I’d heard that Visual Studio 2005 has compatibility issues with Windows Vista, so I wasn’t surprised when I got this error message when trying to run for the first time. To resolve this particular error message, you need to install the SP1 Update, which is pretty much the service pack for the service pack, I think.

You can download the SP1 Update here: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=6366078

After installing that update, I then got this error message saying “Administrator permissions are recommended for running Visual Studio 2005 SP1″, and asking to use the Run as administrator option when launching Visual Studio.

After doing some research, you have a couple of options:

• Run Visual Studio as administrator (your best bet is to just change the shortcut to always run as administrator.) You will still end up with some errors this way.
• Run Visual Studio as a normal user, and only open it as administrator if you get a specific error that requires admin access.
• Just uncheck the box.

Tip: If you are trying to debug web projects, you need to make sure that you go to the Add/Remove Windows Components in Control Panel and install the IIS6 Compatibility with IIS7 option, otherwise you won’t have much luck.

Overall, Visual Studio 2005 is just not very compatible with Vista. It’s frustrating, but that’s life.