Read this if you are installing VS 2010 Web Developer Express on Windows XP

Be aware that the installation of Visual Web Developer 2010 Express on Windows XP will work only if it has SP3. I guess this holds true for other Express products as well. I didn't find an explicit page describing the minimum system requirements and I learnt about this by trial & error or rather after reading this thread on the IIS.NET Forums after encountering the error. The post also provides a link to an ISO image of Windows SP3 (544.9 MB) in case you need it. You can use an open source tool like 7-Zip (that also does compression) to extract files from the ISO file.


The setup for Visual Web Developer 2010 Express requires Web Platform Installer (WebPI) to be installed. In my case, after I executed the Installer, I expected it to drive me through the steps but it suddenly fell quiet. I had to go to Windows Start > Programs to see Web Platform Installer there, activate it & proceed further.

If you run into any other issues with the Web Platform Installer,  the WebPI section on the IIS.NET Forums is probably the best place to look for answers.


Unlike the VS 2008 comparison of editions, the VS 2010 comparison of features among editions does not include the Express edition (yet)