Hi,

I wanted to get more involved into C++ development. So I get Visual Studio for free as a student, but the overall problem with Dreamspark ist that Microsoft always offers you 30 versions and you don't know what to take.

When I tried to install Windows 8 it offered me 4 versions without an explanation of the differences and just with the same name... o.O

Well here I go again with VS2013, what do I need to download? When I click on download it offers me these (like wtf, really?):

Feedback Client for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Preview
Feedback Client for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Preview Language Pack
Microsoft Agents for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Agents for Visual Studio 2013 Language Pack
Microsoft Build Tools 2013
Microsoft IntelliTrace Collector for Visual Studio 2013 Preview
Microsoft Multibyte MFC Library for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Remote Tools for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Team Explorer for Visual Studio 2013 Language Pack
Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Language Pack
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Preview Shell (Integrated) Language Pack
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Preview Shell (Integrated) Redistributable Package
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Preview Shell (Isolated) Language Pack
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Preview Shell (Isolated) Redistributable Package
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 SDK
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 1
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 3
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 4
Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Visualization and Modeling SDK
Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web
Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows
Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop
Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Express 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio Test Professional 2013
Microsoft Visual Studio Test Professional 2013 Language Pack
Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
Microsoft Web Tools Extensions for Visual Studio 2013
Microsoft Web Tools Extensions for Visual Web Developer 2013

My bets would go to

"Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013" (or PRemium or Professional or Express) or "Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 SDK" however maybe I need "Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 4" to get the latest version? Or do I need to update it manually after?

Do I need to download multiple of them?

That is exactly what always stopped me from actually diving in .NET because installation is to complex and unexplained. For you it might be "obvious" but for me these are just a lot of words I don't know. :/

Thanks for your help

Best Regards

*Edit: The downloads are taking about ~an hour for me, so just downloading everything and trying it out is not the best solution and would result in worst case finding the right version in over 2 days.

Get Ultimate, can get updates trough VS after.

Get Ultimate, can get updates trough VS after.

Thanks :)

Downloading right now, 2hours left. Internet is so bad.

Best part was that after selecting Ultimate I got like 10 more options to choose from.

I just said f*ck it and downloaded a random of those Ultimate versions which will hopefully do xD

It really doesn't matter what you download - you will be able to build a c++ executable as long as it has the build tools. All the other stuff is extra - doesn't hurt you but it will be a long time before you ever really care about any of it.

This is actually where my biggest problem with VS comes in - it is a really nice tool for debugging - and I don't have any complaints about its compiler - but I will say that it really seems to aim at making you think building a c++ program is more complicated than it is. I really feel like there are a lot of programmers today that wouldn't have a clue on how to use the command line compiler - that is if there was no IDE they would be at a loss on how to build their program.

I highly recommend you take your time and learn how to use the VS command line build tool without the IDE - im not saying always do this.. but if you take the time and learn how it works and what it is doing it will really save you a lot of time down the road. It will especially be a lot easier for you to figure out things like linker errors and such.

I see a lot of posts around the internet which basically show VS linker error printouts and people clueless on how to fix them.. This really comes from a lack of understanding in what a compiler is actually doing.

Just my two cents

Thanks for the advice, I used Visual Studio before already at work and at Universtity.

In both cases there always already was a Visual Studio version installed. Just log in at a computer and it installs VS automatically.

I just wanted to code something in my free time as a hobby doing stuff I actually wanted to do / try out. :)

Your advice is still something I can just underline. They teached us at one point how to use the command line compiler after a year and it changed a lot of views on that matter.