What software you need
Software option #1: Full editions of
Visual Studio 2008
To develop ASP.NET 3.5 applications, you can use any
of the full editions of Visual Studio 2008, including
the Standard Edition, Professional Edition, or Team
System. All of these come with everything you need to
develop ASP.NET 3.5 applications, including the Visual
Studio development environment, version 3.5 of the Microsoft
.NET Framework, C# 2008 and Visual Basic 2008, a built-in
web server that's ideal for testing ASP.NET applications,
and a scaled-back version of SQL Server called SQL Server
Express.
Software option #2: Free editions of
Visual Studio components
You can also download two Express editions of Visual
Studio software from Microsoft's web site to develop
ASP.NET 3.5 applications:
- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express
- SQL Server Express
Both of these products are free. And together, they
provide all of the components in the full editions of
VS 2008.
Please note, though, that Visual Web Developer 2008
is a scaled-back version of the full editions. That's
why you'll find that some of its user interfaces are
simpler than the ones in our book, which are all based
on the Professional Edition. And you may find that a
few of the features aren't available.
Nevertheless, Visual Web Developer 2008 is a terrific
product for learning how to develop ASP.NET 3.5 applications.
And both the applications and skills that you develop
will work with any of the full editions of VS 2008.
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