Introduction to Express Editions

Microsoft is providing the lightweight versions of Visual Studio 2005 for beginner and hobbyist developers. These free-to-download editions are known as Express Editions. The following Express Editions are available for free download:

• Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition - for developing ASP.NET web applications.
• Visual C # 2005 Express Editions - for developing applications using the C# language.
• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition - for developing applications using the Visual Basic language.
• Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition - for developing applications using the Visual C++ language.
• Visual J # 2005 Express Editions - for developing applications using the Visual J# language.
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition - for database development.

More information on these products can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/