Microsoft have been giving free versions of their professional range to students for several years with the Dreamspark program :) https://www.dreamspark.com
Also MSDN Academic Alliance. Almost every MS product except Office is there for students, for free. That includes Visual Studio, all Windows version starting at 98 (including Server editions), XNA, and much more.
Edit: Now I see that it's probably the same thing. I'll leavy my comment here though, if anyone else was familiar with MSDNAA.
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Microsoft have been giving free versions of their professional range to students for several years with the Dreamspark program :) https://www.dreamspark.com
Also MSDN Academic Alliance. Almost every MS product except Office is there for students, for free. That includes Visual Studio, all Windows version starting at 98 (including Server editions), XNA, and much more.
Edit: Now I see that it's probably the same thing. I'll leavy my comment here though, if anyone else was familiar with MSDNAA.