Microsoft’s freebies: Visual Studio and SQL Server

Rob Updegrove 9 Nov, 2005 at 8:33am ET Article published in Tech

The Inquirer reports that Microsoft is allowing free downloads of “Express Editions” of both Visual Studio.NET 2005 and SQL Server 2005 for personal use.

The only downside to the whole affair is that Microsoft is reluctant to commit to giving away the Express Editions forever. So if you want to get your hands on one or all of them, you’d be wise to download them in the near future as there are no guarantees that they will still be available for free in the new year.

Thanks to Leonardo for this great piece of news!

Comments

9 Nov 2005 ~ 9:56am airbornflght hey on the topic, i have the full edition of .net studio 2004 or '05 i cant remember which, but when i try to install it, it says that something isnt there. ill post more on this later.

but eh, im gonna go and try to download these at home.
9 Nov 2005 ~ 10:17am Shorty Don't be put off by the "express" tag

They are almost complete visual studio versions, they just lack the little nicities like version control
9 Nov 2005 ~ 12:41pm deicist I don't know if this has changed since the inquirer story was posted, but the FAQ on the microsoft site now says they'll be free up until Nov. 6 2006.
9 Nov 2005 ~ 12:54pm Qeldroma Yeah- .NET Framework 2.0 is now an Optional download in Windows Update too- and is important to Sudio 2005 (it should come with it). I hope they fixed .NET 2.0 because the beta damaged my kernel
9 Nov 2005 ~ 1:48pm Leonardo

but when i try to install it, it says that something isnt there. ill post more on this later

Recheck the MS download page. It lists the necessary software, such as .Net~ that you must ensure is installed and updated on your computer.
9 Nov 2005 ~ 2:17pm godzilla525 Thanks!!
9 Nov 2005 ~ 7:03pm airbornflght im off to download them, cause i know how expensive the sql server is. the only reason i have visual studio is because one of my friends goes to a college with microsoft as a vendor.

she bought me a copy of it for $25. and a copy of office for $14, and xp pro for $18
11 Nov 2005 ~ 9:13pm hypermood

Shorty wrote:

Don't be put off by the "express" tag

They are almost complete visual studio versions, they just lack the little nicities like version control

The big omission is the lack of a resource editor for Visual C++
11 Nov 2005 ~ 9:18pm airbornflght visual C++, that sounds so nice, our computer science teacher is only teaching us C++
12 Nov 2005 ~ 11:35pm airbornflght i cant find the downloads. i looked all over that dang site. looks like they are trying to hide it from me.
13 Nov 2005 ~ 4:21am Shorty http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/install/
13 Nov 2005 ~ 7:41pm airbornflght thanks. what is j#, ive never heard of it.
14 Nov 2005 ~ 8:04pm icehole j# has to be microsoft's version of java i bet.

After tripping over SQL Servers for years from my myopic hardware perspective I jumped on that SQLServer Express download in hopes of seeing what/how it does what it does. After installing it I now am the proud owner of another service running but I am clueless as to how to use it. I see no links or programs to actually let me interface with it. There is a Native Client program installed somewhere according to the add/remove list but I don't even know if that is what I should be using. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?