Free Development Software: DreamSpark

Microsoft has decided to release full versions of its professional development tools to college students in a program called Microsoft DreamSpark.

The software available is:

• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
• Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition
• SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
• Expression Studio
• XNA Game Studio 2.0 with a 12 month XNA Creator's Club Online trial subscription

As of right now you have to go through a special kind of hell JourneyED to get verified as a student, but it's still worth it to get your hands on this (very) expensive software if software development is something you're interested in.