This is an entire group of freeware programming tools. I use it quite often when I am bored and on MSDN there is some tutorials teaching various areas of programming. I think it is a very very neat piece of free software. Just so you know when it is installed you have to register it which is also free just so you know that it's not trialware. This is the website: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/express/default.aspx note: you need .NET framework 2 for the 2005 version and beta 3.5 for the 2008 beta 2 version

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I know it has been said many times before but the Visual Studio Express Edition series really is a great deal. You get 90% of the functionality of a $500 piece of software. Considering that Windows does not have a built in compiler I would really like to see Microsoft start to bundle this with Windows as a default install. This might spur the next generation of computer programmers and get kids interested in programming early. Budding computer enthusiasts often explore their computer for new and different things. It really is a shame that they are blocked out of an entirely new world beyond what comes in the standard box. With built in programming tools users can discover that they can create a custom solution that best suits them.

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While it is nice, you have to read the license agreement with what you can legally do with the software create (i believe that you can't use it for anything other than like hobby use?)

But it is a great marketting strategy on microsoft's part....get people used to and interested in programming by providing some free product...that way when they want something with more functionality they'll most likely choose microsoft as their choice for a development program

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I got all of the Express editions and they're really good. I've got C# C++ VB J# Web Developer. With the Web Developer, it is like FrontPage. Kids learning the Visual Studio system is a great and bad idea. The great idea is they can help other people using a compiled VS script or source code. It could be a Temporary Internet Files deleter. The bad idea is bad kids will make viruses and Trojans with the Registry Create/Delete/Edit functions and file.delete function. We do not want our kids being a hacker, involving the Police tracking their IP address. But, the problem is how can they transfer them? That solves everything.

xxxx-jozh-xxxx

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The biggest problem that I have with the Express editions is that they don't support hosting add-ons. This kills my AnkhSVN integration, which I really can't live without. Beyond that, you don't get the good optimizing compiler in the free one.

You're right in that Microshaft is using the free versions to build developer interest...they wanna get you hooked so you'll shell out big bucks for Visual Studio so you can actually release a piece of software you've written, LOL.

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It's quite good piece of software, even though I am used to other compilers, but on Windows using Visual Studio sometimes is a headache, especially if you code home and bring something to the university, sometimes it doesn't compile, due to you need to create a new project, copy paste it, but of course it depends, but usually it is like that for a simple piece of code and sometimes you get some stupid errors and warnings, thats why I prefer Dev-cpp but seems it doesn't work anymore on Windows due to some bug, it doesn't compile more than one time or something like that, a bug which wasn't fixed for over 6 month, don't know if it is fixed know.. To add, Eclipse C/C++ Development Tooling is promising

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