In order to use my Azure trial, I’ll probably want a local copy of Visual Studio to build and publish content. In order to download Visual Studio Community (formerly Professional), I’ll need a Microsoft Live account eligible for the IDE. The good news is that in order to start my Azure account, I had to register a Microsoft Live account anyway. So, I’m halfway there.
Next step will be to log into Visual Studio with my live account: Link Then click the Free Visual Studio option in the upper right and elect to join Visual Studio Dev Essentials.
This brings up a page full of Microsoft tools. While I might have to come back to some of these later, right now I want to click the Download button under Visual Studio Community. This brings me to a download screen for the installer. Once that’s downloaded, I’ll run the setup.
The setup wizard is pretty standard Microsoft boilerplate. Accept the defaults and next through. The wizard will install any dependencies your platform is missing, so you might be in for a bit of a wait and maybe a reboot or two. Once it’s finished, you’ll have the IDE installed and ready to go!
Another thing you’ll want for Azure is the Azure SDK. This has template for projects that are Azure specific as well as other useful plug-ins for Visual Studio. It can be installed at this link : Link Select the SDK most appropriate to your installation. (VS 2015 for me)
One dependency that was required for my install was SQL Server Data Tools 2015. This can be installed either by selecting custom options during your installation or by going back into the install wizard (Control Panel -> Programs & Features) and selecting the option. As with all things, your mileage may vary depending on your environment.
Once you have the IDE installed and are authenticated inside of Visual Studio, you will be able to publish content to Azure resources or nodes associated with your subscription.
Thanks for looking in!