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This is one of those questions that is utterly obvious to everyone except the uninitiated. So, at the risk of losing my "geek card" I'm afraid I must bite the bullet and ask:

Is Visual Studio the same thing as Visual C++? Do I need to install Visual Studio Express, for example in conjunction wit Visual C++? Does Visual C++ provide certain things that I will need (particular with respect to assembly programming) that don't come with Visual Studio Express?

The question might seem so basic as to not require an answer. But alas, that's precisely why I feel I need to ask it, as I can't actually find any answers online. All the results just "assume" that the user knows the answer to this question, but I can't seem to find anything that explicitly states that the two applications provide precisely the same functionality or not.

Thank you for your time.

Druid
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2 Answers2

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Visual Studio refers to Microsoft's Integrated Development Envrioment, It includes support for C++, C#, Basic, and several other languages.
Visual-C++ refers to the C++ Specific component of visual-Studio.

One can Install Visual-Studio (Express, or any other version), and install only the C++ component. Thus you would be installing the "Visual-C++" Component of Visual Studio.

Also, take note that Microsoft have been known to take some small liberties with this adherence to the C++ standard. For example depreciating many standard functions in faviour of 'secure' versions. (although this can be disabled). As well as implementing C++17 features.

As such the Visual-C++ language can be considered different enough from C++ to be a superset to some degree. The Visual-C++ command-line compiler (MSVC) is also packaged separately, so one doesn't need the entire visual-studio package to use it. That is no longer the case and are now avalible again

In short - Visual-C++ is part of the greater Visual-studio package, and is included in all modern versions of Visual-Studio.

Community
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John Bargman
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  • *"included in all modern versions of Visual-Studio"* - it's only a year or so ago that Microsoft stopped shipping Visual Studio Shell editions, which lacked any languages (you could then drop in something like Python Tools for Visual Studio, or some in-house language support). – Tony Delroy Feb 29 '16 at 05:03
  • @TonyD, Indeed, but by that I mean in the native-user sense of "I downloaded the thing from the website" ~ only a small number of users really even knew about Shell editions - and fewer still knew how to use them. Not to mitigate the correctness of your statement. My sentence was more aimed towards some of the (very) legacy pre .net era versions of Visual-Studio/ – John Bargman Feb 29 '16 at 09:44
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No. Visual Studio includes Visual C++, but it includes many other tools such as Visual Basic or Visual C#.

MikeCAT
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  • Note that many of the other ways of getting Visual C++ compilers have disappeared (they used to be bundled in the Windows SDK aka Platform SDK and also the Windows DDK) – Ben Voigt Feb 29 '16 at 03:20
  • @BenVoigt FWIW the VC++ command line tools are available (again) since November 2015 as a standalone download, without the IDE. See [Announcing Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 – standalone C++ tools for build environments](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2015/11/02/announcing-visual-c-build-tools-2015-standalone-c-tools-for-build-environments/) and the download link at [Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 Technical Preview](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49983). – dxiv Feb 29 '16 at 04:18