Microsoft is offering Visual Studio Express Editions free of charge until 7th November 2006. Here's the faq.
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2005-07-06
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From the FAQ
12. Do customers who acquire the Visual Studio Express products during the free promotional pricing period have to pay after the first year if they want to continue to use them?
If you acquire Visual Studio Express products within the one-year promotional period, you will enjoy the rights granted in the applicable license at no cost for the term of that license.
Can't they just say "Yes"??
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Because, as far as I'm aware, they're saying "No." They're granting you the right to use the software for the term of the license, which is essentially forever unless they revoke it. So, having recieved the software for free, you're able to keep using it forever for no cost.
I agree though; they could have been a bit simpler in their explanation to save this sort of confusion.
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Okay. Now I get it. I came away thinking that it will be a one year licence and therefore, one will have to pay after a year. And you think the licence is forever so one will not have to pay. To get to the bottom of this one will have to read the licence (which will be the first time I have ever done that). But at least now I understand why they did not write a "Yes" or "No".
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2005-07-07
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I don't have the link handy, but its in the official microsoft forum post announcing the release. If you aquire any of the software in the one year period, it is yours to use forever.
Its about time MS started supporting developers with free tools. Not everyone needs, or can afford, VS pro/enterprise/what-have-you.
Give the tools away, of course you can still support development by charging those that *do* need the fancier version (ie, those who, in turn, develop commercial software,) no doubt this is the end into which most of the R&D costs go anyhow. I hope they'll keep it free after the year is up, or better yet, release express 2006 for free. I think I read somewhere that the VS team would be focusing on smaller, more frequent updates, and this would play into that strategy, and making the current version free would encourage developers to stay current.
I downloaded Visual C++ express and ported three VS 2003 projects in an hour or so, the only issue was some C-style file IO and string handling which was marked depreciated (though this can be optionally ignored.) Moved it to C++ style, which It should have been anyhow, and problem solved. The STL is now 100% complient as well, allowing a lot of previously unworkable libs.
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http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=126606&SiteID...
Forum topic on msdn about the release.
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here are the direct download links, about 400mb a piece as a .img file - kinda like a .iso, but proprietary of course, this is microsoft, still will open with roxio or nero....
web: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=54763
vb: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=54764
c#: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=54765
c++: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=54766
j++: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=54767
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dont know if this is legal, but i downloaded the 5 .img files, extract each of them, then delete all the subfolder "wcu" but one, I ended up with +- 650 MB containing all the 5 express softwares (well, 7 if you count msdn express and sql express).
burnt it to one cd,.. there.
Member since:2005-07-06
here are the direct download links, about 400mb a piece as a .img file - kinda like a .iso, but proprietary of course, this is microsoft, still will open with roxio or nero....
It's not proprietary. It's a standard ISO file which is why Roxio, Nero, et al, will still open it. Just change the extension to iso for any program that only filters by that extension.
Edited 2005-11-09 10:20
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I'm quite excited actually. Visual Studio is great product and the Express Edition was a bargain at $49. Now it's even free! Well, thank you very much 
And from the above-linked forum: ...as long as you download the product before November 7, 2006, you can get it for free and you can use it forever!
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Dude, this is all so you remove the Beta2 versions, particularly the Team Edition. For small things, the Express version seems fine. But after working with the Team edition, it's clear there are a lot, and I mean a lot, of things not present in the Express versions. From ease of working with XML files to running code analysis, it's simply not there. The framework is certainly the same, but key tools are missing. My recommendation to developers with large chunks of code is to keep Beta2 until you can affort at least the professional version, and download the Express version to a second workstation for testing purposes only.
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And that is for those of us with download speeds too slow to get it reasonably. So I came up with a plan. Buy a book with it for cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764589555/002-3209459-5537667?v=g...
Tada. $20 for a book covering the subject and a CD with C# Express.
Frobozz
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"free of charge until 7th November 2006"
No thanks, I'll stick with GNU/Linux where I know it will ALWAYS be free.
Yes, GNU/Linux, that famous programming IDE...Talk about comparing apples to oranges. Microsoft do something decent for once, and the cynics just want to
mutter "bah humbug" and a couple of non-sequiters as usual.
Any opportunity to Troll, I guess.
Visual Studio with C# Express is a damn good environment by the way. Credit where it's due, I'm impressed.
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It sounds dumber then it is. GCC, OCaml, FreeBASIC, Freepascal, you name the language there is a FOSS dialect. Then there is Eclipse, KDevelop, Monodevelop, Shaprdevelop and so on for FOSS IDEs. You don’t need to run them on Linux but they ARE ALWAYS FREE and never watered down.
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Please, Eclipse is not half-baked, or a toy. Well, not for Java anyway. As a long-time satisfied Visual Studio user, I find that there are things I miss when I go back to it after the day job's hacking in Eclipse. Its certainly not perfect, but its a productive environment for Java.
Mind you, this is using Eclipse on XP. I tried it on FC4 using the native compile and was less impressed, but that's really an early port and I've no reason to suspect that on platforms supported by the Sun or IBM JVMs that it will be materially worse.
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from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/register/faq/ :
Registration keys are only valid on the machine from which registration was completed.
Free as long as you don't upgrade your pc...or reinstall windows...
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yeah i was thinking of using this to compile the gpl qt4, but then i saw that it only builds with mingw, and they have an all-in-one installer/downloader that does it all.
There's a project out there with mkspec files that will allow you to compile Qt4 with VC++:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=49109&package...
so no, this is no use to me, especially without mfc.
MFC is dead and rightly so. What on earth are you talking about?
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Free as long as you don't upgrade your pc...or reinstall windows...
Registration, like reading the FAQ all the way through, is optional not mandatory, if you download and install from the burned disc images.
If you need to install and use an Express Edition on a computer that is not connected to the Internet, you will need to create an installation CD using the CD ISO (IMG) files that are available on the Express site. The installation CD you create will then allow you to install an Express Edition on a computer that is not connected to the Internet, and that Express Edition will not require a registration key for continued usage.
Maybe I shouldn't have told him. This way I've unleashed an idiot into the world of development, free to install and use a big boys development toy forever. Oh, my. What have I done?
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Maybe I shouldn't have told him. This way I've unleashed an idiot into the world of development, free to install and use a big boys development toy forever. Oh, my. What have I done?
you have said to the world that you are an idiot:
Registration is required in order to receive a registration key for Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions that are downloaded directly from Microsoft. Without a registration key, downloaded Editions will no longer work after 30 days.
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>It sounds dumber then it is. GCC, OCaml, FreeBASIC, >Freepascal, you name the language there is a FOSS >dialect. Then there is Eclipse, KDevelop, Monodevelop, >Shaprdevelop and so on for FOSS IDEs. You don’t need to >run them on Linux but they ARE ALWAYS FREE and never >watered down.
..and they're all half backed (apart from perhaps sharpdevelop)
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I've downloaded the new Visual C++ 2005 Express edition image file, install went fine, but upon installation I couldn't compile any of my programs due to missing include files like #include <windows.h>
Searching with TotalCommander shows that this file does not exist in the install directory!!
I guess this makes this version pretty unusable for me.
Extremely strange ...
Does anyone has similar experience?
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It's too bad the the only way to develop Compact Framework (CF) 2.0 apps is with Visual Studio 2005 or command line via the SDK. CF programming isn't supported with any of the Express Editions.
At least with .Net 2.0 you can develop with the SDK, 1.0 & 1.1 CF Development was only possible with Visual Studio. So at least there's that.
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
someone247356@yahoo.com
