It appears that an annoying error in Visual Studio 2003 has cropped up again in the 2005 version. Above is a screenshot of my IDE after reloading a project using the CAB. It doesn’t appear to be a problem specific to CAB though, as I can replicate this error with just about any UserControl.
This problem wouldn’t be annoying if there was a fix available in a patch, but determining the availability of a patch from Microsoft is like trying to figure out where the next route marker is on the Amazing Race – in Japanese.
Search MSDN for visual studio patch and you will get everything under the sun except links relating to Visual Studio or a patch. Seems every software developer in the free world uses the word “patch” to designate a fix for broken code, but Microsoft bucks the trend and uses softer, more confusing language like Service Pack and Update.
I thought I’d be smart though, and skip the MSDN treasure hunt by hitting the Check for Updates button directly on the Visual Studio Help menu. I figured that would get me only the patches relating directly to Visual Studio and that maybe the darn thing would update itself without requiring my intervention. After all, I’m writing an app that is deployed with ClickOnce and none of my customers have to update their application. This is simple stuff, right?
This is how Microsoft earns their reputation. I’ve played a lot of computer video games in my time and nearly every one of them had to be patched, some multiple times. This process is almost always easy. The developers make their websites easy to navigate and finding the latest updates is simple and straight forward. Patches are labeled sequentially and come complete with release dates so everyone knows what the latest version of the patch is and what language/release version of the game it is specifically meant for.
This is simple stuff that every game developer in the world gets right, but Microsoft can’t.
Visual Studio 2005 is absolutely critical to me and my work. This is what I do all day long – write code. I need this IDE. Why does this bug exist in the first place? And how come I can’t easily find a fix/patch for it?