> With Visual C++ 2005 Express you can build both native and managed applications. Using the .NET Framework you can easily create Windows Forms, console, and class library applications. By downloading the Windows Platform SDK (freely available) you can build applications that take full advantage of the Win32 API. Web developers should use Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition.
I mean, I'm pretty sure Win Forms, Console apps, and class libraries were all most of us were using .NET for back in 2005 (I wouldn't know for sure as I was in high school still).
Don't get me wrong, there were and are advantages to the non-free versions of Visual Studio. Notably, until 2017 I believe, was extensions. But there's just a lot of misunderstanding in this thread about the general licensing model of .NET and its toolchain.
