Visual Basic 2012 Programmer's Reference

Appendix V

Visual Studio Versions

Most of the code in this book was written with a prerelease “release candidate” (RC) version of Visual Studio Ultimate 2012. The code does not require any of the special tools that are included in the Ultimate edition so they should run in Professional and Premium editions, too.

However, the free product Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 is another matter. With the Visual Studio 2012 release, Microsoft introduced Metro-style applications. To strongly encourage developers to move away from Windows desktop-style applications and toward Metro-style development, Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8 does not include templates for building Windows desktop-style applications.

Because Windows desktop programming is a relatively stable and straightforward technology, I used Windows desktop applications for most of the examples in this book. That means you may have trouble running or reproducing those examples if you are using Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows 8.

Fortunately all is not lost! After much impassioned feedback by early testers including Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals), Microsoft decided to create a new edition: Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop. That version, which will let you create Windows desktop applications, was not available when this was written but should be available in the fall of 2012.

For more information on the Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate, Premium, and Professional editions, see http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/products/compare ...