Breadcrumbs

[kolega28]

Microsoft should do more market research; what THEY think is that only big businesses use VS and buy the full (over)priced version, but the truth is that most of their customers are people like us getting just the express version. Not much people develop in metro because it is only really good for a tablet, as for computers it is very limited. If we send them petitions hopefully they will realise the truth.

[MrAksel]

Metro apps are really good for computers too kolega28. I have downloaded the VS11 Beta and it works great and is free. I can develop both application types, and I haven't found a single bug in the beta version yet. If you want to develop metro applications too, I suggest downloading the beta as soon as possible.

[kolega28]

I have the beta Aksel, Ive been using it as my main tool since my vs10 install got corrupted and I didn't bother to reinstall it yet. Yes metro apps are good, but the main compatibility system is gonna stay as desktop apps for a long while still. Desktop apps are the main ones, Microsoft is trying to eliminate desktop apps, that's why they are doing this, but they re not realising that they just made a couple of tens of thousands of people really angry.

[CodenStuff]

I have been following this news all over the internet for a few days now and it appears most of the programming community is not happy about this one little bit and can we really blame them?

The removal of desktop development support in the free Visual Studio 11 express editions means that anyone using these will only be able to create Metro, Phone and Web apps and if you want to create software for the desktop you will need to pay for it at a minimum cost of $500. This is a problem for indie developers and people who want to learn desktop programming because how many of them will be able to afford to buy it so it seems the next generation of programmers will be stuck developing for mobile platforms only unless they use VS 2010 which will remain free but wont benefit from any of the new features, APIs, SDKs available in 11 and beyond.

So it would seem that Microsoft are pushing the development of Metro and Phone apps by forcing free users to make them because they have no choice and many people feel that Microsoft will eventually get rid of the desktop all together (I feel that is unlikely though). On the other hand the future is definitely in developing apps and new programmers would be much better off learning to create them and being able to keep up with whats new rather than starting with desktop development and being left behind in the future.

This could also effect how we teach and help new programmers on this site and others because if 2010 becomes the last free edition for desktop development and those of us who are lucky enough to use 11 and beyond we will have to downgrade our code to be compatible with 2010..if you know what I mean :?

I think this is a bad decision by Microsoft and (as people are saying all over the internet) it is going to hit the free and open-source community rite where it hurts.

Only time will tell.

[Codex]

Personally, I don't see this as a major problem, I can just obtain the VS 11 version the easy way. I wouldn't spend 500$ on some software just so I can develop for fun and for free.

They basically just want more people to download the pirated version of their software. And having the express version of 2010 and 2011 is not a bad idea, it's a great alternative.