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34 Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: A Beginner’s Guide
Office Projects
For years, developers have been writing Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs
to automate Microsoft Office applications. An Office project allows you to automate
Office applications through .NET using languages such as VB and C#. Supported Office
applications include Excel, Word, Project, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, and InfoPath.
SharePoint Projects
SharePoint is a technology for building portal-style Web applications. It is closely
associated with Office applications and managing workgroup collaboration. In order
to create and run SharePoint projects, the computer you use to run VS will need to be
running one of Microsoft’s server platforms, such as Server 2008. SharePoint does not run
on Windows 7, Vista, or Windows XP.
Database Projects
Database projects include a SQL Server project type, offering close integration with SQL
Server for building .NET code that runs inside of SQL Server. For example, you can write
stored procedures and functions in either C# or VB and have the benefit of the .NET
Framework in your code. VS makes it easy to deploy your code to SQL Server with a
single mouse click.
Summary
By knowing the benefits of VS, you have an appreciation for what VS can do for you,
increasing your productivity through automatically generated code, rapid coding and
visual design, and extensibility. You should be able to install VS, choosing the options that
prepare the environment specifically for the work you want to do. Another set of skills
you gained was the ability to manipulate the layout of your environment and manage
environment settings, including how to get your environment back to the default settings
if you’ve made too many changes. Having grown acquainted with each of the major
features of the IDE, you can open VS and find the features that you need. With your
knowledge of the advantages of VS, proper installation, and awareness of VS capabilities,
you are now ready to start your first software development project, which you’ll learn
about in the next chapter.