Visual Studio Express for free

http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archi...19/579109.aspx

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We are incredibly excited to announce that effective April 19th, 2006, all Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions including Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J#, Visual C++, and Visual Web Developer Express will be free permanently!

Prior to this pricing announcement, Visual Studio Express Editions were promotionally discounted to be free for one year, starting on November 7th, 2005. With this announcement, the promotional discount for Visual Studio Express is now permanent and Express will continue to be free.

The key reason for the pricing change was you. You’ve helped make Visual Studio Express a runaway hit, and we’re proud to announce that in the five months since its launch, Express has been downloaded over 5 million times!

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One million downloads per month. Didn't realise it would be that popular. :D

Visual Studio 2005 is an amazing piece of software. The functionality as far as GUI design is very streamlined, especially compared to 6.0 and 2k3. I'd highly suggest getting a hold of the express versions of 2005 if you're a serious developer, as they're just as good as the full versions.

Oh don't get me wrong. I have it. That is I have VS 2005 Standard Academic edition. I purchased the collection for $75. All I do is hobbyist development anyways so I figured it was a good choice. ;)

The package was nice. Two CDs for Visual Studio and three CDs for MSDN. Installation size is around 5 to 6 gigabytes.