The Integrated Devlopment Environment (IDE)

Writing software in Windows is a pretty nice experience compared to other operating systems. Microsoft has done a very good job, in my opinion, of making a programming environment that is easy to use. The environment is called Microsoft Visual Studio.

Visual Studio comes with a compiler and handles all the nasty source code management for the programmer so he/she can focus on writing code, not managing it. The only downside to Visual Studio is that it is not free...however, Microsoft does release stripped-down versions of Visual Studio for individual languages.

The free versions go by the name Microsoft Visual Studio Express and can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. The fastest way to find the IDE you need to program in C is to search Google for Microsoft Visual C++

About the Author

Grant Dryden works in the defense industry as a computer engineer. He writes software in C and C++ for embedded systems as well as firmware in VHDL. He has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and is currently working towards a a Master of Science in Information Security.