title: Any point in having BizTalk Server Developer Edition without proper Visual Studio?
body: <p>Microsoft provides a <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/developer.aspx" rel="nofollow">free Developer Edition of BizTalk Server</a>. I'd like to do some BizTalk development to get insights into what I think is an interesting bit of enterprise technology. Now, <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/en/us/system-requirements.aspx" rel="nofollow">BizTalk Server systems requirements</a> list a full version of Visual Studio as a prerequisite for the BizTalk Developer Tools:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 provides a development environment for
    rapidly building applications that target any device and integrate
    with any platform. This is required for the Developer Tools and SDK
    component of both BizTalk Server and BizTalk RFID. The Developer Tools
    and SDK component cannot be installed on Visual Studio 2010 Express
    Editions.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>There's a video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLEvSF0Bpzw" rel="nofollow">Example of an Orchestration (BizTalk)</a> that gives you an idea of what the Dev Tools for VS look like.</p>
  
  <p>Is it possible to do BizTalk development without the Dev Tools? Does it make sense? Is there any point in installing BizTalk Server on a developer machine without a non-Express version of Visual Studio?</p>