Visual Studio 2005 Express Free D/L

[NightFire]

I know, this is last moment, but there's what..6 hours left until the deal ends? :p

Anyway, for those of you interested, MS is offering VS 2005 Express, a streamlined version of VS with some features pulled, for free until November 7, 2005. I think it's free for one year, after which you have to pay $50 for it.

Link (http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/)

Edit: After some further reading, it seems that it is not just a one year trial, but that you can keep using the software indefinently, as long as you register by...today.

[OWA]

Do you have to install it to register or can you go through the registration process now and install the apps later.

[NightFire]

I think you have to install it first.

[OWA]

Okay, thanks for the info. I was trying to download the images but man, it's less than 100k/sec so I cancelled it. Did you just do the net install and if so, how did that go?

[NightFire]

Yeah, I did the net install. On my cable line, it took about 20 minutes, and that was going at roughly 300kb/s, but this deal's been spreading across, so the servers might be getting pounded.

[Prime]

Per the FAQ, you actually have until November 2006 to download it for free, and it's free forever. You don't have to pay to use it after one year. After Nov. '06, it will no longer be free.

[Subtestube]

Just a word to the wise... if you want to develop native windows apps (i.e., ones that use windows.h) you'll need to download an additional SDK. For that reason, I'm currently back with Visual Studio 2003, which is fine.