Instead, the company suggested at the time that users of Visual Studio 11 Express would only be able to develop applications.
Last Friday, however, Microsoft did what appears to be an about-face and announced that a new, free-of-charge "Windows Desktop" version of the software--which has since been renamed Visual Studio Express 2012--will support desktop-style applications after all.
"We heard from our community that developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features at the Express level," wrote S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer division, in a on Friday.
"Today, I'm happy to announce that we will add Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop to the Visual Studio 2012 family," Somasegar added. "This will bring to the Visual Studio Express family significant new capabilities that we've made available in Visual Studio 2012 for building great desktop applications."