Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition IDE

If you are looking for a freeware tool that will help you develop basic applications for the Windows OS, then Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition is the right choice for you.

I, for example, have started learning C# with the 2005 Edition, then moved to 2008. The primary difference between the 2005 Express Edition and the 2008 Edition is the language version and .NET version. The 2008 release supports .NET 3.5 and C# 3.0, while the old one only C# 2.0. The .NET Framework 3.5 sustains important improvements in some Microsoft technologies, such as WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).

Visual Studio toolbox

Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition is targeted towards beginner programmers who may follow a career in IT, but is also accessible to people that practice programming as a hobby. The interface of the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is clean and it’s easy to get around the application. There are many controls for you to place on your form in order to provide your users a pleasant GUI (Graphical User Interface) experience. Writing C# code is fairly easy, because Intellisense (autocompletion software from Microsoft) is there to give you a hand.

Some of you might have programmed games with the help of XNA Game Studio in Visual C# Express 2005. At the moment, you can’t use XNA with Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition… The good news is that you can have MS VC# Express 2005 and 2008 installed on the same computer, if you really want to use XNA.

All in all, Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition is a great tool that offers many possibilites to programmers of any experience. If you like the Express Edition, maybe you will be interested in buying Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition.

Visual C# Express Edition

Download Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions