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up vote 2 down vote favorite

i was wondering if i am going to have to pay for the real one. I am developing websites

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Visual Studio Pro is close to 3gb and Express editions anywhere between 400 to 700mb major difference indeed :P – user63314 Sep 3 '12 at 10:52

closed as not a real question by Yannis Rizos♦ Sep 3 '12 at 10:54

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

4 Answers

up vote 10 down vote

The differences are outlined here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express

Essentially, some refactoring has been removed, the Express editions are language-specific (i.e. Visual C# Express), and the Express edition does not allow you to use third-party add-ins. These things shouldn't bother you too much if you just want to develop websites.

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One thing that is not present (at least it wasn't in 2008) is the Linq To Sql designer tools which is fairly important if you want to use Linq to Sql. Not sure if this still remains for 2010. – Carlosfocker Dec 28 '10 at 19:08
up vote 4 down vote

Check out the Website Spark program. You can get Visual Studio Professional and other Microsoft products for a reduced fee (nothing up front) if you plan to develop a website within 3 years.

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up vote 1 down vote

The biggest difference between the Express editions and the Professional editions is the fact you can easily mix languages and project types in Pro. In you also gain more project templates and extensibility of the IDE as you go up the ladder of editions.

See MSDN for more details (for VS2005 but in general the Express comparison still applies... sorry I can't find a VS2010 version.)

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This is for VS 2005 not VS 2010. – Jim Dec 28 '10 at 16:17
@Ji, THanks for point that out. I don't see a 2010 version so I'm going to let it stand. – Matthew Whited Dec 28 '10 at 16:23
up vote 1 down vote

Microsoft Comparison Link

the regular versions are at the top, express at the bottom.

EDIT:

This is a strict comparison for C++ with VS 2010

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I looked at that but it doesn't compare pro and express directly anymore... Oh well. – Matthew Whited Dec 28 '10 at 16:24