So what are the downsides? The two that come to mind are the dropping of support for VBScript and Classic ASP. This means that there will be neither Intelesense help nor highlighting for either of these types of code. This will be a significant problem for those shops that still support these platforms. According to Microsoft, they recommend running Visual Studio 2005 along side of 2008. Now this is not an all is lost proposition. As of this writing word has it that Microsoft is considering restoring this functionality in a service release, but those who are still maintaining older sites will want to keep their existing tools. The other is the lack of support for .NET Framework 1.X. That would have been the cherry on the sundae, but not a deal breaker since no prior version had the multi-framework support.

Bottom line, if you are a Microsoft shop, I would most definitely upgrade and begin all new development using Visual Studio 2008 to take advantage of the new technologies. Once you are comfortable using Visual Studio 2008 I see no reason not to upgrade your existing projects. My experience has been that the upgrade is rather painless with relatively few actual code changes.

For those who are maintaining older versions of Visual Studio, I would seriously consider making the move to Visual Studio 2008. Even for those who thought that Visual Studio 2005 was a bit problematic, I would suggest that they take a good long look at 2008.

My impression is that Visual Studio 2008: Professional Edition; and probably all of the editions, are very, very solid. It is a strong upgrade; perhaps the most decisive upgrade in a long time. I believe that, with very few exceptions, users of prior versions will find a significant feature to justify an upgrade. If you have never used Visual Studio, now is a great time to check it out. I highly recommend Visual Studio 2008: Professional Edition!