df,

>On this box VFP8 is up and ready for command prompt input in 1 second. VS.Net2003 takes 9 seconds to start.

I haven't installed 2003 yet, but starting up the original on this PIII 933 is painfully slow, as is just opening up a solution or project. It's almost to the point where it's unusuable. On my AMD Athlon XP 2000 at the house (1.67 ghz) it's a bit better. I can't see recommending using .NET for development on anything less than a 1.5 ghz box.