Hello There

Before we go any further I want to point out that I am NOT one of those people who criticises Microsoft at every opportunity, but VWD is simply not acceptable as a piece of 'finished' software. I have used Microsoft software for many years, in all areas, and found it to be normally very good (the occasional bug allowed). However, VWD, which I have been using for around a year now has so many faults in it that I have lost count.

I find myself spending more time having to 'work around' VWD than I do actually writing the application! Those of you who have used it for a lot will have come accross the faults so I will not attempt to list them here. There is no way MS would release Office with as many faults as VWD. In fact I cannot think of another piece of 'mass released' software that is as unreliable - I believe in excess of 5 million copies have been downloaded now.

There are however some good points! The code side of the application is very good and the overall concept of the tool is excellent. In fact, somewhere inside VWD is a great application. But let's be clear about why people use this tool - 'to build reliable applications', sadly most of the faults I get are caused by VWD itself!

I am going to move over to VS next year when I can afford it. But I cannot see any updates to VWD from MS yet? I could be wrong and please let me know if there is a service pack. I realise that VWD is free, but I wonder if that is because it isn't good enough to be charged for? I haven't used the other Express editions yet so I cannot comment on their reliablity.

I would be interested to know other developers views on VWD and whether they would pay for it if MS charged?

Kind Regards

 Stuart