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VS Express isn't exactly aimed at supporting legacy code for you.

The Express products are free, light(er)weight and don't support everything the other editions do. You should have known this going into this.

There are however other library downloads from Microsoft that may make both MFC and ATL libraries available to the Express editions.



I know that Express isn't "aimed" at supporting legacy code. What I'm saying is, that's a bad product decision by Microsoft at a crucial time when they can't afford to alienate any developer who's still interested in developing for their platforms.

I'm not saying that Microsoft should actively support new development in MFC/ATL. All I'm saying is that they shouldn't delete ATL/MFC from the Express SKU.

It's true that it's still possible to get ATL/MFC in the free Platform SDKs for (much) older versions of Windows, but finding and installing it and integrating it with Visual Studio is a royal pain, and Microsoft won't tell you how to do it (or even that it's possible). And there's no way to get PIX for Direct3D 11.1 without paying $400+.


Either the pain is worth $400 to avoid, or it's not... seems simple enough to me! (Same for 'PIX for Direct3D 11.1')


Any company that sells software on Windows can surely afford the professional license.




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