If so that's a bit of a blow of low end distribution. There will be many users out there who are not upto date - so you say "we have to use .msi" installers (which will pack the libs back in to be deployed on the end users system) - well that's simply no good for many uses, .msi files are treated with suspicion by many low-end/casual users who don't even know what they are (of course we all do and we don't run off scare - but they might).
The IDE btw has some good points and some quirks - overall a nice feeling if a little bloated and slow compared to good old VC++6 (which I have been using since it was released!
)Some more info:
.Speed tests showed now FPS increase in an irrlicht app (using old custom DLL)
.Proper optimising is only in the PRO version and up (I think)?
.A lot of stuff was deprecated in this version of VC++ to be more in line with the standards which means you will get a lot of warnings/errors about unsafe usage - it is simple enough to correct them using find/replace or you can use an option to prevent the warnings :CRT_SOMETHING_SOMTHING_blah to switch those off (which is more advisable than simply disabling warnings all together - trust me, compile with warnings ON level 3 or better and just disable individuallly the known areas lest you want to release crashy code!)
.I had no need to re-compile my previously compiled irrlicht.dll, my app worked straight off the bat (With a few minor corrections as mentioned in my last point). THe missing DX stuff will depend on the DX SDK rather than VS itself (yes?) - if you are using an older DX sdk you should be fine for D3D8 linkage etc (I am)..
.If there was really now way to use vs2005 with DirectX8 and Irrlicht I wouldn't use it (VS) I only have DX8 in my custom build (700k) and it's tuned for that and runs on older windows well.
.Optimising can be a mix of speed/size not really both, you will get faster speed with larger .exe because if inlining and what have you. If you want a smaller.exe you will get less inlining and slower code. Take your pick (blend is probably best depending on your targets)