Your first dogs name is too short - Visual Studio Express Edition

Posted on:August 05 2010

I'm using the Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express edition because it is free, even for commercial use, and most of the users of my software are doing the same. I usually bought the full or 'Professional' versions of Visual Studio because I really liked the extra functionality, but I've stopped doing this two years ago. The reason for this is that starting with Visual Studio 2003, Microsoft suddenly stopped supporting it. It doesn't run without bugs on Windows Vista and Windows 7, although I payed a lot of money for it, more than you pay for the average software. And if I buy the full 2010 version now, how can I know how long they will support that one?

Anyway, the free Express Editions require you to register your name after a few days, so I did this. They also require you to create a user with password, and want you to fill in a secret question with answer in case you forget your password. It took me about 3 minutes just to do that:


For the non-german-speaking readers of this blog, the Microsoft page forces me to enter the name of my first dog. Unfortunately the name of my first dog was shorter than 5 characters, and it doesn't like that. Guess what. The birth name of my mother is also shorter than 5 characters, as is the name of my favourite teacher. Great. </rant>

Anyway, the Express editions of Visual Studio are nice (if you enable the 'advanced' mode, otherwise they only show about 20% of the functionality) and it's cool that they are there. I don't understand why Microsoft crippled them that much - no 64 bit support, no MFC, no profiler - because this will probably hurt Windows more. But nice they did this anyway. Lets see if they take one more look at XCode and also add those features in the Express Editions in the future.





Comments:


Yep, the Express editions are nice :-) I can live without MFC, and the old profiler I do not miss too much (after all the measuring skewed the result considerably), but 64 bit compilation would be nice (of course profile guided optimization would be, too, but well).
xaos
Quote
2010-08-05 10:27:00


Das geht doch noch. Du musst wenigstens bei dem Geburtsnamen deiner Mutter keine Sonderzeichen und Zahlen verwenden.
Jan_
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2010-08-05 14:46:00


2010 doesn't have 64-bit? is this just for C++ or C#/.NET as well, because 2008 edition could compile into 64-bit C#/.NET

then again since they introduced the Express editions they haven't had 64-bit C++ compilation, you've always had to install the Platform SDK separately and link in the 64-bit compiler
sRc
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2010-08-05 15:48:00


Seriously, your first dog's name is / has been Wuff? :-D
CodingPet
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2010-08-05 23:29:00


The biggest issue for Express versions is that it doesn't support plugins (at least older versions). And In my opinion Visual Studio is nearly unusable without add ons.
Gamlor
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2010-08-06 01:45:00


@CodingPet: No jokes about poor dead animals in here please! :)
niko
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2010-08-06 06:52:00


I am using Visual Studio 2005 Professional and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. I like Visual Studio 2005 more (as i am using it for past 5 years mainly). I liked VS2010 also. But extra value in VS2010 is very questionable. And VS2005 is going to be supported atleast in Windows 8 also while VS6 is last supported in Windows 7(Microsoft site - source) Amazingly they never thought to support VS2003(more proof that it was broken), and I am pretty sure VS2008 will die quick death like Vista as Vista and its friends were really just scapegoats. All in all VS2005 seem to be continued for much longer time(not to mention it it is very good in use), and VS2010 is better than VS2005. But some code will give more warnings and some error in VS2010 which compiles flawlessly in VS2005(like Quake 2 Solution which compiled till VS2005 easily). Also I completely skipped VS2008 seeing the short life of Vista :). And I am happy about it.
kinjalkishor
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2010-08-08 19:26:00


@sRc VS2010 Ultimate has 64 bit compilation but express edition does not have 64 bit.
kinjalkishor
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2010-08-08 19:27:00


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