Customer Reviews

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express [Old Version]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Microsoft's Visual Web Developer 2005 Express is the best web development program available. I've been a long time Dreamweaver user and I can tell you that for the price, you can beat this program.

VWD is very easy to set up and you can create good looking web pages in a matter of hours. Not only can you develop in HTML, XHTML and CSS, you also have access to the rich ASP.NET 2.0 enviroment and can create powerful dynamic web sites. If you are new to ASP.NET, it is easy to learn and Amazon has many good books available on ASP.NET 2.0.

In ASP.NET 2.0, they have reduced coding by 70% and in VDW, most of this coding is done for you, making it a snap to set up the dynamic content of your website. VWD makes is easy to incorporate themes, XML and database functionality to your site as well.

A word of note for newbie developers; you will need to have an ASP.NET 2.0 compatible host if you plan on deploying your sites.

While Dreamweaver has a lot of excellent features and is still a great program, I have to give the edge to VWD for 2006. You can't go wrong with this program.

Yep, the other guys are absolutely right: this is a free download, together with many other Visual Studio 2005 Express products like C#, C++, J+ and even SQL Server (wow!), until Nov. 6, 2006. If you pay for this on Amazon, you get a getting started book as well as a few coupons and offers. But as with the downloaded free version, you get no free phone support, so might as well just get the free version. Please note that this is not Amazon's fault at all. Microsoft originally planned to charge $50 each for these tools but decided to run a free promotion for one year. (I feel bad for Amazon...)

Anyway, the URL for the whole suite is ( msdn dot microsoft dot com slash vstudio slash express ) where you can download each of the Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition tools for free as well as check out the FAQ. What's great is you can even use these products to develop commericial software! As long as you download and register before Nov. 6, 2006, you can keep the software for as long as you desire.

Each of the Express tools is quite small and includes only the basic features (I haven't downloaded J+ and SQL Server yet), but if you are new to Windows or .NET 2.0 programming, this is a great way to get the compilers for free. You can just get a book (from Amazon or your friendly local library) and start learning and programming right away!

As others have said this is a free download from Microsoft. However when this was originally released the 'free' download was only going to last until November 2006. Microsoft announced in April 2006 however that they were going to make it free without the previously announced November 2006 expiration. This probably explains why this product is not available on Amazon anymore. There are however some good books on this product on Amazon so be sure to search for those.

You can download this for free on microsoft's website, you're paying for just a box here.

I purchased this from Amazon, and installed it on my computer. This package does not contain VB 2005 Express. It has Web Developer 2005. Will be returning it for refund.