Visual Studio 2005 is a free download!

rogue-entity

Microsoft has released Visual Studio (VB, C++, C# and J#) 2005 Express edition as a free download from there website.
The web-installers will download and install it over broadband, or you can download a CD image for installation on machines without internet access (You can also copy out the files from the image using PowerArchiver and burn the lot to a DVD). These are full unhindered versions, the same as what you would get in a boxed version. The software requires registration over the internet and is tied not just to the individual machine, but the user account as well so every user needs to register. Registration is free and you get a few really useful ebooks on the various languages as well for free as a registration gift. The software will no longer be available as a download as of 6th November 2006 but once you have downloaded it you can use it in perpetuity.

This is great for those studying those languages. Finaly something of use that MS gave away for free!

bonkey

Couple them with the free SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, and Robert's the brother fo your father.

ASsuming, of course, that MS-centric development is yer thing.

Binomate

Thanks a million for the info! Does anyone know if the C++ complier will compile C as well? I know most of them do.

Hobbes

Its not free. Just free for one year. I suspect it will kill itself after 1 year.

Edit: I stand corrected! Just read the pricing. Totally free.

satchmo

Yeah I've been using Visual C++ 2005 Express for a couple of weeks now and it's very nice alright. It's more like VS6 than VS.NET which is a good thing in my book, but has the niceties that are missing from VC6 (one of my favourites is the ability to comment/uncomment blocks of code with a hotkey - it's the little things that count).

My only gripe is that it doesn't come with a profiler. In fact none of the 2005 line except Team System do, and that seems to cost a couple of grand. If anyone knows of a good free profiler that would work with C++ 2005 express I'd be very interested to know.

But hey, free's free so I'm not gonna complain too loudly!

aidan_walsh

rogue-entity wrote:

Finaly something of use that MS gave away for free!

They've always given their compilers for free, it was the envoirnment, documentation and debugging tools that you were paying for.

projectmayhem

borland is also free....

...and was not made by microsoft.

Kernel32

projectmayhem wrote:

borland is also free....

...and was not made by microsoft.

I am being forced to do some work in Delphi.Net and its the worstest worst IDE I have used in a long time, its barely beta worthy. I liked older versions of Delphi. I use Visual Studio in my day job so that keeps me sane.

mewso

These are full unhindered versions, the same as what you would get in a boxed version

Just to note. These are slimmed down version of the full product. Still excellent and I am using them myself but just thought I'd point out that they do not include every feature the full product does.

rogue-entity

I know, they are "express" editions, perhaps I forgot to mention that.
Anyway, the will do the same job as the full "standard" version that you would pay a good bit of money for, that is, the can be used to create fully working applications that can be compiled into stand-alone EXEs and they can be used to compile other peoples projects. This is handy for us students learning these languages. I would find any of MSs "Visual" languages very useful for creating Windows-only Apps, Java for cross-platform apps, C for low-level stuff and simple Linux/Unix or Windows console apps and C++ for larger Windows projects.
Not forgetting PHP for dynamic webpages.

mewso

rogue-entity wrote:

Not forgetting PHP for dynamic webpages.

Eh I think Asp.net might be more what they expect you to use. Streets ahead of php anyway.

Martyr

Its missing the ATL & MFC components i read, SDK too, but you can download that.

Some people in Visual C++ forums have had problems with VC++ 2005..maybe its free for the first year, like another beta, extended.

Capt'n Midnight

Average Joe wrote:

Its missing the ATL & MFC components i read, SDK too, but you can download that.

I still can't find windows.h or know what it's acomponent of:(

satchmo

You need to install the Platform SDK and follow the instructions, everything should work properly then.

Capt'n Midnight

SDK was installed, bleedin typo in path
Also there was another path to add in before it found afxres.h

Finally got first Build without errors..

Step 3: Update the Visual C++ directories in the Projects and Solutions section in the Options dialog box.

Add the paths to the appropriate subsection:

Executable files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK\Bin

Include files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK\include
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK\Include\mfc
Library files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK\lib

Tools - Options - Projects and Solutions - Show Directories for Executable/Include/Library

Other folders - no idea if need to add to Include list.
gl
mfc
crt
atl

http://www.perfdynamics.com/Tools/PDQcode.html - how to get windows.h without the full download
download a pair of 25MB files, extract 6.59MB of cabs, then extract windows.h , all 7KB of it :rolleyes:
[ OK there are a lot of other files there too that may be needed but manual extract very messy and you have to rename them as have very long names -
ren ????????_H ????????.H etc.
happily I had the full 400MB SDK ISO already so I got my 7KB file in the end ]

shamrock2004

I know ITS SWEEETTTT!!!!al you have to do is register your version. Its a great piece of kit!

daymobrew

Average Joe wrote:

It's missing the ATL & MFC components

Damn, I would have downloaded it immediately if MFC was included or could be downloaded. I'll have to stick with my version of MS Dev Studio 6 (aka '98).