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FREE Visual Studio 2008 for College Students via DreamSpark

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A few years ago, back when I was in college, there was an academic program from Microsoft (called 'MSDN Academic Alliance') where you could get Windows and the Academic version of Visual Studio by going to the CS department office, checking out some CD's, and hoping that you didn't need to reinstall after you had to return them.

This morning, Microsoft is announcing a new program called DreamSpark that allows students in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium to get Visual Studio Professional, Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio, Windows Server, and more....all for free! You just need to authenticate that you are indeed a student, and you will receive download access to these products.

This would probably be a good time to remind folks that the Visual Studio SDK and Visual Studio Shell Redistributable (which allow you to add custom extensions, languages, etc. to Visual Studio or "roll your own" custom IDE) are also free for everyone.

So, let's do the math. If you're a typical university student (who is most likely somewhere between broke and slightly over broke) .....

Visual Studio 2008 Pro $0.00
Visual Studio 2008 SDK $0.00
Visual Studio 2008 Shell Redist $0.00
GRAND TOTAL $0.00

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 19, 2008
    If you're a student, then Microsoft has just announced a new program called DreamSpark to get Visual

  • Anonymous
    February 19, 2008
    If you're a student, then Microsoft has just announced a new program called DreamSpark to get Visual

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2009
    I need this development tool to enhance my study at school.

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2009
    Can you still use the free software even if you graduated?  Can you use it to develop a program to be used by a private corporation?

  • Anonymous
    April 17, 2009
    Hi 'onins',Please contact the DreamSpark Program Team (https://www.dreamspark.com/ContactUs.aspx) to get answers to your questions. I'm not familiar enough with the program to know the answers.Sincerely,AaronM

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2010
    I need vs for my study at the moment particulary to use in c# programming

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2010
    I am a current computer science student at U.B.C.

  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2010
    I need this program for a course in programing

  • Anonymous
    April 19, 2010
    I need this development tool to enhance my study at school.