It depends what you&#x27;re doing.<p>If you&#x27;re making libraries, console applications or doing modern websites it&#x27;s pretty easy to get your build working without Visual Studio.<p>One - ELEPHANT SIZE - problem is that for some reason Microsoft only ship the Windows SDKs as part of Visual Studio. Meaning that you&#x27;ll need to install the IDE at least once to get a build running (you can copy the SDKs around after that).<p>Microsofties - I know that a lot of dev-div people will be reading - can you shed some light on this situation? What&#x27;s the reasoning behind not shipping the SDKs separately. I&#x27;ve never had this problem with Java..