MSDN Express Library for Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition

The Microsoft MSDN Express Library is an abridged version of the full Microsoft MSDN Library. It contains the most important content for new users of Visual Studio 2008 Express Editions with SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition to get familiar with both the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Microsoft’s Development Languages (VB, C#, C++), and most of the core .NET Framework classes. The MSDN Express Library is just under 300 MB in size.

MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008

The complete Microsoft MSDN Library is also freely available for those who wish a more comprehensive set of documentation including all of the Win32 API, the complete .NET Framework documentation, as well as documentation for many other valuable Software Development Kits (SDKs). Click here to download the full Microsoft MSDN Library as an ISO (2 GB) now.

Microsoft MSDN Online Library

You may also configure your Visual Studio product to use MSDN Online Help by default rather than downloading either of these products. In your Visual Studio product, select Tools -> Options from the application menu. Then select Environment -> Help -> Online in the Options dialog. Under "When loading Help content" select "Try online first, then local" and click OK. Visual Studio will now default to looking Online first for any help requests. Navigate to the MSDN Online Library outside of Visual Studio 2008.