Editing WoW:Setting up Visual Studio for WoW XML (section)

== Visual Studio ==

Chances are, you don't just have a copy of Visual Studio hanging around for your coding pleasure. Thankfully, Microsoft has released parts of VS for free. The Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions are simplified copies of the most popular components: C++, C#, Visual Basic, SQL Server, & Visual Web Developer. [http://www.microsoft.com/express/ Download] and install whichever component you think you might get some use out of since all we're really after here is the basic editor environment.  If you are a student, you can also get full versions of Visual Studio from [http://www.dreamspark.com/ Dreamspark], a Microsoft portal for academic software.

Be sure to set up VS as your default XML editor. For Windows XP the easiest way to do this is to right-click on any XML file, click Open With...->Choose Program, select Microsoft Visual Studio from the list (the name may be different depending on the edition you select), check Always use the selected program, and hit OK.