Download and install: Visual Studio Community (free)
During installation, select “.NET desktop development” workload. This is sufficient for the starting semester.
Why this version? Many examples in this material use WinForms, which works best in Visual Studio for Windows. Teachers and fellow students also typically use this version.
Recommended: Visual Studio Code - Free, cross-platform code editor.
Note: Visual Studio Code doesn’t support WinForms. If you need WinForms for assignments, consider:
Official tutorials:
Quick test: After installation, create a new “Windows Forms App (.NET Framework)” project. Add code, click Start (F5) to run.