What software you need
First, to develop .NET applications, you need to be running Windows 2000 or
Windows XP on your PC.
Second, to run C# applications, you also need to install either Visual Studio .NET or Visual C# on your PC. Although Visual Studio .NET includes other languages and features, you can do almost everything that this book requires with the Standard Edition of Visual C#, which is the least expensive choice.
In terms of releases, the sample applications in this book were developed using version 7.1 of C#, the version that’s supplied with Visual Studio 2003 or Visual C# Standard Edition 2003. But everything that’s covered also works in version 7.0, the version that comes with the 2002 edition of Visual Studio or Visual C#. You may notice some slight operational variations or differences in the .NET Framework classes, but they shouldn’t cause you any problems.
Finally, to run database applications on your PC (as opposed to using a database server on a network), you also need to install MSDE on your PC. MSDE is the desktop version of SQL Server that can be downloaded for free from Microsoft’s web site if you're using Visual Studio 2003. (MSDE is included in Visual Studio 2002.)
By the way, appendix A of the book shows you how to install the .NET Framework, Visual Studio .NET, and MSDE.
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