If you are some form of student, Microsoft sell a number of products at
reduced prices. I got Visual Studio 5 many years ago, don't know if the
Visual Studio is still available for studens.
Web Matrix is a free development tool for ASP.NET applications, you can
download it from
www.asp.net, this provides a GUI based development
environment. Another bonus is that it contains a light weight web server
that will run on XP Home, Internet Information Server requires XP
Professional.
I bought the book "Developing Web applications with Microsoft ..." from
Microsoft Press, this contained a 60 day trial version of Visual Studio
Professional.
One advantage of only using the SDK is that you get to know all the gritty
bits of .NET, nothing is hidden by the WYSIWIG editors and wizards provided
by Visual Studio.
Chris
"MicroMoth" <Mi*******@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:43**********************************@microsof t.com...
Hi,
I am starting to use Dot Net, and thinking of eventually going for the
MCSD exam, but I am a tight budget. I have a laptop with Windows XP Home and
the .Net SDK installed, but I can't spend the money of Visual Studio. Is it
possible to study for the exam and learn dot net like this and can any
suggest ways that will help my learning with this set up.
Thanks