Express is free
The various Visual Studio Express SKUs are free. You might
think – that’s not news. Well initially we announced that the
Express SKUs would be freely downloadable for a year and then we would probably
start to charge (or make a decision).
We made the decision – it is free
Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2006/04/19/579109.aspx
including information on a whole bunch of neat starter kits like the Microsoft
.NET Interface for Lego Mindstorms Starter Kit