Visual Studio Express

Visual Basic Express Edition is a free set of tools intended for Windows developers to allow them to create personalized applications using basic and advanced settings. Key Features It allows you to create Windows applications based on.NET Framework. Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. Visual Studio Code is free and available on your favorite platform. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express is a basic and free toolkit to allow you to develop and build applications for the Web, your smart phone, desktop or the cloud. While billed as software for any level of developer, the people most likely to make use out of this toolkit are beginners. Download Visual Studio Express free. Develop Windows 8 apps by using XAML in conjunction with C#, VB.NET and C.

While Visual Studio is going 64-bit, this doesn’t change the types or bitness of the applications you build with Visual Studio. Visual Studio will continue to be a great tool for building 32-bit apps. I find it really satisfying to watch this video of Visual Studio scaling up to use the additional memory that’s available to a 64-bit process.

Visual Studio Express

Not sure what to download? See recommended downloads for the latest version of .NET.

These downloads may update Visual Studio and the .NET Framework on your machine. Some of the downloads may only support certain Visual Studio versions.

.NET/.NET Core

Visual Studio Express 2012 Download Free

.NET is a free, cross-platform, open-source developer platform for building many different types of applications.

VersionStatusVisual Studio 2017 SDK Visual Studio 2019 SDK Runtime Release notes
.NET 6.0 Preview N/A x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v6.0.100-preview.4)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v6.0.0-preview.4)
Release notes
.NET 5.0 Current N/A x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v5.0.300)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v5.0.6)
Release notes
.NET Core 3.1 LTS N/A x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v3.1.409)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v3.1.15)
Release notes
.NET Core 3.0 End of life N/A x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v3.0.103)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v3.0.3)
Release notes
.NET Core 2.2 End of life x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.2.110)
x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.2.207)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v2.2.8)
Release notes
.NET Core 2.1 LTS x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.1.524)
x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.1.816)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v2.1.28)
Release notes
.NET Core 2.0 End of life x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.1.202)
x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v2.1.202)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v2.0.9)
Release notes
.NET Core 1.1 End of life x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v1.1.14)
x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v1.1.14)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v1.1.13)
Release notes
.NET Core 1.0 End of life x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v1.1.14)
x64 SDK | x86 SDK
(v1.1.14)
x64 Runtime | x86 Runtime
(v1.0.16)
Release notes

.NET Standard

.NET Standard is a formal specification of .NET APIs that are intended to be available on all .NET implementations. To target .NET Standard in your projects, install one of the SDKs from the .NET Core table. For more information, see the .NET Standard article.

.NET Framework

Visual

.NET Framework is a Windows-only version of .NET for building any type of app that runs on Windows.

VersionDeveloper Pack Runtime Release notes
.NET Framework 4.8 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.7.2 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.7.1 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.7 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.6.2 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.6.1 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.6 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.5.2 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.5.1 Developer PackRuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.5 RuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 4.0 RuntimeRelease notes
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1RuntimeRelease notes

Services

Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013

ServiceToolsDocumentation
Microsoft AzureAzure SDK for .NET
Included in Visual Studio 2017
Developer Documentation
Office 365, Office & SharePointIncluded in Visual Studio 2017Developer Documentation
OneDriveLive SDKDeveloper Documentation
BingDeveloper Documentation

Devices

StudioVisual
PlatformToolsDocumentation
XamarinXamarin Tools for iOS and Android
Included in Visual Studio 2017
Developer Documentation

Visual Studio Express Mac

Game Development

Visual Studio Express2017

PlatformToolsDocumentation
UnityVisual Studio 2015 Tools for Unity
Included in Visual Studio 2017
Developer Documentation