Headed and Headless

There are two basic types of Windows IoT Core applications: “headed” and “headless”.

“Headless” apps have no graphical user interface (GUI), and are said to run “in the background”. That is, they continue to run even when you start up a “headed” application. Also, they don’t depend on having a monitor attached to the system.

“Headed” applications have a GUI, so you need a display attached to your system in order to use them.

C-Sharp (C#)

Using Visual Studio, you can program your Raspberry Pi in C# or Visual Basic (or even C++). Microsoft has unified the API (Application Programmability Interface) between C# and Visual Basic, so it’s easy to switch between them. We’ll be using C# for this tutorial (just because we like it better, and hey, it’s our tutorial anyway!).

Instructions on the C# and Visual Basic programming languages are wayyy beyond the scope of this tutorial, so we’ll assume you already know the basics.