What is the difference between Visual Studio 2008 Standard and Visual Studio 2008 Professional?

Microsoft has provided multiple answers to this question:

(1)  This answer is quick and high level:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/vs2008/products/bb980920.aspx

(2) This answer is less quick and slightly more detailed:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zcbsd3cz(VS.80).aspx

(3) This answer is very detailed.  It comes in two flavors:

Web: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/products/cc149003.aspx

Downloadable: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=727bcfb0-b575-47ab-9fd8-4ee067bb3a37&DisplayLang=en

When I went to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 on Windows Server 2003 I had a lot of unexpected trouble.

Windows Update gave me this obscure error code:

Error Code: 0x64C

So, I did some googling and landed on this very helpful web page:

Installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1

The main key was to look into the Event Log (how often I forget) and see this error:

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Product: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Premier Partner Edition - ENU -- Error 1718.File C:\WINDOWS\Installer\66b5f.msp did not pass the digital signature check. For more information about a possible resolution for this problem, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=73863.
---

I'm not even sure what "Premier Partner Edition" is.  It seems like I have that edition, plus the normal professional edition of VS 2005 installed.  Anyway, that helpful URL points to KB925336.  That knowledge base article points to a hotfix for Windows Server 2003, which is apparently required before installing large updates (and VS2K5 SP1 indeed appears to be large).

I did dig up my original installation media and did have that in my CD drive when I eventually successfully got the service pack to install, but I'm pretty confident it was the hotfix that got everything to work and I probably didn't need the CD.

It did take at least 20 minutes for the update to install (not including download time), so be patient.

As a Windows user, running applications from the command line is a major pain in the ass (if I preferred working from the command line, I would use Linux).  Yet, with NAnt, there is little choice but to open a command prompt.  Well, there is an open source project called NAntRunner that allows you to run NAnt from a VS.NET Add-In, but that doesn't look like what I want either as I often have to close VS.NET to allow NAnt to overwrite the DLLs VS.NET has locked (I believe this is a bug in VS.NET) and if I want to build a single solution, I just do that in the normal VS.NET way anyway.

So, I often open a command prompt, run a batch file to add nant.exe to my path (I intentionally change my path and other environment variables in an environment specific batch file so I'm sure to always grab the proper version of the applications for that particular development/build environment) and then start cd'ing around to different directory to run the minimal set of NAnt targets I need to get the job done.

So, I did a google search for how to add a right click "Open Command Prompt Here" to Windows File Explorer, so I can at least start the command prompt in an arbitrary directory quickly and easily.  There are some excellent options for this feature here.  I chose option 3 as it was simple and low risk (I can easily undo it - there is no "magic").

This makes running NAnt that much more tolerable, but I think what I really want is a Windows File Explorer Add-In to run NAnt for an arbitrary target in an arbitrary environment, running an arbitrary batch file to initialize the environment first.  It seems very doable, but just doesn't interest me enough to actually implement it.

And why does a google search for "NAnt Runner" (notice the subtle space between the words) return nothing useful?  Hmm...  MSN search would have at least gotten me where I needed to go with a couple of non-obvious clicks, but there still isn't a direct link on the first page of results.  Not that I have much search engine power, but I'm going create this link anyway in hopes that it helps other people: NAnt Runner.

Gunjan Doshi: Using Visual Studio.Net to edit NAnt build files
[via Bill Arnette on WinTechOffTopic]

This very quickly makes the NAnt build script editing environment a lot more pleasant and productive.

Trying to run NDoc (1.3.1) on a newly setup PC, I ran into this error:

From the NDoc GUI:
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An error occured while trying to build the documentation.

Exception: NDoc.Core.DocumenterException
Unable to find the HTML Help Compiler. Please verify that the HTML Help Workshop has been installed.

Exception: NDoc.Core.DocumenterException
Unable to find the HTML Help Compiler. Please verify that the HTML Help Workshop has been installed.
---

From the NAnt NDoc Utility:
---
Error building documentation.
    Unable to find the HTML Help Compiler. Please verify that the HTML Help Workshop has been installed.
        Unable to find the HTML Help Compiler. Please verify that the HTML Help Workshop has been installed.
---

As of today, it's not well documented on Google what this error really means.