VS Preparing your environment - learnclang/1-helloworld GitHub Wiki
As Visual Studio can have an impact on the overall stability of your system, I would recommend encapsulating it within a virtual environment such as VirtualBox.
Alternatively, you could skip this step, and [install Visual Studio directly](VS Installation).
[Skip this step ->](VS Installation)
Getting started
I will be running on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit machine, running another copy of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit in a virtual machine via Oracle VirtualBox. To follow along with these steps, you will need to:
- Obtain a DVD of Windows 7 64-bit (I don't think Professional or Ultimate will matter)
- Download Virtual Box (~100mb)
Starting VirtualBox
Choose to create a new virtual machine, using all of the default settings that go with a Windows 64-bit setup. I typically give it a little more memory, such as 2048 mb. Since Visual Studio is very large (11 Gigabytes if installed with all bells and whistles), you should make sure you are creating a large enough drive. I'm creating a 50GB drive. Once started, it will ask you for an installation disk. Simply point it to your Windows 7 DVD that you downloaded above.
Pick all the default options and go grab a cup of coffee.
Installing the virtual machine utilities (optional)
At first, you'll notice that your cursor lags a little bit and that the refresh rate is close to 12 fps. A virtual machine host such as Virtual Box and VMWare Workstation both ship with drivers for the client that enables various accelerations, mainly to enhance the interactivity of the cursor and refresh rate.
Let's install this now.
- In Virtual Box, under Devices, select
Insert Guest Additions CD Image - A new CD will be mounted (by default to
D:) and can be accessed through Windows Explorer - Go into the CD and execute
VBoxWindowsAdditions - Click
Yeswhenever the installation wizard is requesting permission to install drivers - Reboot