rahmu wrote- 4.15GB of disk space is huge! Is there any stripped down version available?
You get to pick what you want to install.
- What's an SKU?
No idea.
- Based on the screenshots, I think it's the prettiest VS so far.
I honestly still think 2008 was the prettiest of em all!
- I'm glad Nuget is becoming more and more important. Of course Hanselman wants to convince us that this will be the only way for Microsoft (and others) to deliver their packages; let's all hope he's right.
Nuget is nice, I just wish they wouldn't opt for PowerShell like commands.
- Apart from native F# support, what will the "full" (non-express) version have more? I'm guessing support for Azure, but what else?
Probably a whole lot, notably office development (VSTO), profiling, TFS. You can glance over the commercial ones
here
What's important to note is that this edition of VS Express contains a whole LOT more than its predecessor. Developers should rejoice.
On the other hand, I have questions about Visual Studio in general, notbaly concerning the relationship between the IDE and the compilers it packs.
How tightly linked are they?
The SDK can be downloaded separately. You don't need VS to be installed to build apps on windows.
Can you run an old version of .NET (say 2.0) on the newest VS?
Yes, you can specify the framework version you're targeting.
Similarly, can you get access to .NET 4.5 on the "old" VS 2005
I'm not entirely sure, but I think you definitely should be able to. Microsoft realizes that people do not always purchase new VS releases.