Normally when you see a link to download free software, it's a scam. The software is illegal and loaded up with viruses. But in this case, it's legit, it's free, and all you have to do to get it is watch two training videos and rate them. A mini free education, and a small amount of feedback on your part, for VB.NET, C#, C++, J#, and a great IDE. They even have Visio built in to create charts describing your code. You can use it to write web applications in ASP and ASP.NET, and have IntelliSense for javascript, you can use it for Windows applications, and probably a bunch more.

http://www.microsoft.com/business/vb...e/default.mspx

Microsoft is desperately trying to stay relevant, and they know to do that, they need developers. They've been having deals like this for a while, I think they'd rather give away the development tools than give up having software written for Windows.

I do download (Visual Basic)

It is very good

It IS missing a few things: remote database access is likely going to be the most important piece that you can't find in the free version of VS2005. For a learning situation, though, it's wonderful that Microsoft is letting this go out so cheaply.

On the other hand, if you're a student and want to step up to the professional versions of VS, look into the Academic edition, which you'll find to be VERY cheap compared to what non-students pay.