Microsoft don't seem to do upgrades. you have to pay for the full thing every couple of years when the new versions come out.
Or.
So long as your version is up to date I bet you anything the 2010 users haven't got anything you haven't got already. I use 2010 express, the only thing I can say I have that you haven't got is the function stub creator, it is handy but not worth the cost of a new version.
All it does is allow you to reference your functions before you write them. Lets say you have a dile class that does something, you create the class and write your primary function with what you want to do -
Class
{
Image myImage;
public Image GetThumbnail(string thisImage)
{
//write your functions as if you were writing psudo code
CheckFileIsAnImage(thisImage);
CreateThumbFromImage(thisImage);
return myImage;
}
}
You can write like that then go through them having VS create the functions for you, it's a touch clever too, if the function should be in another class it puts it there, and it suggests when a function maybe ought to be a property instead.
What you lose with express are some of the items around database access,You can still do it but a lot of the helpers are gone.
I wonder if you can have both VS and VS Express 2010 onboard at the same time? I know I have 2 versions of Express (2008 and 2010) active on this machine. Just there was a thing once where the installer of VS insisted you delete any express editions, not sure if that still happens.