Nice one FD, I was thinking of them too. Last I saw they were limited to a year of use, but were free of restrictions.
If you want my quick review of the behemoth that is Visual Basic Express...
Don't expect to learn it quickly - it just isn't basic any more, but it is powerful once you finally figure out what the hell is going on. Even moving from VBasic 6 is a bit of a steep learning curve and the online documentation is nowhere near adequate for a beginner, I had difficulties with some areas and I've been programming off and on for 20 years - so look for some tutorial sites.
You'll find I am not alone in that opinion as MS uses a page rating system for how useful the information given is - the majority of the pages are rated poor - but I wouldn't let that put you off as it also links in to external sources for help. Once you've begun to work it out though, you start to see the possibilities - the range of applications you could make is very big indeed - and like VB6 you can use installed windows compents such as TTS, forms, windows menus and file handling dialogs in your own programs.
It also has a built in installer so when you have bulit your app, Express can build a distributable file that will install on other systems. So you may not need a seperate installer necessarily, although it breaks from convention and doesn't install to the Program Files folders.
The only big problem I have with it is the amount of options! More accurately how they are accessed, but it must have been a headache cramming so much into a pretty standard windows setup. I often end up accidentally accessing things I don't want because there is so much on screen in the way of tools, slide out panels, wizards and everything else. A stray mouse movement can open things you don't want and in the midst of coding is really distracting - Windows comes a cropper here for me big time - it needs a better user interface.
The Web Developer is ok, but IMHO is getting on the top heavy side too - if you want to develop a complex site with database handling and more give it a go, but for simple sites I think something like Net Objects Fusion is a far better option - not to say that Net Objects can't do complex sites as well.
Web Developer's WYSIWYG page layout designer is a pain in the **** but most other ones I have tried suffer from the same problems like finnicky allignment and miscalculations but it is good overall and generates clear HTML pages which can be useful if you are also handcoding.
Back to BASIC though...any 'All Purpose' language is going to be a mammoth environment nowerdays anyway, but for free it's a steal. If you get what you pay for, I think I can safely say 'Thanks MS' here.
Yikes, mind that learning curve...
