4 Part I Getting Started with Microsoft Visual Basic 2010
The Visual Studio Development Environment
First, a quick note to readers upgrading from Visual Studio 2008: Although there have
been lots of internal improvements to Visual Studio 2010, the Visual Studio 2010 IDE is largely
the same IDE that you worked with in Visual Studio 2008. But because you may be new to
Visual Studio, I’m going to explain the basics in this chapter. Also, if you’re new to Visual
Studio, something else that you should know is that although the programming language
you’ll be learning in this book is Visual Basic, most of the features in the Visual Studio IDE
apply equally to Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C++, and Microsoft Visual C#. All of these
programs (or more properly, compiler technologies) are available to you in the same IDE,
which you can experiment with now by starting Visual Studio and looking at the product.Important But wait a second. If you haven’t yet installed this book’s practice files, please
do so now because we are about to use them. Take a moment to work through the sections
entitled “Finding Your Best Starting Point” and “About the CD and Practice Files” in this book’s
Introduction, and then follow the installation steps. (I recommend that you place the project
files and related subfolders in the C:\Vb10sbs folder on your computer .) You also need a current
version of Visual Studio 2010 installed, such as Visual Studio 2010 Professional edition. (Most of
the exercises will also work with Visual Studio 2010 Express .) Return to this point in Chapter 1
when you’re ready to go.Start Visual Studio 2010- On the Windows taskbar, click Start, click All Programs, and then click the Microsoft
Visual Studio 2010 folder.
The folders and icons in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 folder appear in a list. - Click the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 icon.
Tip If you are using Visual Basic 2010 Express, click the Microsoft Visual Basic 2010
Express icon.If this is the first time you are starting Visual Studio, the program will take a few
moments to configure the environment. If you are prompted to identify your
programming preferences at this time, select Visual Basic development settings.
When Visual Studio starts, you see the development environment on the screen with
its many menus, tools, and component windows, as shown here. (These windows are
sometimes called tool windows .) You also should see a Start Page containing a set of
tabs with links, guidance and learning resources, news, and project options. The Start
Page is a comprehensive source of information about your project, as well as resources