Using the exercise files

Just a quick word about the excise files I'll be using. If you are a Premium member of the lynda.com Online Training Library or if you're watching this tutorial on a disk, you have access to the exercise files used throughout this title. In the exercise files folder, I have collected some assets for you to use during our tour of building dynamic websites with ASP.NET. They include graphic files, a database script, and starting web page files for use in the sample websites that I'll be creating. I've copied the folder to my desktop, but you can put it anywhere you want. To get started with the video series, you will need to follow the instructions in Chapter 1, where I describe how to install Visual Web Developer, and Chapter 2, where I describe how to install SQL Server and create a database that you'll need.

From that point onward, you can choose to work through the entire video series, or if you would like to jump in at a particular point, you can use the solution folders. Most of the chapters have two projects: one starting project and one that's completed. You can open these chapter folders directly from within Visual Web Developer. Just select File > Open Website from the menu, and then select the website folder that you want to explore. If you are a monthly or annual subscriber to lynda.com, you don't have access to the exercise files, but you can easily follow along the instructions and demonstrations on the screen and use any files you want as you create your own sample websites. Let's get started.