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July 04, 2008  
Subject: Visual Studio 97 install problem and VS 2008 Express
Group: microsoft.public.vc.ide_general,microsoft.public.vstudio.general
Date: 5/8/2008 4:52:35 AM
From: Ken Goldman [Email Address Protection]

Two questions (need to solve one of them)

1 - When I tried to install VS97 (which is VC++ 5) on a new
XP system, I had install errors and the help files
did not install. Is there something about XP (perhaps
a security setting) that would prevent this? Is there
a way to overlay the help files separately?

2 - I install VS 2008 Express, so I'd have help files.
But this doesn't seem to have the 'visual' aspect, where
I can graphically create a MFC GUI. Am I missing something,
or is that a limitation of the free version?

So currently, I can use VS97 to create code, and I fire
up VS2008 when I need a help file. It works, but it's
not classy.

[Note to responders who will tell me VS97 is too old
and I should buy something new: 95% of my programming
is portable C developed under Unix and 95% is non-GUI
server code. So I just use VS97 to check compatibility
and a rare small GUI.]

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Subject: Re: Visual Studio 97 install problem and VS 2008 Express
Group: microsoft.public.vc.ide_general,microsoft.public.vstudio.general
Date: 5/8/2008 8:37:01 AM
From: David Wilkinson [Email Address Protection]

Ken Goldman wrote:
> Two questions (need to solve one of them)
>
> 1 - When I tried to install VS97 (which is VC++ 5) on a new
> XP system, I had install errors and the help files
> did not install. Is there something about XP (perhaps
> a security setting) that would prevent this? Is there
> a way to overlay the help files separately?
>
> 2 - I install VS 2008 Express, so I'd have help files.
> But this doesn't seem to have the 'visual' aspect, where
> I can graphically create a MFC GUI. Am I missing something,
> or is that a limitation of the free version?
>
> So currently, I can use VS97 to create code, and I fire
> up VS2008 when I need a help file. It works, but it's
> not classy.
>
> [Note to responders who will tell me VS97 is too old
> and I should buy something new: 95% of my programming
> is portable C developed under Unix and 95% is non-GUI
> server code. So I just use VS97 to check compatibility
> and a rare small GUI.]

Ken:

I don't know about the install errors (when I installed VC5 on XP it was at
SP1), but I do know that if you have WinXP SP2, you need to make make this
registry change:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_DISABLE_MK_PROTOCOL]
"MSDEV.EXE"=dword:00000000

in order to make the Help work.

The Express version of VC++ does not include MFC.

[IMHO, VC5 is a very poor way to check Unix/Windows compatibility. Why not use
VC++ Express and the latest version of gcc?]

--
David Wilkinson
Visual C++ MVP

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