I typically teach this course once each year in the Summer session via Distance Learning. For the past several years, students have reported that it has become increasingly difficult to find and download the necessary Microsoft software for the course. In preparation for the Summer 2016 session, I decided to do the following:
I also decided to upgrade from XNA 4.0 to a newer product named Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh. Here is what Microsoft has to say about the newer product:
Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh updates XNA Game Studio 4.0 to fix bugs and add support for developing games that target Windows Phone OS 7.1 and developing games in Visual Basic.
Microsoft's installation instructions for the new software read as follows:
As you can see from the installation instructions, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is required. This has been a big part of the student's problems in downloading and installing the software in previous semesters.
However, a different page indicates that Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition will suffice in place of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. That page reads as follows:
XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh works with any of the following Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 products.
I will have more to say about this later.
I began by using the software removal procedures in the Control Panel to remove three different Microsoft XNA items and one item titled Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express - ENU. At that point, my computer had no XNA capability and no Visual C# capability.
A big part of the student's problems in previous semesters has been the difficulty of finding and downloading Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition. The only way that I have found to download it is by clicking the following link: Visual Studio 2010 Express All-in-One ISO and saving the file named VS2010Express1.iso that is downloaded.
This file not only contains Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition, it also contains the express editions for several other languages as well. However, it is not an installable product at this point.
There is more than one way to install the software in the ISO file. You might benefit by doing some online research into how to install the software in an ISO file. Here is how I did it with Windows 7:
The resulting DVD contains an installable version of Visual Studio 2010 Express, which in turn contains Visual C# 2010 Express and some other programs as well.
Insert the DVD in the DVD reader and select Setup.hta. You should then be given a choice as to which of the express edition programs you want to install.
Select Visual C# and follow the installation instructions.
When the installation is complete, you should be able to see Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express if you open the Start menu and enter 2010 in the search box.
At this point, you can run the program, open the Help menu, and select Check for Updates to satisfy the second item under XNA installation instructions.
This is the easy part. Click here to visit a page where you can download the setup file named XNAGS40_setup.exe for Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh. Download, save, double click the file, and follow instructions to install the software.
When the installation is complete, XNA should be merged with Visual C# and you should be able to begin creating the programs for the course at XNA Game Studio.
I have confirmed that all of the assignment and sample program for this course, which were originally written using XNA 4.0 execute properly under XNA 4.0 Refresh.
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File: GAME1343DownloadInstallXna