Visual Studio 2012 Express won't support Win32 Projects

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28 comments, last by NightCreature83 11 years, 10 months ago
Well, it looks that this is not going to be an "Express only" thing, I've downloaded Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 RC and it has no C++ support either, and i haven't found so far how to enable it or download the C++ part.

the weird thing is that a few weeks ago previews Visual Studio 11 Beta did had that C++ support (and it was quite fantastic to be honest).
"lots of shoulddas, coulddas, woulddas in the air, thinking about things they shouldda couldda wouldda donne, however all those shoulddas coulddas woulddas ran away when they saw the little did to come"
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I suspect you've done it wrong because I've got the VS2012 RC installed, and only the Professional Edition at that, and I've got access to a full group of C++ project options including Win32 and console applications.

We won! Microsoft has given in!

Today, the Visual Studio blog announced that after disabling desktop application support in the Express editions since Visual Studio 11 Beta, the final Visual Studio 2012 Express release will be supporting desktop applications once again!

To add a little bit to the confusion, there will now be two Express editions. One will be Visual Studio 2012 Express, just as we know it today, the other will have the long-winded name Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop.

Professional C++ and .NET developer trying to break into indie game development.
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Well, it looks that this is not going to be an "Express only" thing, I've downloaded Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 RC and it has no C++ support either, and i haven't found so far how to enable it or download the C++ part.


I've been doing all my (non-metro) C++ development for the previous week in Visual Studio 2012 Professional RC. It's all there, definitely.
Professional C++ and .NET developer trying to break into indie game development.
Follow my progress: http://blog.nuclex-games.com/ or Twitter - Topics: Ogre3D, Blender, game architecture tips & code snippets.

We won! Microsoft has given in!


Woah. No way!

I'd like to have been a fly-on-the-wall in Redmond for the discussions that led to this... Seriously, does anyone have any gossip?
I don't think "given in" is the right way to put it - its not like they spent the last 6 months going 'no no no, not going to happen, live with it' - they released it, people gave feedback, they reacted to change.

In fact I find that reaction remarkable - everyone complain that MS don't listen when they do its 'giving in' rather than 'listening to customer feedback'... christ on a bike...
More like 10 months...

The requests have been mounting on UserVoice, the Visual Studio blog and even the personal blogs of VS team members for some time and were repeatedly denied. Of course when Microsoft publicly says no, it's formulated by the marketing department and sounds like this: "We always think of our user base and try to offer developers with the best choice of technologies possible..."

"Listening to customer feedback" makes it sound more as if they just developed VS Express without any company politics involved and desktop applications merely happened to slip through because nobody thought of it.
Professional C++ and .NET developer trying to break into indie game development.
Follow my progress: http://blog.nuclex-games.com/ or Twitter - Topics: Ogre3D, Blender, game architecture tips & code snippets.
Phew, what a relief.

(Fires up QtCreator with MingW 4.7 and continues developing a Direct3D application).

I don't think "given in" is the right way to put it - its not like they spent the last 6 months going 'no no no, not going to happen, live with it' - they released it, people gave feedback, they reacted to change.

In fact I find that reaction remarkable - everyone complain that MS don't listen when they do its 'giving in' rather than 'listening to customer feedback'... christ on a bike...
"Given in to customer feedback" vs say "Responded to customer feedback" ... I think you're reading too much into it.

I mean yes, I hate it in politics when any change to what people say gets branded a "U turn" and then they're criticised for doing that, but no one is criticising MS for this change, the reactions seem to be thankful to them. "Given in" doesn't have to be critical - I'm glad that MS have given in :)

http://erebusrpg.sourceforge.net/ - Erebus, Open Source RPG for Windows/Linux/Android
http://conquests.sourceforge.net/ - Conquests, Open Source Civ-like Game for Windows/Linux

Just as a side note to this so far the window platform SDK has always ship with a compiler and linker, the SDK is free or at least up till win 7 is free. So as long as this SDK ships with a native compiler and linker, you will always be able to replace the linker and compiler in the express edition with the latest SDK one.

I think VS2010 C++ Express currently ships with the win 7.0A platform SDK and uses the compiler and linker of that SDK, I am not sure about this though.

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