Which Visual Studio is will Work?

[Top Gun]

My client is about to purchase Test Studio. They are interested in a full version and maybe some run time versions. With the full version, when writing a coded step we will need to reference assemblies provided by Visual Studio. For example I may need to read or write data to the Sql Server database. Which flavor/version of Visual Studio do I need to install so I can reference the needed assemblies? There is Visual Studio standard edition, ultimate and so on. Which versions will suffice. The department needs to understand the price. Also, the Test Studio runtime version will only run the test scripts. But will the Runtime version also require a Visual Studio installation? I hope this makes sense.

[Cody]

Hi Top Gun,

Actually I'm not convinced you need Visual Studio at all! In your example, accessing a SQL database, we have this code sample demonstrating exactly how to do that and it does NOT require Visual Studio. Is there another example you can think of you'll want to write code for? There's probably a free downloadable SDK to handle it.

I will admit that using Visual Studio is useful when you want to write and debug a lot of code. For that purpose any version but the free Visual Studio Express will suffice. Unless you really need to do source code level debugging I would question the need for Visual Studio at all.

Greetings,
Cody
the Telerik team

[Top Gun]

In your example, you need to add a reference to System.Data.dll.  I was able to add the reference only because I had installed VS2010 ultimate.  I think there should be a free .NET SDK available for download that would provide these assemblies.  And, I believe Visual Studio Express edition is free.  Visual Studio Express would probably include the free .NET SDK.  Maybe that is the best way to go.  Thanks for the help.

[Cody]

Hello Top Gun,

Yes Visual Studio Express edition is free and should install the Reference Assemblies folder. Give it a try and let me know if you run into problems. You can also try this SDK installer for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4.

All the best,
Cody
the Telerik team

[Top Gun]

That sounds good.  I have passed the information to the client.  I guess they just want to get an idea of what will be needed.  Again, thanks for the help.