How to: Use a Starter Kit to Create a New Project

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You can search online for custom project templates, called Starter Kits, to use in Visual Studio.

Note

The dialog boxes and menu commands you see might differ from those described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

Creating a project from a Starter Kit includes the following steps:

  1. Locating the Starter Kit.

  2. Installing the Starter Kit so that it appears in the New Project dialog box in Visual Studio.

  3. Creating a project based on the Starter Kit from the New Project dialog box.

Search for Starter Kits online

You can search for online Starter Kits by keyword. Once you have located the Starter Kit you intend to use, you can read additional information about the Starter Kit and decide whether or not to download it.

To search for a Starter Kit online

  1. On the File menu, choose New and then choose Project.

  2. In the My Templates list, select Search Online Templates and then click OK.

    The Search page of Help appears, with the Templates & Starter Kits option selected for the Content Type filter.

  3. In the text box, enter a keyword or name for the Starter Kit you are searching for and then click Search.

    Matches are grouped by source and are displayed in the Search Results area.

  4. Click on a result to display additional information about the Starter Kit.

Install downloaded Starter Kits

Once you have downloaded a Starter Kit, you must install the Starter Kit so that it appears in the New Project dialog box.

To install Starter Kits downloaded from the Web

  1. On the Web page for the starter kit, click the link to download the starter kit.

  2. Click Open to download and install the starter kit at the same time.

    The Visual Studio Content Installer appears.

  3. On the Welcome to the Visual Studio Content Installer Wizard page, select the items you intend to install and then choose Next.

    Security noteSecurity Note:

    It is highly recommended that you read the information in Publisher Status to determine whether or not the control is signed. For further security, click Review to display a list of the files that will be installed on your computer.

    The Installing Content page appears.

  4. On the Installation Complete page, click Finish.

Create a project from a downloaded Starter Kit

Once you have installed a Starter Kit, you can easily use the Starter Kit as a template to create a new project within Visual Studio.

Security noteSecurity Note:

Before you use a downloaded Starter Kit, determine the trustworthiness of the code outside of Visual Studio. Creating projects in Visual Studio automatically executes code from that project on your local machine in the trusted process of devenv.exe.

To create a project from an online template

  1. On the File menu, choose New and then choose Project.

  2. In the Templates list, select the Starter Kit you downloaded from My Templates.

  3. Click OK.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Add Items Using Online Item Templates

Concepts

How to: Locate and Organize Project and Item Templates