What's the difference between Visual Studio 2008 Standard and Professional?

Question

What does Pro have that's not in Standard (or vice-versa)?

I need Visual Studio for personal use but I can't use the Express editions because I need T4.

Answer 1

Here's a nice list:

Debugging Tools:

• Attach to Remote Process
• SQL-CLR Debugging
• XSLT Debugger
• T-SQL Debugging

Data Tools:

• Database Projects
• SQL Server Projects
• Server Explorer

Reporting:

• Crystal Reports Application & Crystal Reports for Visual Studio

Office development:

• VSTO for Office 2003 and Office 2007
• Sharepoint 2007 State Machine workflow template

Smart Device Development:

• Device Emulator
• Project Templates
• Debugging Tools

Moocha and Filip Ekberg provided a really good reference to the feature matrix.

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From the comments:

• ctacke: Smart device development is better supported under Pro (Search for "Smart Device Development" on the feature matrix)

Answer 2

Microsoft Download Center, "Visual Studio 2008 Product Comparison Guide" http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=727BCFB0-B575-47AB-9FD8-4EE067BB3A37&displaylang=en

Answer 3

Much as I hate to steer you away from giving us money, you'll find that T4 is indeed available in Express editions.

However, it's 'Add new item' templates are missing so it's not very obvious. If you create a text file and then rename it to have a .tt extension then it should magically start working.