Small tip for you. Microsoft frequently has 'launch parties' or 'launch events' in which they frequently distribute licensed, not for resale copies, of that product. I've gotten the last two versions of VS (2005 and 2008) by attending my local .NET user group chapter during those days.
As of late April 2009, Microsoft has
discontinued all previous versions of
Visual Studio Express, including 2005.
It is no longer possible to obtain
these previous versions from the
Microsoft website.
For somebody like me who lands onto this page from Google ages after this question had been posted, you can find VS2005 here: http://apdubey.blogspot.com/2009/04/microsoft-visual-studio-2005-express.html
EDIT: In case that blog dies, here are the links from the blog.
Small tip for you. Microsoft frequently has 'launch parties' or 'launch events' in which they frequently distribute licensed, not for resale copies, of that product. I've gotten the last two versions of VS (2005 and 2008) by attending my local .NET user group chapter during those days.
From Here
Visual Studio 2005 has been dropped for public download by Microsoft.
You can still get it from MSDN if you have a current account, but the public downloads have all been dropped. You can only get VS 2008 Express.
You can still get it, from microsoft servers, see my answer on this question: Where is Visual Studio 2005 Express?