[Python-Dev] VS 11 Express is Metro only. (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Fri May 25 15:36:35 CEST 2012

On Fri, May 25, 2012 at 10:17 PM, Curt Hagenlocher <curt at hagenlocher.org> wrote:

But will it be able to target Windows XP?

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/690617/bug-apps-created-with-crt-and-mfc-vnext-11-cannot-be-used-on-windows-xp-sp3

The key things to remember at this point:

  1. There's every chance Microsoft will reverse this decision, for all the reasons they introduced the Express editions of Visual Studio in the first place (e.g. to stop haemorrhaging hobbyist developers to other ecosystems where development tools aren't a profit centre). The collective "WTF?!" from third parties at their current approach (eloquently expressed by Peter Bright over at Ars) is going to be hard for even the most passionate Metro advocates to ignore.
  2. It's going to be at least 18 months before CPython's Windows build is likely to migrate to VS2011, and if there's still no desktop app support in the Express edition at that time, that will be a strong argument against migrating.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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