Before getting started we need a program to write code in. Visual Studio is one of the go-to IDEs for writing C, and it’s what I’ll be using for these tutorials. It’s free and easy to install.
Note that Visual Studio (which I’m recommending you use) is a different program than Visual Studio Code. Here are the steps for downloading Visual Studio:
- Go to Visual Studio 2022 IDE – Programming Tool for Software Developers (microsoft.com)
- Click the “Download” button. It will expand a dropdown menu.
- Click “Community 2022”. This will download an executable file for the visual studio installer.
- Open the executable to run the installer.
- Hit continue.
- Check off “Desktop development with C++”. The C++ option contains everything we need to write code in C or C++.
- Click the install button in the bottom right-hand corner of the window.
- Once the installation and download are done, it will ask you to sign in. Click “Skip this for now”.
- Select your color theme and click “Start Visual Studio”.
Now your IDE (integrated development environment) is installed and ready to use. You’re ready to start coding.