Getting Started with Windows Azure: Part 1 - Setting up your development environment

Follow along as I learn all about Windows Azure.

Part 0 - Where do I go to get started? 
Part 1 - Setting up your development environment <<<< YOU ARE HERE
Part 2 - Creating a Windows Azure Hello World Application

From the Windows Azure Getting Started Roadmap there are some bullet points on how to get started with your development environment.

I did download the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit but it is a 122MB download with what looks like tons of great samples but feels a bit too overwhelming right now.  I will move onto Step 2 - Configuring your machine and see if I need to come back to the Training Kit later.

I am running Windows Server 2008 and have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 installed.  I did download and install the 3 hotfixes listed at the bottom.  Some of them said they were not required after I ran them.  I also confirmed that I had WCF Activation installed along with HTTP Activation.

Step 3 – Download Tools & SDK: I let the Web Platform Installer take care of this for me.  It is possible that the Web Platform Installer would have done the other Step 2 items too but I am not sure.

Step 4 – Windows Azure Sample Application is an old application from August 2009 with comments from people that it does not work anymore.  I skipped that.

So at this point I think my development environment is setup but I am not sure though since I don’t have a Hello World to try out.  I will update this blog post as I learn more.  My next post will show how to create that first Windows Azure Hello World Application.

Follow along as I learn all about Windows Azure… next up:
         Part 2 – Creating a Windows Azure Hello World Application