I have just bought and installed Visual Studio 2005 Standard as per P xvii of the intro. I have all the prerequisites installed but I cannot get Figure 2.3 on P 27 on my screen. I cannot create an asp.net web site in this version. What is worse is Books On Line show the same figure. P 26 refers to Visual Studio.net 2005. Is this something different, I cannot find it on my usual suppliers lists? What am I doing wrong?

Do you see "New Web Site" on your main File menu in the upper left? What about in the Start Page under "Getting Started" - do you see "Create a Web Site"?

What edition of VS is displayed at the top of the Help, About screen? Also, in the middle of that About screen is a list of installed products. If you have a web-enabled version of VS it will show "Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005" in that list.

It sounds to me like you may have the Visual C# Express product, which is free but doesn't support ASP.NET. The free Visual Web Developer Express product does support ASP.NET. They basically broke the full VS into various pieces when they made the Express products.

By the way, this isn't a good book for beginners. Do you already have some experience with ASP.NET 1.x?

Eric

Thank you.
I can see New Web Site on the File Menu and in Create a Web Site but neither offer the asp.net option.
This is from About
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Version 8.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 2.0.50727

Installed Edition: Standard

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 77633-235-2111565-41753
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005

Microsoft Visual C# 2005 77633-235-2111565-41753
Microsoft Visual C# 2005

Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 77633-235-2111565-41753
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005

Microsoft Visual J# 2005 77633-235-2111565-41753
Microsoft Visual J# 2005

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 77633-235-2111565-41753
Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005

It looks OK to my eyes. When I installed this as an upgrade I initially only selected C# as the language but I have subsequently added the others via the Add option in Set Up but it has made no difference.

I have worked with asp.net and earlier versions of Visual Studio (but not C#). I have been away from the keyboard for some 18 months so I am rusty. I choose this book as it appeared a way to bring myself up to date. Can you recommend something else?

Ztch

Try any beginning asp.net 2.0 book. I sometimes recommend this one (McDonald is great at relating to newbies and bringing them up to speed quickly):
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-ASP-.../dp/1590595726

If you create a new website, you ARE making an ASP.NET application. I agree that it's very confusing at first. It was more clear in VS2003.

You'll need to go with another book at first...

Eric