Visual Studio .NET, what version?

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samsmithnz

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I'm in charge of buying Visual Studio .NET, for... myself. And I'd really like to get the best version for me without spending millions of dollars (MS sure does charge for these development and server products:eek: !!!)

Anyway, I was looking at an academic version of VS.NET 2003, as I know I can get a copy for a couple hundred bucks cheaper. Does this contain C++, VB.NET, C# and J#? Or just a subset? I know the initial version of .NET (2002) only had VB.NET and C#.

I remember in Visual Studio 6, all I really got in the Enterprise version was a bunch of tools that I never used. Is VS.NET 03 the same?

I'll be using .NET to create a serious of personal applications and to help to understand the .NET framework, so that I can update my qualifications for VS6, and move on up in the world...

Any comments would be most welcome. Thanks:D :D

Sam Smith
 
VS.NET academic contains the same stuff as VS.NET pro with addition of student tools. You dont get much bonus stuff like you do with Enterprise versions but its good enough. You get VB.NET, C#, C++ and J# with it.
 
Yeh I saw that 'extra' student stuff when I read about it on Microsoft's site, but the feature list never actually mentioned if it included the languages, only that it supported them, and I wasn't exactly sure what that meant.

Thanks

Sam
 
I just found an article that indicated that you can't redistribute your executables if you use the academic version. Is this true?
 
You may not be able to sell them legally, I dunno... You can distribute them freely though.
 
It's an academic version. It's meant for learning, not commercial use. If you intend to sell or redistribute a product purchase the Professional Edition for a few hundred dollars more. If your intent is simply to learn .NET then the academic version will suite you just fine, although I don't see the point in purchasing a product you ultimately can't use for commercial reasons.
 
I do not believe you can distribute any software you create with VS.NET Academic, whether you sell it or give it away.
 
So does this mean that if I make a Web Service or Win Application, I can't compile it to test it in its runtime environment?

Or does it mean that I can, but I'm not supposed to...?

Thanks, I really need this clearified.

Cheers

Sam
 
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The one for 29.99 is a special upgrade for users that have Visual Studio .NET 2002 already, you can only upgrade VS.NET 2002 with it. The other one is for people that own other products that qualify for upgrades, like VS6 or 5, or sometimes even some products from other companies.
 
I know that it has built in WinXP theme support it also has a lot of fixes and new functions. I still use 2002 but it's worth upgrading but I'm using an Academic version which the upgrades don't upgrade. You can probably get a list fixes from the Microsoft Website somewhere
 
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