Introduction xxi
Prerelease Software
This book was reviewed and tested against the Release Candidate of Visual
Studio 2010. The Release Candidate was the last preview before the final release of
Visual Studio 2010. This book is expected to be fully compatible with the final release of
Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Basic 2010. If there are any changes or corrections for this
book, they will be collected and added to an easy-to-access Microsoft Knowledge Base
article on the Web. See “Support for This Book,” later in this Introduction.Digital Content for Digital Book Readers: If you bought a digital-only edition of this book, you can
enjoy select content from the print edition’s companion CD.
Visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=187514 to get your downloadable content. This content
is always up-to-date and available to all readers.Installing and Using the Practice Files
The CD inside this book contains the practice files that you’ll use as you perform the exercises
in the book. For example, when you’re learning how to display database tables on a form
by using the DataGridView control, you’ll open one of the practice files—an academic
database named Faculty2010 .accdb—and then use Visual Studio database programming
tools to access the database. By using the practice files, you won’t waste time creating files
that aren’t relevant to the exercise. Instead, you can concentrate on learning how to master
Visual Basic 2010 programming techniques. With the files and the step-by-step instructions
in the chapters, you’ll also learn by doing, which is an easy and effective way to acquire and
remember new skills.Important Before you break the seal on the CD, be sure that this book matches your version
of the software. This book is designed for use with Visual Studio 2010 and the Visual Basic 2010
programming language. To find out what software you’re running, you can check the product
package, or you can start the software, open a project, and then click About Microsoft Visual
Studio on the Help menu at the top of the screen.Installing the Practice Files
Installing the practice files on your hard disk requires approximately 10 megabytes (MB) of
disk space. Follow these steps to install the practice files on your computer’s hard disk drive
so that you can use them with the exercises in this book.- Remove the CD from the package inside this book and insert it into your CD drive.
Note An End-User License Agreement (EULA) should open automatically. If this
agreement does not appear, you can double-click StartCD .exe on the CD. If you have
Windows 7 or Windows Vista, click Computer on the Start menu, double-click the icon for
your CD drive, and then double-click StartCD .exe.