I’ve previously blogged about the different Visual Studio 2010 Product editions and thought it would probably be worthwhile also posting information on how you can get hold of the right version for you.
As mentioned in my previous post, Visual Studio 2010 comes in the following editions:
- Visual Studio 2010 Express
- Visual Studio 2010 Professional
- Visual Studio 2010 Premium
- Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
- Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional
One thing that I noticed was different with Visual Studio 2010 is that some of the Visual Studio 2010 editions (mainly the top-end ones) can only be purchases with an MSDN Subscription.
Below is a list of how you can obtain each edition
- Visual Studio 2010 Express (This edition of Visual Studio 2010 is free but must be registered after 30 days of evaluation usage) – see the link for details on obtaining a registration key.
- Visual Studio 2010 Professional (As can be seen from this link, the Visual Studio 2010 Professional edition comes with an MSDN Professional Subscription or the new MSDN Essentials subscription) You can find out more about the subscriptions on the MSDN Subscriptions Comparison page. - The MSDN Essentials subscription contains basically as the name suggests the basic things you need to do development, the OSs and the IDE.
- Visual Studio 2010 Professional can also be purchased by itself (no MSDN subscription) from the Microsoft Store here.
- To get any of the other Visual Studio Editions you basically need to purchase Visual Studio 2010 with an MSDN subscription. You can buy an MSDN subscription via Microsoft directly – see the comparison page link mentioned earlier, or you can by a subscription via a Microsoft reseller see the list below for options - MicroWay
- City Software
- Harris Technology
- DELL
- Insight
- The Microsoft Business and Industry Page has more details on the purchase options.
Also, if you’re looking to get MSDN/Visual Studio in New Zealand the best place to look is the GetVS website www.getvs.net.nz .