Microsoft Announces new Express Products!!
In the TechEd Europe keynote today we officially announced the new Express products that are available to download right now:
Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition (download)
Visual C# 2005 Express Edition (download)
Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (download)
Visual J# 2005 Express Edition (download)
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition (download)
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (download) – Note, SQL Express is included as an optional component in the installers of the other Express products.
As I had blogged before, you finally get to see the big picture of everything we’re offering in Visual Studio 2005. On the high end, we’re adding new tools and support for enterprise developers, testers, architects, and team collaboration through Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation. On the low end, we’re adding new tools for students and non-professional developers through five new developer tools and a lightweight, entry-level database.
There are a couple of challenges for beginning developers and people evaluating our developer tools. One is the lack of tools focused for entry-level programmers. Visual Studio .NET is a very powerful tool, but beginning programmers or developers who just program on the side, can get lost in the complexity. So we decided to build tools, documentation, and Starter Kits with the beginning programmer in mind.
Another challenge is the barrier to evaluate Visual Studio. Downloading Express is a matter of minutes, not hours, in fact the C# IDE alone weighs in around 24MB and with a 20MB framework, the install is only about 54MB. That’s a huge reduction from the 3GB of a full VS install J
· We want to hear from you, I’m consolidating comments and will pass them on internally, please let us know what you think!
· What do you think about Express?
· Is this a good idea, would you recommend Express to friends interested in starting to program?
· What are your favorite features of Express?
· What features do you think are missing from Express?
Comments
- Anonymous
June 28, 2004
WOW!
I was extremely surprised by this announcement.
Downloading and installing now.
I am not a MSDN Universal subscriber and was always disappointed that I would not be able to test the betas. This is a great oppertunity! I'll pass on my comments after testing it out.
Thanks!!! - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
Thanks Ben, definitely let us know what you think!! - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
Great news, brilliant !!! - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
I installed the C# 2005 Express Beta. The installation went well, except that it failed to install the Sql Server 2005 Beta, which I had choosen to install. I will try to install it seperately later.
I have used C# 2005 for about 3 hours now. I immediately noticed many useful improvements. I really like a lot of the new features and I can see how much hard work Microsoft has been putting into this product.
Favorite feature so far? Generics, hands down. I missed this so much in V1 and 1.1. Refactoring is great too. There are a great many usability improvements at well.
What features do I think are missing?
-Selfishly, I'd really love to see C# have have const similar to C++, including declaring methods as const (to ensure that it does not change any fields). Support for const needs to built directly into the CLR, but needs not be CLS complient.
-I would like to see a new UtcDateTime class in addition to the current DateTime (been discussed before).
-While the new WebBrowser is quite useful, I am a little disappointed in that it does not recognize the current web browser but merely wraps around IE (especially considering how .Net can be plateform independent). Perhaps you should rename it "InternetExplorerBrowser". At least it is found in the Microsoft-specific System.Windows.Forms namespace.
I'm glad to have a chance to test this. I have already filed two bugs and verified a few others. Best of luck in making this into a wonderful product; Microsoft has obviously made significant progress in that respect.
Thanks again for this opportunity. - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
It's seems that installation fails on WinSrv2003 SP1 (possibly cause of problems is BITS: BITS_Fatal_Error: CDownloadJob::AddFile() failed ).
I like to see that setup includes automatic error reporting now and I'm looking forward to see result of error submission ;-) - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
In Australia we (10 people) have 3 GB per month and 20c per megabyte excess downloads. Software which downloads during the install is no good for us.
Would it be possible for Microsoft to provide a downloadable version? - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
Does SQl Server 2005 support "side-by-side" installation? - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
Scoble - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
Dan, I'm used online error reporting feature of Setup and sent reports for both VC++ and VC# 2005. It seems that I found solution (and reason) for this error: it's the same problem as Dana Epp have with WXPSP2 (http://silverstr.ufies.org/blog/archives/000640.html): BITS service DOES NOT work in 'runas' environment (my usual account does not have administrative rights), so when I re-logon locally as admin installation completed successfully. - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 28, 2004
I see in the description that the Express Versions (C#, J#, VB) support the consumption of Web Services. Do they also allow you to create Web Services? - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Hi Dana, only Visual Web Developer Express can be used to create Web services. The reasons for this are that both Web applications and Web services require the same ASP.NET infrastructure so it maked sense to group them together in the VWD Express product. - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Can C# Express co-exist with VS 2003?
