Visual Studio Express Editions Installation

Getting the express edition

Fist go to http://www.microsoft.com/express/ and then navigate to Download.

(the download page in Souvergin which is a browser I am working on) 

From this point on you have as in the past two way of installing VS Express Editions.

Web Install

In this case you select the version and language of your choose (At that time only English and Japanese are available). Then  your Browser will download a small installer file - e. g. 2,5 MB for Visual Basic Express Edition. The real Application Download is made during setup. You can use this way if you have a fast Internet Connection or do not need to install Visual Studio a few times - otherwise I would prefer the Offline installation.

Offline Install

By using the offline install you only select the language and then your Browser will download DVD Image with about 900 MB. This Version includes the  whole Express Suite. Containing all Express Editions. After Download you will have to burn the iso image on a DVD or mount it into a virtual DVD drive.

Installation

As in past the Visual Studio installer needs a long time for installing everything. Using WebInstall makes the setup even slower, because all files are downloaded while Setup. The setup time depend also on what you have already installed on your Computer. So if .NET FX 3.5, the SDK's MSDN and SQL Server is installed - maybe because if you have already another Express Edition on your PC, the Setup runs much faster.

 

Looking into the image: They set the wrong image transparent colour for the globe. Even really big companies make such little nasty mistakes - that happens not only to me -)

 

So next post of our VS 2008 Express Edition series is about Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition.