How would I Practice .NET at Home (gratis)? [closed]

Question

How do you manage to use and practice the Microsoft technologies without the ability or desire to pay for all of the software needed?

Are there free versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, and plugins? Are there any tutorials on how to set up ASP.NET Development on a local server? Is it practical to develop and test on my own machine?

With regards to hosting, is it expensive to use Microsoft-oriented technologies?

Answer 1

There are (free) express editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server 2005/2008. And you don't need any servers to develop ASP.NET applications - you can do this on XP/Vista as well.

You will only need to pay for a hoster if you want to make an application publically available.

Please also have a look at the following question for some similar information: Does Learning C#/.NET Require An MSDN Subscription?

Update: As an alternative to a commercial hoster (e.g. to temporarily make one of your applications available to others), you can host them on your PC and use a dynamic DNS service (such as DynDNS) to make your PC accessible from the internet. Although (as Robert mentions in his comment), permanently hosting a web application in that way might be a violation of your agreement with your ISP.