If you are new to web development or desktop development using C# or F# and or about to use the ASP.NET framework, chances are you might be already using visual studio as your integrated development environment (IDE).
If this is your first time hearing about Visual Studio, it is the best comprehensive IDE for .NET and C++ developers on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Fully packed with a sweet array of tools and features to elevate and enhance every stage of software development.
Now that you know that you need to download and install Visual Studio for your development work, let's go ahead and go step by step into the download and install process.
Deciding Your Visual Studio Installer Based On Your Operating System
Visual Studio offers their IDE for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Windows and Mac get their dedicated IDE software for Windows and Mac. Linux users have to use Visual Studio Code to write their code.
If you are not sure which version of Visual Studio to download and install, use the options provided on the downloads page to check what version of Visual Studio best suits your need.
Download page - Visual Studio Download Page
In this blog post, we are using the Windows version of Visual Studio.
The Visual Studio Suite
Every version of Visual Studio has three options for users to download.
- Visual Studio Community Edition
- Visual Studio Professional Edition
- Visual Studio Enterprise Edition
For developers who work from home and want to use Visual Studio for their hobbies or small projects, Visual Studio Community Edition is Free for use.
Download Visual Studio Code For Windows
On the Visual Studio downloads page, I will go ahead and click on Download Visual Studio Community Edition.
Visual Studio Installer gets downloaded. Click on the Visual Studio Setup file.
Visual Studio Installer prepares itself so that it has enough information for it to be able to download and install Visual Studio.
In the next step, we see that Visual Studio Installer has given us some options that we need to select so that those tools are available to us in the Visual Studio downloaded version.
If you know what tools you want to download, go ahead and select those options for your language or development setup, and once done, click on the Install button.
In our blog post, we are going to use our IDE for developing Web and Windows applications using C# and ASP.NET so I will select these options.
I will select the below options provided:
- ASP.NET and Web Development
- .NET Desktop Development
- Data Storage and Processing
In my Installation, I am selecting the below options but go ahead if you want any other tools for your development.
When all the options have been selected, click on the "Install" button.
Now, the process of installing and downloading Visual Studio has started.
It might take some time for the process to download and install, depending on your internet and system speed.
Once the download and installation are done, if you have the "Start after installation" checkbox checked, Visual Studio will start. Otherwise, you can click on the "Launch" button to start Visual Studio.
On launching Visual Studio, you will see a splash screen that shows you that Visual Studio is starting.
Once opened, Visual Studio offers you some options to start a project or create a new one. To see how you can work with the development technologies go to Development With Microsoft
So that's how you can Download and Install Visual Studio on your operating system.
