Setting up your PC

For the projects in this book, I'll be using the .NET 10 SDK for building apps, Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026 for my IDE, Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Express Edition for data storage, and Microsoft Azure for cloud hosting.

You will need .NET 10 installed on your PC to complete the projects in this book. To determine the version of .NET that is running on your computer, open Command Prompt and enter the following command:

dotnet –-version

If your computer is not running .NET 10.0 or higher, follow the directions in the Installing .NET 10 SDK section later in this chapter.

All the projects are built using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026 (64-bit), version 18.5, with the ASP.NET and Web Development workload. If you need to install Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026, follow the directions in the Installing Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition section later in this chapter.

Chapter 3, Debugging and Deploying a Blazor WebAssembly App, uses Microsoft Azure to publish a Blazor WebAssembly app to the cloud. If you want to complete the project, you will need a Microsoft Azure account. If you need to create a Microsoft Azure account, follow the directions in the Creating a Microsoft Azure account section later in this chapter.

The project in Chapter 12, Building a Task Manager with Blazor WebAssembly and ASP.NET Core Web API, uses Microsoft SQL Server as the backend database. If you need to install Microsoft SQL Server, follow the directions in the Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Express section later in this chapter.

Installing .NET 10 SDK

To install .NET 10.0, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Download .NET page, https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download.
2. Select .NET 10.0 to navigate to the Download .NET 10.0 page.
3. Download Windows x64 SDK installer.
4. Click the Install button to complete the installation of the .NET 10 SDK:

   

   Figure 1.2 – Microsoft .NET SDK installer

5. Open Command Prompt and enter the following command to verify that your computer is now running .NET 10:

   dotnet –-version

   The following screenshot is from a computer that is running .NET 10.0:

   

   Figure 1.3 – .NET version

Installing Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition 2026

Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition is the FREE edition of Microsoft Visual Studio. To install Microsoft Visual Studio Community Edition, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com.
2. Click the Get free download button and open the VisualStudioSetup.exe file once it finishes downloading.

   If you already have an edition of Visual Studio installed, your new installation will be installed side by side.

   

   Figure 1.4 – Select workloads dialog

   If you already have Visual Studio Community Edition 2026 installed, ensure that the ASP.NET and web development workload is selected and that the .NET 10.0 WebAssembly Build Tools checkbox is also selected.

3. Select the ASP.NET and web development workload and select the .NET 10.0 WebAssembly Build Tools on the far right in the Installation details section.

   

   Figure 1.5 – The Visual Studio installer

Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Express

Microsoft SQL Server Express is the free edition of Microsoft SQL Server. To install Microsoft SQL Server Express, do the following:

1. Download the Microsoft SQL Server installer for SQL Server 2025 Express from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downloads.
2. After the download is completed, open the SQL Server installer.
3. Select the Basic installation type:

   

   Figure 1.6 – SQL Server 2025 Express Edition installer

4. Click the Accept button to accept the Microsoft SQL Server license terms.
5. Click the Install button to complete the installation.

Creating a Microsoft Azure account

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft's cloud platform, offering hundreds of products and cloud services. You can use it to run and manage applications with your preferred tools and frameworks.

If you don't already have a Microsoft Azure account, you can create a FREE account. New accounts come with a generous $200 credit to get you started and over 65 free services.

Figure 1.7 – Microsoft Azure free account

To create a free Microsoft Azure account, do the following:

1. Navigate to the Microsoft Azure page, https://azure.microsoft.com/.
2. Click the Get started with Azure button.
3. Click the Try Azure for free button.
4. Create an account.

To complete all the projects in this book, you will need the .NET 10 SDK, a code editor, such as Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2026, a Microsoft Azure account, and any edition of Microsoft SQL Server. This section covered preparing your development environment.