Pre­vi­ously, the VS 2005 Express Edi­tion was only free for a lim­ited time. Now Microsoft has announced that it will be avail­able for free — for­ever!

Quote (Microsoft):

10. How much will these prod­ucts cost?Effec­tive April 19th, 2006, all Visual Stu­dio 2005 Express Edi­tions are free per­ma­nently. This pric­ing cov­ers all Visual Stu­dio 2005 Express Edi­tions includ­ing Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual J#, and Visual Web Devel­oper as well as all local­ized ver­sions of Visual Stu­dio Express. SQL Server 2005 Express Edi­tion has always been and will con­tinue to be a free down­load.
11.Visual Stu­dio 2005 Express was pre­vi­ously pro­mo­tion­ally dis­counted to free for a year, why did you decide to change the price to free per­ma­nently?
Pre­vi­ously, we announced that Visual Stu­dio Express would be avail­able for a pro­mo­tional price of one year. We have now extended that period so that Visual Stu­dio 2005 will be free permanently.

Visual Stu­dio Express

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