Do you guys and gals just like the debugger in MSVC or are there other reasons you like it so much? I am seriously struggling to understand why I should use it. In order to develop "desktop" apps I have to stick to 2010 and that is unlikely to receive updates for C++11 which I love so much. It's not that I can't afford it, it's the question of why would I want to pay for something I don't need. I once sunk $50k into a music studio to get my "creative on" only to realize that $50k doesn't buy 50 cents worth of creativity or productivity. Its the talent, the person that counts, and as long as a compiler has a debugger, is standards compliant, and has some features like completing code for you and lookup of member names, etc. I see no reason why one IDE should be preferred to the others.

In order to develop "desktop" apps I have to stick to 2010 and that is unlikely to receive updates for C++11 which I love so much.

This is not the case. MS originally planned to only support the development of store applications with the VS2012 express editions, but they came back on this decision after getting quite a few negative reactions.

Visual Studio is just a proven and stable IDE with a lot of great features, so why not use it when you can get it for free?

Radikalizm, wow! I was unaware of this! Thank you I think you just saved my day. Now I can continue to develop on both platforms.