CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#visual-studio
Nosrama
Nosrama

Reputation: 14964

What is the downside to using the Visual Studio Express Editions?

I'm developing an application using Visual C# Express Edition - what is the downside to using the express editions? Are there any limitations on what I can build and release? Will my users be able to tell I'm using the Express Edition?

Upvotes: 13

Views: 3669

Answers (9)

Maraselah
Maraselah

Reputation: 1

The current version of VS Express (I'm writing in 2014) has no diagnostics. No assert method and things like stat monitoring. For me this means I'll use a different version to finish a site because it limits testing and validation. No point in making a sub-par .NET site to be actually used.

Upvotes: 0

Mike
Mike

Reputation: 643

The Express debugger does not allow Attach to Process:

The ability to attach the debugger to an already-running process has also been removed, hindering scenarios such as writing Windows services and re-attaching a debugger under ASP.NET when errors under the original debugging session cause breakpoints to be ignored.

I can live with everything else but that.

Upvotes: 7

Nick Dandoulakis
Nick Dandoulakis

Reputation: 43110

See features and tools available with Express editions, Visual Studio Standard and Professional editions, and Visual Studio Tools for Office.

It has no mobile device support - one of the most important features, for me :o)

Upvotes: 3

Fooberichu
Fooberichu

Reputation: 428

Visual Studio Express can do "most" of what the higher editions can do until you start getting into more advanced things such as trying to install third-party components and get full integration, adding database projects, integration into third-party systems, etc. On that note even Visual Studio Standard lacks several of these features so you'd be looking at Professional (at a minimum) to get a fully robust and feature-rich edition.

Upvotes: 0

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500525

It won't impact your users, other than by making you less productive by prohibiting add-ons such as ReSharper, TestDriven.NET, etc. and not having some of the built-in features of the commercial editions.

To put it another way: if a word processor didn't have a spell checker, you could still make sure that your documents were spelled correctly, so readers wouldn't know - but it's a lot quicker (usually!) if the tool has it built in...

Upvotes: 23

Tim
Tim

Reputation: 20360

No MFC visual gui builder for C++.

EDIT

Oops - just read the C# tag. I'll leave this up though in case it comes up in a search for anyone else who might also be using c++

Upvotes: 0

Thomas Levesque
Thomas Levesque

Reputation: 292425

Only one language is supported. You can't have an application in C# and a library in C++ in the same solution, for instance.

Also, third party ADO.NET providers are not supported in the designers

Upvotes: 3

user151323
user151323

Reputation:

Here is a huge comparison chart of all versions of Visual Studio, from Express until Team System.

Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide

Upvotes: 16

Michael Stum
Michael Stum

Reputation: 180944

  • No AddIns whatsoever - no ReSharper, no TestDriven.net, no VisualSVN, no nothing
  • Server Explorer does not support remote databases
  • No support for solution folders
  • Express targets only a single Framework - Express 2008 targets .net 3.5 only. (Edit: I was wrong, Express 2008 indeed supports multi-targeting)
  • Reinstalling Express may require re-registration which is free, but can be shut down any time from Microsoft

Apart from that, it's fine. It uses the same compiler to generate the same code, you just don't get all the Time-Saving tools that VS Professional offers.

Upvotes: 10

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