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by pherocity_ 4234 days ago
How is this different from Express versions?
5 comments

The new version is extensible, so you can get access to the over 5,100 extensions in the Visual Studio ecosystem.[1]

It’s basically a full version of Visual Studio with no restrictions, except that you can’t use it in an enterprise setting and for teams with more than five people (you can, however, use it for any other kind of commercial and non-commercial project).

[1] https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/

Besides what is referred in sibling posts:

- DirectX debugging tools, including GPGPU

- Parallel code debugging

- MFC and ATL for those that still need to support such type of applications

- 64 bit compilers

- DDK integration

- Sharepoint integration

"Debug / Attach to process" is another really significant feature that Community Edition has that was omitted from Express
Also templates for Windows Services and other project types that aren't included with the express versions.
It's Visual Studio Professional with a different license. Previously you'd have paid through the nose for Visual Studio Pro, now it's free (subject to license conditions).
AFAIK, you cannot install extensions or plugins (e.g. ReSharper) in Express version(s).
Yeah, this seems to be the major difference. The question for me now is if they'll kill off the Express edition for the next release.
Also, all languages (C++, C#, Basic) in one IDE. The Express versions have one language each.
> The Express versions have one language each.

That was true of most of them through 2010 (though the 2008/2010 Web Developer Express supported, IIRC, at least C# and VB.NET as backend languages.), but not the 2012/2013 versions.

The VS2012/2013 Express Editions are not language specific, but project type specific -- the 2012 editions were "for Web", "for Windows 8" (i.e., Metro/Modern UI), "for Windows Desktop", and "for Windows Phone". 2013 merged "for Windows 8" and "for Windows Phone" into "for Windows".