comparison - What is "missing" in the Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions?

Question

What is "missing" in the Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions?

In particular,

• what functionality is not available?
• what restrictions are there on its use?

Answer 1

The major areas where Visual Studio Express lacks features compared to Visual Studio Professional:

• No add-ins/macros
• Some Win32 tools missing
• No Team Explorer support
• Limited refactoring support
• Debugging is much more limited (particularly problematic for server development is no remote debugging)
• Lack of support for setup projects
• No report creation tools
• No Office development support
• No mobile platform support
• Limited set of designers
• Limited set of database tools
• No code profiling or test framework support
• No MFC/ATL support
• No support for compiling C++ to 64-bit images (workaround is to install Windows SDK which is free)

NOTE: it is often said that the Express EULA does not permit commercial development - that is not true (Visual Studio Express FAQ Item 7)