Visual Studio Express - Happy One Year Anniversary!

Nov 07, 2006 • 4 minutes to read

Updated to include the new SkinCraft Light free control (see below) and the correct RTM Express download count which is actually 7.5 million!

sniff, sniff, they grow up so quickly!

One year ago today, Steve Ballmer was on-stage announcing our official launch of Visual Studio Express to the world…it seems like just yesterday! Since launch, we’ve had over 6.8 7.5 million completed Express downloads!

New Benefits for Registered Express Customers

As a thank you to our loyal registered Express customers, today we are announcing a new set of benefits for being a registered Express user including:

**

DevComponents BubbleBar** — DevComponents BubbleBar is a unique tabbed toolbar control with magnifying / bubbling buttons for your Windows Forms available for **free **(animation).

CareerBuilderCareerBuilder, the nation’s largest job board, is providing special discounts on resume services like Resume Upgrade (25% off) and Resume Direct (25% off).

MAKE Magazine — Known as the “bible of the Tech DIY movement,” MAKE Magazine is offering an exclusive discount on a subscription (5 issues for the price of 4).

**Make Controller Discount **- The Make Controller Kit by Make Magazine and MakingThings, is a hardware kit that allows you to create .NET applications that incorporate sensors, motors, lights, and other physical devices. The board interfaces easily to your PC via Ethernet or USB to create applications that extend beyond the desktop and into the real world.

KAM Train Tools — Train Tools software is a set of tools for the operation of your Model Train Layout and provides a software developer’s kit designed for use with Visual Studio Express. Use the tutorials and learn how write your own Model Train Control program in just minutes! ($10 off).

Intermatic - Receive a rebate of up to $25 off the purchase of the Wireless Home Control Starter Kit featuring the Z-Wave SDK to personalize your home experience.

SkinCrafter - SkinCrafter Light provides you an easy (no coding required) way of adding skins to your Windows Forms. With a simple adding of a control to your form and selecting the skin, you can enjoy a new and unique look with to your application.

This is in addition to the existing Express registration benefits like:

**ComponentScience WebPlanner 2005 - **The scheduling component for ASP.NET 2.0. WebPlanner 2005 for ASP.NET 2.0 is a fully functional scheduling component for day, week, month and timeline rendering. WebPlanner provides drag and drop features and is compatible with Internet Explorer, FireFox, Mozilla and Opera. It also includes a MonthPlanner control as an extra bonus.

**Graphics Server .NET **- Experience Interactive Chart Design with Graphics Server .NET. Learn how fast and easy it is to design a chart and integrate it with your Visual Studio 2005 application with our new Interactive Designer. Professional looking results, fast development and reasonable prices for both Win and Web Forms.

**/n software IPWorks! ADO.NET Data Provider **- Free single machine license of IP*Works! ADO.NET Data Provider. With IPWorks! you can use SQL queries and data objects built on the .NET Framework to easily access data for Internet development. Implements a standard Microsoft .NET Data Provider for accessing Email (POP, IMAP, SMTP), News (NNTP), and RSS.

**Corbis Images **- An assortment of 250 royalty-free images from Corbis for inclusion in your web sites and applications.

Build A Program Now! Microsoft Press eBooks - These fun and highly visual guides from Microsoft Press walk you from start-to-finish through a complete programming project.

**Download Now **If you’ve already registered any Visual Studio Express product, simply logon to Connect and select My Participation…Visual Studio 2005 Registration Benefits Portal to access your benefits. If you haven’t registered Visual Studio Express, simply download and click Help…Register Product… to gain access to these benefits.

**Other Benefits **We want to keep making registration a benefit to you and, in the future, we’re looking to add even more discounts, components and valuable content for Express customers. If you have ideas or suggestions for what would be a good registration benefit for Express users, feel free to respond to this post.


Happy One Year Anniversary Visual Studio Express!!

announcementscoding4fun

Virtual Earth 3D Launched

DevDiv Hotfix Public Availability Program