No-cost desktop software development is dead on Windows 8

[Midzuki]

«
Microsoft wants Windows developers to write Windows 8-specific, Metro-style, touch-friendly applications, and to make sure that they crank these apps out, the company has decided that Visual Studio 11 Express, the free-to-use version of its integrated development environment, can produce nothing else.
»

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/no-cost-desktop-software-development-is-dead-on-windows-8/

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Well, "dead" is a bit exaggerated. You still may use Visual Studio 2010 Express to develop "native" Windows applications that will run from Windows XP up to and including Windows 8. Also Visual Studio 11 won't be an option for most developers anyway, because it can't target Window XP anymore, which for many developers still is an important target and will remain like that for quite some time. No free edition of something you practically couldn't use anyway isn't a big loss for me.

Not to forget that VisualStudio isn't the only compiler/IDE for Windows. MinGW/GCC is available as free software and may be used with a free IDE, such as Code::Blocks, Eclipse CDT or Qt Creator :)

(Anyway, it seems Microsoft currently is doing everything to tie Desktop users and developers to Windows 7 for the next years. The removal of "Aero" and the DVD Playerback capability don't make Windows 8 very attractive either)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Amendment:

Microsoft announced Visual Studio 2012 will be upgraded to support Windows XP again. And I mean with its own compiler and runtime, not only by falling back to the Visual Studio 2010 Toolset (which always was possible).

Furthermore there will be a Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop applications. So, after all, it seems there still are some people at Microsoft who actually care about what the customers need ;)

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2012/06/15/10320645.aspx