Visual Studio 11 final product line up revealed

Source.

Originally Posted by Neowin

Earlier in May, Microsoft revealed a number of changes it was planning to make to Visual Studio 11 in between the current beta version and the upcoming release candidate build of the software development tool. Now Microsoft has revealed the final product lineup for Visual Studio 11 (technically, a codename for what Microsoft will likely call Visual Studio 2012 when the final version is released). The people who like free software will be happy to know that Microsoft will offer free versions of Visual Studio 11 under the "Express" branding. Of course, there will be a Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 and Microsoft says it will support C#, Visual Basic, C++ and JavaScript. There will also be Visual Studio 11 Express versions for Web development along with Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Azure. Microsoft will release a new Visual Studio Express port for Windows Phone developers for the first time this year, allowing app makers a free way to make Windows Phone 7.5 apps (and presumably Windows Phone 8 apps at some point).

Read more: http://www.neowin.net/news/visual-st...ne-up-revealed

[TheWindBringeth]

I haven't been following Microsoft platform development goings on very closely lately, and I've only scanned some of the material linked to below. This seems noteworthy, however:

No-cost desktop software development is dead on Windows 8
http://arstechnica.com/information-t...0#comments-bar

A look ahead at the Visual Studio 11 product lineup and platform support
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio...m-support.aspx

"The people who like free software will be happy to know that Microsoft will offer free versions of Visual Studio 11 under the "Express" branding. Of course, there will be a Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 and Microsoft says it will support C#, Visual Basic, C++ and JavaScript. There will also be Visual Studio 11 Express versions for Web development along with Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Azure. Microsoft will release a new Visual Studio Express port for Windows Phone developers for the first time this year, allowing app makers a free way to make Windows Phone 7.5 apps (and presumably Windows Phone 8 apps at some point)."

[Hungry Man]

No-cost desktop software development is dead on Windows 8

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...-on-windows-8/

Microsoft wants Windows developers to write Windows 8-specific, Metro-style, touch-friendly applications, and to make sure that they crank these apps out, the company has decided that Visual Studio 11 Express, the free-to-use version of its integrated development environment, can produce nothing else.

Just to make doubly sure that nobody will dare try to produce desktop applications without paying Redmond for the privilege, Microsoft has gone a step further than crippling Visual Studio Express. The Windows SDK for Windows 7 includes a C++ compiler and all the requisite bits and pieces to develop Windows applications. You'd have to do a bit more work to get things set up than you do with Visual Studio, as it's a little barebones, but it's enough. But that won't be the case for Windows 8: the Windows SDK for windows 8 will not include a compiler toolchain at all, lest any sneaky developers try to cheat the system and use it to write desktop apps.

pen source development is similarly disadvantaged. Consider a project such as the server-side JavaScript platform Node.js. Node.js was originally developed for UNIX-like platforms, but its developers have worked hard to make it a first-class citizen on Windows (including some small contributions made by me). This work was done with Microsoft's sponsorship and assistance; the company has contributed its own development resources to help bring Node.js to Windows. Most open source projects take the (not unreasonable) viewpoint that if the source is freely available, and the project is free to use, then it should be free to compile too. Node.js is no exception, and so the developers made sure that it could be compiled and built with Visual C++ 2010 Express.

But going forward, Microsoft won't have any suitable development environment for projects like this to target. They'll have to choose between Visual C++ 2010 Express—and a compiler that lacks many of the standard C++ features that the latest version includes—and the $400-500 Visual Studio 11 Professional.

Not really. Already posted and explained here: http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=324567

Originally Posted by guest

"The people who like free software will be happy to know that Microsoft will offer free versions of Visual Studio 11 under the "Express" branding. Of course, there will be a Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 and Microsoft says it will support C#, Visual Basic, C++ and JavaScript. There will also be Visual Studio 11 Express versions for Web development along with Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Azure. Microsoft will release a new Visual Studio Express port for Windows Phone developers for the first time this year, allowing app makers a free way to make Windows Phone 7.5 apps (and presumably Windows Phone 8 apps at some point)."

[Hungry Man]

A mod can feel free to merge the two then.

[TheWindBringeth]

An update...

Microsoft Relents on Metro-Only Visual Studio Express
http://developers.slashdot.org/story...studio-express

which links to

Microsoft extends Visual Studio Express 2012 to desktop apps
http://www.infoworld.com/d/applicati...op-apps-195242

whick links to

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio...s-desktop.aspx

Developers were unhappy with the lack of desktop application support. "A few weeks ago, we shared our plans for the Express editions of Visual Studio 2012," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President S. Somasegar, in a blog post on Friday morning. "As we've worked to deliver the best experience with Visual Studio for our platforms with Windows 8, Windows Phone, and for Web and Windows Azure, we heard from our community that developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features at the Express level."

Today, I’m happy to announce that we will add Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop to the Visual Studio 2012 family. This will bring to the Visual Studio Express family significant new capabilities that we’ve made available in Visual Studio 2012 for building great desktop applications.

[xxJackxx]

Originally Posted by TheWindBringeth

An update...

That's good. They were about to make a lot of people very unhappy.