I cleaned my computer desk today and in one of the shelfs I found Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 BETA on three DVDs which I had not yet installed on my computer. So with a few hours to spend I installed the three DVDs on my system (SQL Server, Visual C#, C++, J# etc etc) - a massive 5 gb of misc development software and other tools.... The installation process took about three hours... When the install was done I had myself a gigantic mug of Java coffee and some smokeless tobacco and was ready to go.
But unfortunately the only thing that was visual was this nice pop up -
Your Beta Period is Over, you may now uninstall Visual Studio 2005... 
I noticed on the MSDN webpages that you can download the components for free, but I would like to know your points of view on this software package from Microsoft - I have previously developed in Visual C++ a few years ago but ditched it in favour of Borland C++ Enterprise as I found it easier to work with.
what are your comments on it?