[K6BW] Free MS Development Software

[ab6mt]

Once again, purloined from the QRP-L reflector:

Comments:  I earlier downloaded the beta versions of Visual C++ but couldn't
get it to work on anything but a Windows 2003 server machine.  Obviously
they have relaxed their requirements.  Also, there are other free C++
compilers with studio type front ends that are already free and will remain
so.  If you are interested, let me know.  C# is a MS developed language, is
it proprietary?   For the moment, I'm staying with C++.  At any rate, Visual
Web apparently allows the development of interactive web pages.  Not bad!
Here is the report...

For those that like to tinker and write their own software, or maybe
play with it, Microsoft (The EVIL one) has released their Express
Visual Tools to the public for "FREE".

They have released the following software for a period of one year,
and they mentioned that next year you can upgrade the tools for free.
You can distribute the code, and can be used for commercial endeavors.

The following tools are available for download, Visual C++, Visual
C#, Visual Basic .NET, Visual J#, Visual Web, and SQL 2005, you can
download these software packages at the following link;

< http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/ >

The following link will answer common questions such as terms and limits;

< http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support/faq/ >

I recommend that you click on "manual installation instructions" and
download the full package in a form that you can burn a CD from. With
a CD you will not to repeat the download when installing in another
PC, or if you want to give a copy to a friend(allowed) that doesn't
have high speed Internet access. The downloads are large, in the
300Mb to 450Mb size depending on which package you download.

C# and C++ includes the SQL 2005 package so you might not need to download
it.

There is mention that the packages are not going to be available for
download forever, so if interested, download all the items that might
interest you. Visual Basic is very popular with hams, but I would
recommend C# also, it's a lot easier to work with than C++

I personally downloaded every package and installed all except Visual J#.

Visual Web is a very powerful web site creation program that lets you
have secure sites, or sites when you can login for additional
privileges, databases to collect or display data...etc.

Enjoy, and happy Turkey day.

.