Open Correlate: Reviving Windows 2000, IE 6 SP1 and Visual Studio 2005 C++/C#/J#/VB/Web Express

Why sleep when you can build the dev environment of your (late 2002) dreams?

Visual C++ and C#, SSME against SQL Server 2005 Express

Ingredients:

Oracle VirtualBox
Windows 2000 installation media (you're on your own)
Visual Studio 2005 Express installation media (courtesy of AP Dubey, h/t to Sivakumar K for this answer at Stackoverflow)
Visual Studio 2005 Express SP1 installers
Optionally, if you install SQL Server Express 2005, grab SSMSE.
Internet Explorer 6 (see below)
A standalone Internet Explorer 6 SP1 update (see below)

So not quite what I wanted back in 2002, but if 2002 me got his hands on VS 200-AnyYear he would've murdered Doc Brown and stolen his time machine.

Installing Visual C# 2005

Why IE6? Well, first I needed to discover for myself that there was no way to shoehorn VS 2008 Express Edition onto my box, and for some damned reason the Installer UI is HTML with a bunch of ActiveX shit that chokes IE 5.5. Going from 5.5 to 6 is an exercise in pulling teeth. Fortunately, the good folks at Evolt keep a whole stable of legacy browsers handy, including base IE6.

Unfortunately, you have to dig further for a standalone SP1 update and wade through lots and lots of dead links. Fortunately, we have Internet Archive. Link is below: