Windows 8 App Development - Part 2 of ?

Installing Visual Studio 2012

Whaddup Internet. 

The next part of my epic app development blog is to set up Visual Studio 2012 which I am downloading from the official Windows 8 developer centre here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps

So anyway I downloaded Visual Studio Express for Windows 8 and ran the installer - Immediately got an error to say my version of .Net 4.5 is not up to visual studio standards... boo!

Found out this is an issue because I downloaded the very latest RTM of Windows 8 I need the visual studio 2012 Release Candidate for Windows 8... I found it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29915

This installed successfully and I am on my way to app development greatness... woot!

OK To start with it looks like you need a Developer License for Windows 8, I presume this is tantamount to getting your Apple Dev license so I just click "I Agree" and MS added one to my live account which expires in a couple of months. If you haven't got a live account by now and want to do the Microsoft thing I strongly suggest getting one.. its pretty painless and you get free hotmail and a SkyDrive account with like 7GB on it so its not all bad... 

Digression: To attach pictures to these blog posts (which I am writing on my Win 7 gaming PC) I take screenshots in Win 8 then save to my Sky drive using the native app and pull it from there into the blog on my other PC.. Sky Drive is super handy (or Dropbox or Google drive or iCloud).

With VS 2012 RC installed and my license set up I can start building my app. first I'm doing some reading on the MS recommendations for app planning. I already have a very good idea of what I am trying to build so I'll hop into it after confirming there's nothing else I need to know or do... 

Next Episode: App Project Planning and Design.

Peace.