Why is there no 64-bit version of Visual Studio 2010?

Question

I see only the x86 version in msdn downloads.

Answer 1

Rico Mariani basically says:

• The size of the pointers is expanding, so ceteris paribus the performance of 64-bit Visual Studio will be less.
• All current add-ons will be broken.

Answer 2

Because there is no need for an IDE to take advantage of 64 bits.

The platform itself comes with 32 and 64-bit versions.

What benefits of x64 do you want to use in the IDE?

Answer 3

I bet most of the work will test both editions and manage the code for both issues from the same code base. This is not how the IDE team worked (multiprocessor architecture) throughout its existence. They took a big bet on managed code in VS10, so I see how they might not want to take the extra risk in this cycle.

If I managed such a task, I would wait for a longer release cycle.

Update: I was wrong that .NET 5 will be released with Win 8, but no. Instead, we got .NET 4.5, then .NET 4.5.1 with Win 8.1. Many small, incremental versions with shorter release cycles for Windows.