Lab 0: Lab Orientation

At the start of today's lab, obtain a CS 446 account and password from your instructor and log in to this account.

Note: A common bug is for the Windows network to claim you do not have permission to change your password. The workaround to this bug is to re-boot the computer. You should now have the required permission.

Using Visual Studio.NET 2008

The newest version of Microsoft Visual Studio installed in the Lab is VS.NET 2008.

Older versions are also installed (2003, 2005, and 6.0), so be careful when starting up the IDE that you are using the latest version of Visual Studio.

If you would like to install a copy of Visual Studio.NET 2008 on your home computer, please see Fred Stanley. As part of CWU computer science department's Microsoft Academic Alliance subscription, CWU computer science majors may install several Microsoft development tools on their home computers for free.

Microsoft makes available a free version of Visual C# Express that should work fine for all the labs and programs done in CS 446. Download Visual C# 2008 Express from the Microsoft site to use at home.

Visual Studio.NET is a very feature-rich IDE for developing console, window, Web, XML Web service, smart device, and mobile Web applications using the .NET framework class library. Throughout the quarter, we will use many of these features to help design C# window applications with graphical user interfaces (GUI) using templates, drag-and-drop visual programming, and auto-generated code for Window applications.

Speeding Up Visual Studio

the power of Visual Studio comes at a price: it can be painfully slow starting up in the Hebeler labs and network. Worst is the initial launch of VS. While VS.NET will never seem speedy, here are a couple of things we have used in the past to speed it up.

Note: I have noticed and read that VS 2008 has improved in speed its speed and responsiveness. We will see how it does this quarter.

From the Tools menu, choose Options. Click Show all Settings
1. In the Environment options, click Startup, select Show Empty Environment and unclick Download content every:
  - By default, Visual Studio opens with the Start Page. Change this so the VS begins with an empty environment
  - Tip: To view the Start Page, select View menu, select Other Windows > Start Page
2. In the Environment options, click General, type 1 items shown in most recently used lists
  - By default, VS displays 4 items under the File menu's Recent Files and Recent Solutions items. Since it takes a while to gather this information over a network, reduce this number to 1 (the minimum)
3. Close Infrequently Used IDE Windows that you do not use. By default, Visual Studio comes up with multiple windows open, two of which we will not use initially.
  - Close the Dynamic Help window by clicking on its close box
    - Dynamic Help tends to slow everything down.
    - Tip: To open dynamic help, select Dynamic Help from the Help menu
  - Close the Server Explorer window by clicking its close box
    - The Server Explorer window is used to connect to databases
    - We will cover databases later in the quarter, so at this point just close the window
    - Caution: Solution Explorer is a similar sounding window that is used all the time
    - Tip: You can open up any of the closed IDE windows from the View menu

Experiment with the other options, as see if they make any difference. If you are successful, pass the tip on so others can benefit

CS 446 Lab Tips

It is a good idea to carefully read the CS 446 labs before coming to class to familiarize yourself with the material. In addition, some students like to print out the lab to have the hard-copy next to them.
During lab, many students learn well by following along on their lab computer. However, if you feel you learn best just listening and taking notes, that is fine.
If you want to pair up on one computer as well, that's great. Do what works best with your learning style, you never need to turn in the work done in lab for a grade.
Try to get to lab early and start up Visual Studio 2008 as soon as you get there. Since it can take several minutes to load, it is best if we try to stagger the load times to reduce server traffic
Avoid the temptation to read email, surf the Internet, or work on problems other than the lab being discusses. Not only will you be missing out on the information, it is rude to the students around you and to the instructor.