With VC++ Express, You get whole SDK, You can use it to build ewerything.
You don't need to use MS VS at all to build Your app.
Here is a MS toolchains & sdk+IDE set listed:
MS Toolchain
I'm not shure does MS release stand alone toolchain for compiler+linker, but this could be found on MSDN certainly.
More info about SDKs:
MSDN
Summarize, You can have any binutils & toolsets installed on Your development machine.
However You need to set up Your project properly, to build it succesfully.
For ex. setting environment variables properely (pointing INCLUDE, LIB, LIB_PATH to proper SDK directories).
You could compile and link Your project manually.
Totally ignoring IDE (and certainly You will in future).
Simply try to automate Your build.
Read about SCONS (since You use QT - it support MOC objects), CMAKE or Qt's QMAKE for that.
Then the IDE problem is less significant problem. And You shouldn't stick to Your IDE.