[Python-Dev] Visual studio 2005 express now free

[Paul Moore]

On 4/24/06, Neil Hodgson <nyamatongwe at gmail.com> wrote:
> Martin v. Löwis:
>
> > Apparently, the status of this changed right now: it seems that
> > the 2003 compiler is not available anymore; the page now says
> > that it was replaced with the 2005 compiler.
> >
> > Should we reconsider?
>
>    I expect Microsoft means that Visual Studio Express will be
> available free forever, not that you will always be able to download
> Visual Studio 2005 Express. They normally only provide a particular
> product version for a limited time after it has been superceded.

No. Martin means that http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/
no longer points to a downloadable version of MSVC which includes the
optimizer, and generates VC 7.1 compatible binaries.

This means that unless you've already downloaded it, or it's
acceptable for someone else to host it, there's once again no way to
build Python with free tools :-(

(Is it worth the PSF asking MS if it's acceptable for python.org to
host a copy of the toolkit compiler? As MS donated copies of MSVC 7.1
to the Python project, they may be willing to consider this...)

Paul.