I used to use MS Visual Web Development (VWD) Express 2008 as IDE for a website which was developed on .NET framework 2.5 with VB.NET and runs on IIS 7 originally. About a year ago, MS stopped downloading the VWD Express 2008 and now I am in need of an IDE for my old VB.NET website. Which IDE will allow me to maintain this old VB.NET website?
Here is the detail info of VS 2019 community installed:
Here is screen shot of the existing project I am maintaining.
2
Answers
You can go with Visual Studio Express.
(edit: It is now called Visual Studio Community Edition).
It should work fine. To be honest, I never used Visual Web Developer.
Just keep in mind, that you want to open the project as a web site, and NOT a project. Quite sure that’s how VW developer worked and was setup.
I’m not even sure they have VW developer anymore, but Visual Studio Express 2019 should be able to open + work on that web site.
So, to open a web application project, then you use this option:
(this means you have a .sln file).
So this:
However, this might ONLY be a web site project. So, you can use this option:
So, I would certinly try to open the project (folder) where the site exists, and see if you can find a .sln file.
If there is no .sln file, then you can try to open the .vbproj file.
But if you open a "web site", then you ONLY select the folder where the web site exists. (you don’t open .sln, or .vbproj file – but open the FOLDER.
VS 2017 is the last one that explicitly mention supports for .NET 3.5, and the Community version is still available with the free Dev Essentials account. If you’re ineligible for Community, then the Visual Studio Express 2015 for Web is the one you want.
That said, even in the latest VS 2022, I still see the option to switch a project to target .NET 3.5, and the template still offers Web Form development.