Visual Studio Express Editions are very stable IDE's. the fact that it is crashing on such a simple applications has me wanting to see what exactly you're doing or see how you install it. VS is prolly the most widely used IDE on Windows.

BTW, their is also Code::Blocks.

Also I hope I'm not coming across as rude but not to put a damper in your dreams, chances of you creating a Xbox game in C++ is very slim right now unless you have thousands of dollars and can convince MS to license you a dev kit. Their is C# and XNA if you do want X box development using The Indie Game Channel on the Xbox. You would then use Visual C#.

Just curious, where would I find a free version of VC++ express that I can keep

running for over 30 days? I have found the ones on microsoft.com that run out

after one month.

All VS Expresses are free forever. What happens is that you have register after 30 days. But it's still free. All registering involves is just getting a register key inputting it in VS Express and continue to do whatever it was you were doing. That's it. :)

All VS Expresses are free forever. What happens is that you have register after 30 days.