Why does Visual Studio have completely separate installs for web and desktop

I'm looking to learn VS, so I'm working with the free edition. I wanted to use both Desktop and Web templates. It seems I needed to install completely separate versions. That takes a ton of space and it seems like there would be a lot of redundancy. Is there a way to do a single install that has the features of both?

I did read the product comparison, but probably because I really don't know anything about VS, I was not able to find an answer to my question there.

Thanks

visual-studio-2012

abalter

Posted 2013-04-03T17:16:25.600

Reputation: 544

I could imagine that this is not possible with the free versions. However, this is just a wild guess. The full, paid version of VS should not impose such limitations. – Der Hochstapler – 2013-04-03T17:24:25.557

ockquote>

Is there a way to do a single install that has the features of both? Yeah, but it'll cost you.

– mcalex – 2013-04-03T17:54:14.240

Answers

Why are the separate editions?

Product segmentation. They can target the express editions at different groups of developers, slim down the product and give you a reason to buy the full version.

As for disk space I wouldn't worry that much about it. I haven't confirmed this but I would expect that if you use the default installation directories then two editions would use common directories to share code.

For example I use Visual Studio 2010 and there is a folder named C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7 that has common functionality. While different pieces like VB.NET or C# install into separate directories.

Brad Patton

Posted 2013-04-03T17:16:25.600

Reputation: 9 939

But what happens with the non-common files if both editions have some of the same files? That's what worries me a bit about it and the reason I am here. – LJNielsenDk – 2014-08-11T14:29:43.927