Is VisualStudio.com in anyway perpetual?

[coffeeprogrammer]

Does any one know how the VisualStudio.com licenses work? I very seldom buy subscription software, I last renewed my VisualStudio.com subscription in 2020 for $800, but after that I never renewed. I was looking at the cost of Visual Studio Pro, Windows Server and Client retail and it might actually be cheaper just to buy those three products as retail and have perpetual licenses than to buy a individual VisualStudio.com subscription that is only valid with Microsoft while it is being renewed (as in not perpetual). If I only bought those like every three years or four years, I think it would be cheaper. I guess if the VisualStudio.com subscription keys are perpetual I would just buy that, but all I really want is Visual Studio, Windows Client and Server and I would rather just own it forever. I tried reading the information from Microsoft’s site, but I can not easy make sense of it.

 

[PHolder]

Visual Studio

Does the Community Version not meet your needs? Heck, their free editor tool, https://code.visualstudio.com/ , is good for most people. I would stick to free options until you have a need for something paid. (Usually implying you're trying to commercialize a product.) https://www.embarcadero.com/ also have some free tools, some that even have UI builders. Also there are actual FOSS tools too, like https://www.lazarus-ide.org/ and many more I'm sure I am unaware of. (I have a bent for Borland inspired tools because I grew up using Delphi to make utilities.)

 

[coffeeprogrammer]

Perhaps, the specific reason I want Visual Studio on my personally owned hardware is because I have been slowly buying all the courses on trainsec.net. What I currently have for Microsoft licenses is what I have left over from my last VisualStudio.com renewal and two copies of Windows 7. I was running Windows 10 LTSC on my main machine, but the installation was getting in really bad shape, so I wiped it out and am currently running Linux on a KDE desktop. I would reinstall Windows 10, but the VisualStudio.com login does not show the Windows 10 LTSC key that I used. I assume it disappeared when the subscription lapsed.

Part of my motivation is that I am trying to pay more attention to the economics of software, including software development. In particular well designed and engineered software that is written with quality in mind. The term I have started using for this is developer friendly. I never really paid much attention to software licenses before, but am wondering what does it take to build and maintain a quality system. That includes software used to build systems and what the vendors are really trying to sell. The way I am, that would start with what the software is running on. I started learning about Windows Internal and Linux will be next. As a developer, I want to understand what different companies are trying to get me like me to agree to when they sell a piece of software, too me, I think that means understanding the licensing, which is not clear by looking at Microsoft’s site. I am not sure if this is true for all companies or just Microsoft.

I am not making a commercialize product on my own hardware, so perhaps the community version would work. I am not sure if there is anything specific in the trainsec.net courses that require anything higher. I do know that some of then, like the kernel programming one, would require at least two Windows installations. In some sense, I would rather pay something and get exactly what I want rather than paid nothing and hope it is good enough or paid for more than I need and not own it forever. I would rather pay for exactly what I want and own it forever and be very clear about it. Maybe some companies don’t care that much about what individual people want on their own machines. I dunno.