Don't know if the Poorhouse is just the last one to notice anything but it seems Microsoft are offering a cutdown but still useful version of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 for free, under guise of the Visual Studio Express editions.

The package includes:

• Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
• Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
• Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
• Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

Given even the "Standard" edition of Visual Studio costs £299 upwards, this really seems to be a good way to get into simple Windows programming if you're not too desperate for features like remote databases, addins and tools needed for collaborative coding etc. If you later do need more, more, more power you can always (money permitting) upgrade to a more expensive version and all your code will still work. It's early days yet, but at first glance it seems all the freeness could indeed be as useful as it sounds for quick application development. However you do appear to need a half-decent computer to run it on; the Poorhouse's steam powered terminal being rather slow to react to certain commands.

To quote Microsoft, these applications are aimed at "hobbyists, students, and novice developers who want to build dynamic Windows applications, Web sites, and Web services". They also have a comparative list of features of each version of Visual Studio.