Steve - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Dan, as I pointed out on my blog and to Scoble, it would be really helpful if we could get more details on the differences between VS.NET and the Express products. The key for me is understanding what is NOT included in an express product. From the information I have seen so far, I can't really tell what developers are giving up by using an express product instead of a full version of VS.NET. I assume that a full-time developer like me should stick with VS.NET Professional or Enterprise. But it will be difficult for me to recommend an express product to someone else without knowing how it limits them. For example, are the limitations only IDE-related? - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Steve - Yes, C# Express can co-exist with Visual Studio 2003. One thing to keep in mind is that applications created using C# Express target the .NET Framework 2.0 and cannot target the 1.1 version of the .NET Framework. - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Avonelle - Great question, we debated internally about whether to have a feature-by-feature breakdown and we decided not to because Express and all of Visual Studio is a beta 1 product. We want to hear your feedback on what features make sense for Express. We also do not have a definitive list of features that will be included in Visual Studio 2005 since the product is in flux and some features may or may not make the final cut.
What I can tell you is that the enterprise-class features of Visual Studio Team System will not be in Express. I'll see if maybe we can post a blog entry or MSDN article on the differences, we just don't want to overpromise :) - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Dan - thanks for the response. I understand concerns about providing too many specifics about what will be included/excluded, since the product is still in progress. In my view, since it is a public beta, it should at least be possible to provide information on what is in the beta, with the understanding that it could change in the final version. Without this information, our only other way to know the specifics is to download the beta and try it for ourselves. As a professional developer already using .NET, I'm clearly not the target audience for this product, so I don't have any incentive to take the time to review this, except for my role as an influencer. It is hard to suggest that someone check out the Express product without really understanding what is included and excluded. - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
[ via <a href="http://del.icio.us"><span style="font-style: italic;">del.icio.us</span></a> ] <a href="http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Microsoft
has made betas of "Express" versions of its programming languages/IDEs</span></a>;
these will appear in their final form in Visual Studio 2005.<br>
<br><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/danielfe/">
Dan Fernandez</a>, Visual C# Product Manager, <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/danielfe/archive/2004/06/29/168417.aspx">writes</a>:<br>
<p style="margin-left: 40px;">As I had <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/03/13/89006.aspx">blogged before</a>, you finally get to see the big picture ... - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
We are having a discussion about this over a channel 9 - here is a link.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=11685 - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
To anyone requesting a download version of the installers:
If you run the web based download, and do the installation, the setup files will be downloaded to your user temp folder (Documents and Settings[User]Local SettingsTempVSSETUP
You can then copy the files out of there, and copy them/back them up, and then from now on do the installation from those downloaded files. The total download for ALL of the express editions, + MSDN + SQL is about 400mb
MAKE SURE YOU COPY THE DOWNLOADS OUT BEFORE YOU EXIT SETUP! Exiting setup issues a cleanup command which removes downloaded files from the temp dir.
Regards,
Sean - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Avonelle - With regard to having a document that explains what's in the Express beta, yes, we have one for C# Express in a walkthrough style that will be on MSDN soon (I'll blog it when it's up). - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Thank you to everyone for sending in the Watson setup issues and adding bugs to Ladybug. The setup team is working hard on releasing an updated Express installer that should resolve the installation issues. The new installer could be up as early as tomorrow night, I'll blog about it once it's up, and thanks again for the feedback!! - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Nathan, unfortunately you cannot install Express on Windows 98 as Windows 2000 with SP4 is the minimum supported operating system. One thing that might interest you for developing on the current version of Visual Studio is the Visual Studio .NET 2003 Hosted Experience. It's a free way to basically terminal server into a machine to play with Visual Studio without having anything installed on your machine. In the future, we'll also have Visual Studio 2005 available through the Hosted Experience. http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tryit/ - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
>> Yes, C# Express can co-exist with Visual Studio 2003. One thing to keep in mind is that applications created using C# Express target the .NET Framework 2.0 and cannot target the 1.1 version of the .NET Framework.
The Visual Web Developer told me I had to uninstall first.... (I have both PDC Whidbey and 2003 installed...) - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Hey, would like to hear more about the C++ and x86 code generation. Or better yet, a comparison of features or a list of things that are limited in the express versions. Can it use Add-ins?
