Ever write a short main method to test something out? You try something, and write the output to the console. Or perhaps you have extra debugging info going to the console while your program runs. I've been annoyed a lot when I run my console app, and VS opens a new console window for 1 second, and then the program closes, and I can't see the result. I also hate having to switch back and forth between VS and the console app while running.

Visual Studio 2005 takes care of this, with the new “Console” debugging window. As far as I can tell, the console streams are mapped to this pane inside Visual Studio, so you can dock it, have it as a document window, or however you want. Afrer your program runs and exits, the data will still be there.

Do note that not all the new Whidbey console features are supported, since it's not a “true” console window (you can't use the Win32 console functions on it). But for basic console work, it does the trick.