Recommended Post-SP1 Visual Studio 2008 Hotfixes

Question

Today I had to reinstall. I used to have some hotfixes installed for VS2008 but no longer have them and can't remember why they were necessary. I'm expecting any security-related hotfixes to come through Microsoft Update, but I'm interested in VS bug fixes.

Does anyone have a list of hotfixes that they recommend installing for Visual Studio 2008 SP1?

Answer 1

You can find them all here:

http://kbalertz.com/Technology_639.aspx

Look for the ones with a "FIX" prefix.

Update: This is another good source of information about VS2008 updates. http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Project/ProjectDirectory.aspx?TagName=Visual%20Studio%202008&ProjectSearchText=Hotfix

Answer 2

Suggested hotfixes (links updated 4/2015):

• KB957912 - Update for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Debugging and Breakpoints
• KB958502 - JScript Editor support for “-vsdoc.js” IntelliSense doc. files
• KB960075 - VS Dev Environment crash after undocking windows or changing layouts

If connecting to TFS 2010:

• KB974558 - Forward Compatibility Update
• KB980216 - Error message when running unit tests with Forward Compatibility Update installed

Complete list of VS 2008 hotfixes (including TFS).

Answer 3

I recently rebuilt my machine. After installing Visual Studio 2008 and SP1 I was wondering about the same thing. In the end I used Windows update to check for updates and it found the following updates:

• KB2465361
• KB971092
• KB72222
• KB973675

Screen shot: http://i.stack.imgur.com/yFf8H.png

Answer 4

All the VS2008 hotfixes are posted in the MSDN Code Gallery. You can search for tags "Visual Studio 2008" and "Hotfixes". You should only install the ones for problems you are actually having. Read through them and decide which ones you need. I would sort them by release date and install from older ones first. Also notice that some are included in other updates, such are the WPF designer hotfix included with the Silverlight tools.