(1) Setting up your Visual Studio environment to build Universal Windows apps

hi my name is Dante Gagne and I'm here
to kick off the Kinect learn series for
universal Windows platform application
development over the course of this
series I'm going to help you get Visual
Studio onto your machine and get you
started on creating your first Universal
Windows applications in this first video
we're going to focus on just installing
Visual Studio and taking a brief look at
both Visual Studio and blend the two
tools that will be invaluable for your
universal windows application
development now on this machine I'm
going to be installing the Enterprise
Edition now if you want to the Community
Edition also works and most of the
things that we show over this series
will work in either addition but for now
I'm using the Enterprise Edition so
let's go ahead and start with that so
I'm already up here at Visual Studio
comm and you can see already over here
on the left is the button to install
community 2015 this is the free edition
that's available for everybody and most
of the things that I show you over this
series are available in either community
or the enterprise but I'm going to
scroll down just a little bit further
and download the Enterprise Edition once
it comes up the universal Windows
platform tools are not installed by
default so always make sure when you're
installing to switch over to a custom
install come over to the next page and
check the universal Windows app
development tools once these are on the
machine you'll be able to start working
with the universal Windows platform once
you're here just click install and get
ready to go now I'm not going to install
here cuz it does take a few minutes but
we're going to switch over to my other
machine where I already have everything
installed I've already brought up Visual
Studio and again this is the Enterprise
Edition the first thing I want to help
you do is make sure that you've got
everything installed correctly now very
easily all I need to do is go to new
project and once a new project dialog
comes up the first thing I want to make
sure I have is the blank app Universal
Windows this is a universal Windows
platform application if this is not
there you're going to want to go into
your control panel and
modify the Visual Studio installation
and make sure you add the Universal
Windows platform tools whenever you
update Visual Studio it will update any
of the modules that you have for it at
the same time so if you had the
Universal windows tools installed when
you install Visual Studio if you add the
update on top of it it will also bring
the universal Windows platform tools to
the latest version as long as you've got
Universal windows here in your new
project dialog you've got all the tools
installed and you're ready to go now
when you install Visual Studio you're
going to actually get two tools you're
going to get Visual Studio 2015 and
you're going to get blend for Visual
Studio 2015 and a common question gets
asked which one do I use well in a lot
of ways it's a matter of preference
blend really shines when you're working
with the design surface so if you want
to drag out your controls try to get all
your controls aligned nicely and things
like that
that's where blend strengths really
shines through if you're the kind of
developer who prefers to work directly
in the zamel typing each character using
intellisense and taking advantage of the
coding abilities of Visual Studio
that's where visual studios a little bit
stronger but honestly either one works
the desire is available in Visual Studio
and the coding tools are available in
blend over time you'll play with the two
tools I'm sure you'll get more
comfortable in whichever one you like
another question that frequently gets
asked is what happens if my development
house is one that can't move up to
Windows 10 now naturally development on
Windows 10 is going to be the best
option but you can still do Universal
Windows application development on
Windows 8 or 81 you can actually even go
as far back as Windows 7 if you're on
Windows 8 or 81 you're only going to be
able to deploy your application to
emulators or local devices which means
you're not going to be able to use the
design surface and you're not going to
be able to sideload the application onto
your development box you can still
develop that way but it's not the
optimal situation on Windows 7 the
emulators are not available either so on
that device you're going to need a
separate device say some other Universal
Windows application device to deploy to
as you're going along so now we've got
Visual Studio on your machine and you
know you've got the universal Windows
tools in the next video we're going to
be going into actually creating a video
and taking a look at Visual Studio and
blend
so you understand the environment that
we're going to be working with we'll see
you next time