In this guided tour you will learn about the Visual Studio development environment and about the various types of applications that you can create with Visual C++. This includes command-line application, Windows applications, and even a simple game. This guided tour will also teach you how to create reusable libraries of code, and how to ship your code to customers after you have written and tested it.
Because each topic builds on information in the topics before it, we recommend that you complete the guided tour in order. At the bottom of each topic, you will find navigation links to the next topic in the guided tour, and a link to the previous topic if you want to go back and review something.
The guided tour assumes that you understand the fundamentals of the C++ language. If you are just getting started learning C++, we recommend the "C++ Beginner's Guide," written by Herb Schildt, available online at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=115303.
Describes how to use the Visual Studio IDE to create solutions and projects, to write code efficiently, and to build, debug, test, and deploy applications.
Introduces C and C++ command-line application, talks about how to create an ANSI conformant C or C++ program, and describes how to compile applications by using the command-line compilers.
Describes how to create Windows API (Win32) applications, Windows Forms applications, Windows Forms controls, and even a simple DirectX game.
Describes how to create dynamic link libraries (DLLs), static libraries, and managed assemblies so that code can easily be reused by multiple applications.
Contains links to other sections of the documentation where you can learn more about the topics that are introduced in the guided tour.
Next: Introducing the Visual Studio IDE (C++)