In response to pressure from the community, Microsoft has announced Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop, a no-cost development environment for the creation of traditional desktop and command-line applications.

Throughout the development of Visual Studio 2012 (formerly known as Visual Studio 11), Microsoft's stance has been that desktop development needed the $400 Visual Studio 2012 Professional. The company was going to have four versions of its no-cost Visual Studio Express suite, for development of Metro applications, Web apps, Azure cloud applications, and Windows Phone apps—covering all the bases, except one: the desktop.

This caused considerable disquiet among Visual Studio users, and that came to a head in May, when the company announced the final product line-up, still with the claim that desktop development needed the Professional product.

Microsoft has heard these concerns, and the new Express product should fill the desktop-oriented gap that was previously threatened: hobbyists, beginners, and open source developers will have the tools they need to develop command-line and desktop applications.