>>>>All VS versions from 2003 onwards are on MSDN subscriber downloads.....
>>>>Not sure why anyone who has not already got them would want pre-2012 anyway ?
>>>
>>>
>>>I don't use 2010 because it's buggy in C++ code generation in V10.
>>
>>Interesting. Out of curiosity what problems did you find in 2010 that were not present in 2008 ?
>>
>>> And I don't use 2012 because it's Metroesque.
>
>If find the IDE for VS2010 and VS2012 very confusing. I probably should devote more time to learning it,

I think you should. :-}
The IDE between 2008 and 2010 had a lot of improvements. Docking was greatly improved. Call hierarchy and navigating were added.
Not so much change between 2010 and 2012 though - file preview was added and, IIRC, the ability to pin files. Actually, looking it up, I see that it was 2012 that introduced intellisense for JavaScript as well.....

> but I waste a lot of time trying to find the solution explorer when it disappears and CTL-F dialogue is even more evasive.

Think that's just down to gaining familiarity......