vb .net standard requirement

I am thinking of buying visual basic .net standard, but I have read that a minimum requirement for visual basic .net standard is that one must have access to a windows web server running .net. Is this true. All I want to do is experiment a little to see if I might like programming visual basic .net. I am an experienced Access 97 developer. I also have Access XP on my computer. Could I develop using VB .net standard against the MSDE? Thanks.

Well, you really dont need a web server. All you need is an NT base OS, which is XP, 2000, NT 4, or 2003. The IDE is only supported on those OS. Now, if you look at it, those OS comes with IIS so you can run them as a web server. And yes you can develop against MSDE.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/pr...s/default.aspx

XP Home doesn't come with IIS, so you can't develop web apps with it.