Should I get them to order .NET 2003 or 2005?

I know his may be a basic question, but I need to know thecorrect answer. :)

This is avery large organization I am contracting for. I know they have .NET 1.1 framework installed on most of their servers and most workstations are XP Professional. But, in no case is 2.0 Framework installed yet. I've managed to convince them to let me develop some of their solutions in .NET (they arereally behind in this area). But, I asked them to put in the order for VS 2003 Architect because I don't want to be having unkown issues to resolve ... (I've been doing VS 2002 then VS 2003 for a while.)

I want the new features of 2005 and if they migrate to 2.0 Framework, I don't want to go to the hassle of requesting an upgrade. Hence my question:

Question: Can I develop to a .NET 1.1 framework using the VS 2005 IDE? I know I've read they two versions coexist, butcan IUSE the latest .NET suite to develop to a 1.1 framework?

If the answer is no, does anybody know offhand how much upgrading to VS 2005 from VS 2003 costs? I probably won't convince them to upgrade during my time with them, but I do have my own VS 2003 and want to start learning 2005.

Thanks!

Michael

ASP.NET 1.x and 2.0 (and VS 2003 plus VS 2005) can be co-installed on a same system. However, you cannot develop 1.x apps using VS 2005 IDE. As for the upgrade cost, see the following site (must choose currency before the price shows up):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/howtobuy/default.aspx

One more thing. If you just want something that you can use to learn ASP.NET 2.0, then you should simply download the Visual Web Developer Express. It's fully functional with IDE that's nearly identical to the full VS 2005 product. See the home page for the link to download site ("Essential Links"). Don't forget the free training videos available on the home page too. It should help you get up to speed in no time since you're already familiar with earlier products.