Microsoft gives away free developer software to students

Filed under: Developer, Microsoft, Commercial, Freeware

Microsoft gives away free developer software to students

by Brad Linder Feb 19th 2008

While we're not particularly used to hearing the words "free" and "Microsoft" in the same sentence, the software behemoth does offer a number of free utilities for download on its website. For example, there's SyncToy, Power Toys for XP, and Photo Story. Now Microsoft is also offering free downloads of its commercial developer tools. The only catch? You need to be a student in college or graduate school.

The programs available include:

Students can download full versions of these applications. They aren't limited versions of the full software like Microsoft Accounting Express. The promotion, which Microsoft is calling DreamSpark is available to any student no matter what their area of study. But right now the deal is only good in 11 countries: the US, UK, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Belgium.

You'll need a Windows Live ID to participate. And Microsoft will take steps to verify that you're really a student, so you need to enter the name of the school or institution that can confirm your status before you can download your program.

[via TechCrunch]

Tags: developer, dreamspark, free

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Phil said 10:56AM on 2-19-2008

Is there an age limit to how old the student needs to be? Could I download one for my son in primary school?

emmzee said 10:56AM on 2-19-2008

"The only catch? You need to be a student in college or graduate school."

lillblackdemon said 10:56AM on 2-19-2008

If your school is not registered with Microsoft already, you need to pay a $2.95 fee for them to add you via a third-party service.

Not cool.

@Phil: It looks like it's only for colleges now, but if you go through the questions (I did not, I canceled when I saw the fee on the third-party site) there are options for K12 students.

mertz said 10:56AM on 2-19-2008

Developers Developers Developers!

Oli said 12:21PM on 2-19-2008

Just a quick note for anyone signing up for this. If your educational institute is not listed and you have an ISIC card (e.g. NUS in the UK), then simply select "ISIC" on your country list, then enter your card number.

For NUS users, you need to enter "S" and then the last 12 digits on your card. (for example: S012345678912). This may also work with other student cards. It seems you need to add an "S" at the start of your number in order to be accepted by the site (I found that out through trial and error).

Peter Kirn said 12:22PM on 2-19-2008

Weird that XNA is on there, as it's already free. It looks like they *might* be offering Creators' Club free -- which they really should do for everyone, anyway. (CC allows you to play your games -- and games other people have created using XNA -- on your Xbox 360. For some reason known only to Microsoft, they think a good way to promote indie game development on Xbox 360 is to charge a fee from this, presumably because they don't like the idea of inexperienced programmers putting code in their box.)

Dullest said 12:28PM on 2-19-2008

Anyone else notice that the 3rd party site is pretty much crippled? Loading times are 10 min for me.

David Van said 8:48PM on 2-19-2008

I downloaded it without being in college! Just sign up for live ID or sign in, go selectt your software to download, choose United States, Select: University of California - Los Angeles, Sign up in UCLA site, select The second option: That means you are not in UCLA or college/university YET...., Finish it... Close the tab, reload the download page, select verify, if you see an error just accept it and it should go to the school selection page, select US and UCLA, and press enter, login, wait for it... DOWNLOAD! Be sure to set your bithdate to over 25 to be safe!

Congratzz@! FREE STUFF NOT VIA WAREZ!

RED_404 said 7:50AM on 2-20-2008

This is nothing relay new all you school has to do it be a Microsoft academic partner and they can setup one of these
http://msdn07.e-academy.com/elms/Storefront/Storefront.aspx?campus=fhtc_itd&np1=112
like my tech college

BTW don't base the quality of the collage on my spelling or grammar I know it sucks.

Nirmal Zipher said 12:01AM on 3-13-2008

I think it's great. We at Nirmal Zipher (http://www.nztest.co.za) need test analysts to be trained in Microsoft products and this is an excellent way of getting kids on board.

Nirmal
test@nztest.co.za

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