Finally, I know everybody is gaga over CLR,Windows.Forms, and Avalon, etc. Still, why didn't you include the ATL with Express or explicitly talk about building native Win32 apps. - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Mike - While you can have multiple versions of Visual Studio (2002, 2003, 2005) installed on one machine, you cannot have multiple versions of the same .NET Framework installed on one machine. For example, you can't have two versions of VS 2005 (say the March CTP and the May CTP) installed on the same machine. To get VWD Express to work, you will need to uninstall the PDC Whidbey build as it is an earlier version of the .NET Framework 2.0. VWD Express and VS 2003 will happily co-exist.
Dru - I've asked Nick Hodapp, the C++ Product Manager to respond to your C++/ATL questions.
-Dan - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
I want to second Ben's comment: Add full C++-like const support to C#. It's a life-saver. - Anonymous
June 29, 2004
Dan, I see that you offered to mail out to someone a copy of C# Express, being just the 24mb core. Surely it would be possible, even easy, for just that to be made availble for download?
SQL Server Express, the MSDN Express Library and the Framework Beta all have thier own seperate download areas, so why not the Express editions of the languages? I would really, really like to be able to download this (and at only 24mb, it wouldn't take too long), but with the current setup, the only thing I really want to get is the one thing I can't - the languages. - Anonymous
June 30, 2004
Hi Dru --
We opted not to include ATL / MFC with VC++ Express for a number of reasons. A key part of the decision was to keep the complexity and size of VC Express inline with the other Express editions. Had we included ATL / MFC, we would have had to include documentation (huge), lots of libs and dll's, and more support in the IDE (note we dont even include the Win32 resource editors in Express).
Not to fear, you'll still have access to ATL / MFC in other editions of Visual Studio. Just not in our light-weight offering.
Nick - Anonymous
June 30, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
June 30, 2004
Dan: Bingo that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. hmmm, except that "Standard" is missing from it. Oh well, close enough. - Anonymous
June 30, 2004
I just downloaded Visual C++ Express Edition, I am having trouble running Win32 console programs. I created a Win32 console program and built it, if there were errors they would not show up in the Task List like in previous versions of Visual C++. Then when I went to run it there was no option to Run without Debugging, so i ran it with the debugger. The program popped up for a second then disappeared since there were no run-time errors and no breakpoints. I also downloaded Visual C# Express Edition and it has the option to Run without Debugging. If anyone could help me it would be appreciated.
Jon - Anonymous
July 01, 2004
How are the Express editions different from past products? Seems like a re-labeling of the "learning editions". Compare "Express" to VB6 (Learning edition), VB.NET 2002 (Standard or book-trade "Deluxe Learning edition"), VB.NET 2003 (Standard or book-trade "Deluxe Learning edition"). (Same for C# and J# products).
I'm not complainig at all; having cheaper versions available has always been a good thing. - Anonymous
July 09, 2004
For those of you that requested it, we now have a manual installation option for Express. Simply click on the "Having trouble downloading? Click here for manual installation instructions." link. - Anonymous
July 19, 2004
MFC really is a key part of the C++ development system for those of use who wish not to use the .NET system (for compatibility and other reasons), therefore I feel it will be wise to include it. - Anonymous
June 15, 2005
Very cool. I'm a dev who likes to learn both proprietary and Open Source tools, apps, servers, etc. It has always been easy to get the OSS stuff, and it's nice that MS has made it easy to get their entry level stuff too. Thanks! One suggestion - consider providing a single download for all the tools in addition to separate downloads. Not sure if enough people dl all the tools enough to make this worthwhile, though, but I did. - Anonymous
October 26, 2005
I am looking forward to download C#, I have already C++ installed. The problem I am facing at download step, installer crashes. Can some one please provide the downloaded C# (~30MB) file to me.
It will be highly appreciated if some on able to do that.
Thanx in advance. - Anonymous
March 26, 2006
Hi! I do not speak English well, but i want to say - it is nice and cute site with cool design, but you need a RSS... - Anonymous
August 24, 2006
I must give some of the Express Editions a try. Let&#39;s start downloading right now...[Via Christa - Anonymous
January 05, 2008
PingBack from http://birthdays.247blogging.info/?p=2217