes sense. Charge it back to the customer, one way or another...

>>Sure, assuming you are willing to pay anywhere from $1,199t ($799 subsequent annual renewals) to $10,939 ($3,499 subsequent renewals) for the priviledge of NOTpaying some $600-1,000 for one time updates that may or may not fix a problem that existed in the previous version.
>
>Advertised and a specific thing they looked at are two different things. The fact is, MS heard the community and took a serious look at it for VS 2010.

Glad to hear that. Given that VS 2010 is beta I, again, wouldn't know from my own experience.

>
>>Side-by-side has been advertised for the last few versions, but evidently something "leaked" from VS 2005 to VS 2008 anyway.
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>Anti-trust stopped one division in MS from talking to another. The VS team can't know more about the inner-workings of the OS than the general public knows. Additionally, it's impossible for MS to test against every conceivable combination of hardware/software that could potentially cause conflicts.
>
>Now, I'm not saying MS is not responsible, just that many people point the finger at MS when their WIndows PC has an issue when in fact the problem is with something third-party.

Oh, now I see what you mean: Due to regulatory constraints the left hand is not supposed to know much about what the right hand is doing. That's plain silly, how can anyone run a big business like this. What about if the GM chassis designers weren't supposed to talk to GM engine designers? That would make for one silly and dangerous car.

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>>I miss your point here. If you are using an MS OS and MS framework and the framework has a problem, you should put the blame squarely on MS, antitrust or no antitrust. The reason being that since all moving parts in this particular system are made by MS, MS is the only responsible party here. So, I would certainly blame MS on this one.