Visual Studio Express - End of Life

Microsoft is killing the following editions of VS Express:    
  - Visual C#
  - Visual Basic  
  - Visual C++  

They will still be available but won't be updated beyond the current version 10. 

They will instead only be offering the following three products: 
  - Express for Windows Phone
  - Express for WIndows 8 (Metro only: supports C#, VB, C++, and Javascript)      
  - Express for Web    

At this point it isn't clear from Microsoft's blog post if you'll be able to produce "forms" or console applications in the "Windows 8" edition (but I suspect not).    

@ManipUni: Has anything changed with WinForms since VS2008? I don't think this is a big deal. Microsoft wants hobbyist devs to embrace metro.

 Yeah because SL/WPF/Winforms and the desktop is dead. Everybody knows that.

Ok, stay with the old.

7 hours ago, ManipUni wrote

Microsoft is killing the following editions of VS Express:    
  - Visual C#
  - Visual Basic  
  - Visual C++  

maybe there is money to be made coding and selling a visual studio clone.

2 minutes ago, SteveRichter wrote

*snip*

maybe there is money to be made coding and selling a visual studio clone.

 

Not really any money being made, but there's always SharpDevelop.

2 hours ago, DeathByVisualStudio wrote

 Yeah because SL/WPF/Winforms and the desktop is dead. Everybody knows that.

Not dead, but not being updated. The target audience for the express versions is students and hobbyists. Microsoft wants them using the latest stuff.

@spivonious: If you're not growing you're dying hence "dead". Microsoft could have them using the latest stuff and also expose them to what they might encounter when they get a job.

Don't students get the latest for free anyway.

"Software tools for you at No Charge! The Microsoft DreamSpark student program allows students to get access to the latest Microsoft developer and designer tools, such as Visual Studio® and Expression® Studio, at no charge. Take advantage of this program today and unlock your creative potential. Start exploring the power of software."

I seem to recall that the express editions originally were only going to be freely available to download for one year. But then later that was changed to indefinitely.

Dup.

Yeah students can get the full version of Visual Studio for free. I got Visual Studio Professional for free since I'm still technically a student (graduate school).

I'm a student of life... does that count ?

I tried to install one of the Express editions recently for a friend (from a download I had done previously), it asked to register for a serial number and I didn't have network on that computer nor I had a serial. That was bit annoying and I wonder if it checks the serial or if you can just use the same serial over and over without checks incase MS pulls the registration site if they haven't already. (Part of the reason I was trying that was so I could do some local C# debugging of some own code I was showing)

Did anyone think about what this would do to all of those open source projects all over the internet that also includes a VS project option? So now those kinds of projects will no longer target VS (going forward) and I believe this was creating a halo effect for the paid versions of VS.

As someone said, you won't even be able to create a simple Hello World console application anymore without paying first. That will have some serious impact on VS popularity by hobbyist developers and VS adoptance in general, but I guess MS doesn't think about stuff like that.

Maybe it won't make a big difference to MS, but does MS really have to screw the hobbyists for what may not even add up to much, if any, additional profit?

And before someone says you can still get the current versions, how long is that going to last? One year? Two years?

Win 8 needs every help it can get, so there.