You can use the Visual Studio 2005 IDE to edit your Classic ASP files and still utilize syntax highlighting and intellisense. All you have to do is associate the “.asp“ file extension with the Web Form Editor. When doing this you are telling the IDE to treat “.asp“ files the same as “.aspx“ files, in turn sort of “tricking“ the IDE in to giving you the syntax highlighting and intellisense that you want.

The steps in setting up the IDE are as follows:

  1. Open Visual Studio
  2. Goto the "Tools" menu and click "Options..."
  3. Check the "Show all options" checkbox in the bottom left of the dialog box.
  4. In the right pane expand "Text Editor" and select "File Extension"
  5. Enter "ASP" extension in the "Extension" textbox
  6. Select "Web Form Editor" in the Editor dropdown box
  7. Click the "Add" button and click "Ok" on the dialog box.

And now enjoy all the syntax highlighting and intellisense features for JavaScript, HTML and Visual Basic while editing your Classic ASP files.