Visual Studio Express 2013 is a legacy, free version of Microsoft’s integrated development environment (IDE) that reached its End of Life (EOL) on April 9, 2024. While it is still functional for some developers, it has largely been replaced by the more powerful Visual Studio Community edition. Key Versions & Usage
Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1/2012. 3. Installation Guide Access older versions through My.VisualStudio.com , which requires a free Visual Studio Dev Essentials subscription. Run Installer: vs express 2013
Cool user tweets * "I've just discovered Kudu console and take back all the nasty things I said about @Azure" @danorak 2 Sep 2015. Visual Studio Express 2013 is a legacy, free
Real-world example: If your C# app had a memory leak, Express gave you no way to take snapshots of the managed heap, compare object retention, or identify the root GC handle. You would need external tools like PerfView (CLI-based) or RedGate’s ANTS Memory Profiler (paid). Lowered barrier to entry : By offering a
Why this matters: For the solo developer building a desktop utility or a simple game, Express was not a performance compromise. The generated machine code, intermediate language (IL), and runtime behavior are indistinguishable. The difference was never how the code ran, but how you built it.
Bold Checkbox: You can manually check the Bold box for specific display items like "Plain Text," "Identifier," or "Keyword" to make them appear more solid.
| Feature | VS 2013 (Professional/Ultimate) | VS Express 2013 | |--------|--------------------------------|----------------| | Cost | Paid (trial available) | Free | | Supported project types | Multiple (Web, Desktop, Phone, Store, Cloud, SharePoint, etc.) | Single platform per edition | | Solution Explorer & project management | Full support for complex solutions, multiple projects | Basic, limited multi-project support | | Extensions & plugins | Full support (ReSharper, VSVim, etc.) | Very limited to none | | Team Explorer (version control) | Full (Git, TFVC, TFS integration) | Basic (only in some editions) | | Code metrics & analysis | Yes (Code Clone, Cyclomatic Complexity, etc.) | No | | Performance profiling | Yes (CPU, Memory, Concurrency) | No | | Unit testing framework integration | Full (MSTest, NUnit, xUnit) | Only manual, no built-in test runner (except Web version) | | Database tools (SQL Server Explorer) | Full (schema compare, data compare, SQL projects) | Limited (basic connection only) | | Debugging | Full (tracepoints, parallel stacks, IntelliTrace in Ultimate) | Standard debugging only | | Cross-platform (e.g., Android, iOS) | Via plugins (Xamarin, Cordova) | Not available | | Architecture & modeling tools | Yes (UML, layer diagrams, code maps) | No | | Code coverage & profiling | Yes (Ultimate/Premium) | No |