Visual C# Express Edition

I’ve been looking at Visual C# Express Edition, which according to this blog posting is now free forever. Specifically, I’ve been looking at the functionality differences between the Express Editions and the fully-fledged Visual Studio Professional et al.

However, before I start to blog about the differences, I thought it prudent to let you know the benefits of registering these free editions. When I registered my copy of Visual C# Express Edition, I was offered access to a portal that gave me the chance to download this little lot of goodies:

IconBuffet Studio Edition Icon Suite
A collection of over 100 professional, royalty-free stock icons from IconBuffet.com. The IconBuffet Studio Suite collection contains core icons from several of IconBuffet’s most popular hand-crafted stock icon collections. As part of this promotion, you are free to use these icons in your desktop and web application development.

Microsoft Visual C# 2005 Express Edition – Build a Program Now! Document Microsoft® Visual C#™ 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!
This fun and highly visual guide walks you through a complete programming project—a desktop weather-reporting application—from start to finish. You’ll learn how to put the lightweight, easy-to-use tools in Visual C# Express to work right away—creating, compiling, testing, and delivering your first ready-to-use program. You’ll get expert tips, coaching, and visual examples at each step of the way, along with pointers to additional learning resources.

Graphics Server .NET – Utility – 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 – Utility /n software IP*Works! ADO.NET Data Provider
Free single machine license of IP*Works! ADO.NET Data Provider. With IP*Works! 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.

WebPlanner 2005 – Utility – 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.

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

There’s a good chance that more goodies will be made available, so it’s worth registering and worth periodically checking to see if any new stuff as been made available!