Free Visual Studio 2005 (kinda)

[JimmehH]

You can download betas of the new Visual Studio Express product line from Microsoft. It seems to be a slightly crippled version (with EULA restrictions I guess too) for hobby and student programmers. They may charge for it when it comes out of beta though; they're a little vague.

Link-o: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/default.aspx

It would be cool if Valve decided to give support for this in the HL2 SDK (not immediately of course - don't want it delayed further) as not everyone (e.g. me) can afford the proper Visual Studio. Although I guess you could use free compilers or a just an alternative IDE, I think this is closer to what Valve actually uses*.

*I heard they use MS C++ 6

 

[Ames]

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/faq/default.aspx

There is no “Go live license” for this release. That means you cannot publicly deploy any applications you create with the beta. This is for testing and evaluation purposes only.

Ermmm...yea.

EDIT: According to botman on the Wavelength forums:

I did notice in one of the FAQs that this software is due to expire (i.e. won't run) sometime in 2005 (March 1st, I think). So if you install it, it will only be good for 6 months or so.

 

[JimmehH]

Ah crap. I guess I should read stuff like that before I go installing things.

It's probably useless for mod development now that I actually think about it. Features required are crippled. Oh well. Should be fun to mess about with at least.

 

[Computer5k]

The main program might expire but the compiler that is with it will probably still work.

/me hugs my MSVC++6

 

[Epsi]

This is just a beta version, so it's pretty natural there's gonna be a bunch of restrictions on it.

Still, I think this is a good idea, it's probably going to be a lot more affordable to get the C++ express edition, and it will probably build the HL2 SDK, than getting a full copy of VS. Having taken a quick look at the C# one, they haven't taken out any features that cripple it at all, just the really high-end features the hobbyist programmer probably wouldn't use.

The only obvious thing I've noticed missing is the deployment projects, basically installers.

 

[Ansur]

The main program might expire but the compiler that is with it will probably still work.

* Computer5k hugs my MSVC++6

The compiler will indeed, since one can download a command-line compiler for .NET for free.

 

[2ltben]

How can you support an application when the coding language is C++? It's just a studio where you code the same language. The only thing that would really make some difference would be the compiler.

Visual C++ 2005 wouldn't really be worth the price, since there's the same thing for free, like Dev-C++. I'd like to check out Visual Basic 2k5 though.