Obtaining the Required Software Before you can develop C# programs, you'll need to install either the .NET Software Development Kit (SDK) or VS .NET. | Obtaining the Required Software Before you can develop C programs you ll need to install either the .NET Software Development Kit SDK or VS .NET. You can download the .NET SDK at http downloads search for the Microsoft .NET Framework Software Development Kit . You can purchase a trial or full copy of VS .NET from Microsoft at http vstudio. To install the .NET SDK run the executable file you downloaded and follow the instructions on the screen to install it on your computer. To install VS .NET run the file on the disk and follow the instructions on the screen. You ll also need a copy of the SQL Server database software. At time of writing you can download a trial version of SQL Server from Microsoft at http sql. You can also purchase a trial or full copy of SQL Server from Microsoft s Web site. This book uses the Developer Edition of the SQL Server 2000 software and uses a database named Northwind. This database contains the information for the fictitious Northwind Company which sells food products to customers. Northwind is one of the example databases that you can install with SQL Server. Customer information in the Northwind database is stored in a table named Customers you ll see the use of this table in the example program later in this chapter. If you don t want to download or purchase a trial version of SQL Server the .NET SDK and VS .NET comes with a stand-alone desktop database server known as the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine MSDE 2000 . MSDE 2000 has a version of the Northwind database that you can use instead of the SQL Server Northwind database-although you won t get all of the graphical administration tools that come with SQL Server. If you re using the .NET SDK and want to install MSDE 2000 select Start Microsoft .NET Framework SDK Samples and QuickStart Tutorials. If you re using VS .NET and want to install MSDE 2000 run the program that you use to install VS .NET
