There are several installation steps to go through before we can get started programming. We need to get Windows IoT Core installed on the Raspberry Pi, we need to install Visual Studio on a Windows 10 PC, and we need to install some support tools on the PC in addition to Visual Studio.

Install Visual Studio on your Windows 10 computer

Make sure you have the latest Windows 10 release installed. Yes, a Windows 10 computer is required!

For program development, you’ll need Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 or later. The Community Edition is free for personal, non-commercial use, and fully supports Windows IoT Core development. This page goes over the steps to install Visual Studio on your computer, or you can follow along here:

• First install Visual Studio Community edition. You can get it from here. If you already have VS 2015 installed, make sure you install the latest update. At the time of this writing, Update 2 is the most recent, and is available for download here.
• Now, open Visual Studio and select Help>About Microsoft Visual Studio, make sure the version of Visual Studio is at least 14.0.24720.00 Update 1, and the version of Visual Studio Tools for Universal Windows Aps is at least 14.0.24720.00

If that’s OK, you need to install the Windows IoT Core Project Templates. Go into Tools > Extensions and Updates.

On the left-hand side of the popup, select “Online”. In the search box in the upper right, type “Windows IoT Core Project Templates”.

In the center window, select the Windows IoT Core Project Templates item from the list, and click the Download button.

While you’re in the Extensions and Updates window, check for updates by clicking “Updates” on the left of the window. Select the updates you want to install, and click the “Update” button.

Finally, make sure developer mode is enabled on your computer. Go to Settings > Update & Security, and click on “For developers”. Click on Developer mode.

Install IoT Core Dashboard on your Windows Computer

After installing Visual Studio, we need to install the Windows 10 IoT Core Dashboard. This allows you to manage your IoT devices.

Download the IoT Core Dashboard from here:

https://iottools.blob.core.windows.net/iotdashboard/setup.exe

Run the setup application, and click “Install”. When the installation is complete, the IoT Core Dashboard will appear on your screen. You will probably also see a Windows Security Alert pop up, asking if you want to allow the Core Dashboard to communicate with your network. Check the ‘Private networks’ box, and then click Allow Access. You may have to stop and restart the Core Dashboard before the change takes effect (sometimes the security alert doesn’t pop up to the front of the screen. If you don’t see it, look for it in your taskbar).

The IoT Core Dashboard shows you all of the IoT devices discovered on your network The Dashboard shows you the name of the device (default name is “minwinpc”, but you can change that)