Installing Visual Studio Code

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Visual Studio Code, also known as “VSCode”, is a widely-used open-source program specifically designed to assist with software development. This document explains how to download and install VSCode on your computer.

To proceed, you should have access to a laptop or desktop computer. Tablet and phone devices are not appropriate for software development. If you do not have a laptop or desktop computer, you may instead use one of our lab computers, all of which come with VSCode preinstalled.

The procedure for installing VSCode varies depending on your operating system. Follow the appropriate instructions below.

• I have a macOS computer.
• I have a Windows computer.
• I have a Linux computer.
• I have a FreeBSD computer.

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Installing VSCode on a macOS computer

1. In your web browser (e.g., Safari), navigate to the VSCode download page.

   

2. Click on the button titled “Download Mac Universal”.

3. You may be prompted to allow the download. If you are, click “Allow.”

   

4. You will be redirected to a “Getting Started” page. You can close this page, since we will explain what to do next.
5. Look in your Downloads folder for a file called VSCode-darwin-universal.zip.
6. Double-click on that file. This will “decompress” the ZIP archive and extract its contents into the current folder. Once that’s done, you should see an application file called Visual Studio Code.

7. Drag this file into the Applications folder on your computer. If you can’t find your Applications folder, click on the little macOS smiley face

   

   and then press ⌘-SHIFT-G and type /Applications and press the Enter key.

   

   Then drag the Visual Studio Code icon into the Applications folder.

8. Start Visual Studio Code by double-clicking on the icon.

9. Once the editor is started, press ⌘-Shift-P, which opens the Command Palette. Type shell command and then select Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH. Running this command installs the code helper in your Terminal. Restart your Terminal program (close it and then reopen it). The code helper is handy because you can run

   $ code .
   

   in your Terminal, and Visual Studio will open in whatever folder you’ve navigated to in your Terminal.

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Installing VSCode on a Windows computer

1. In your web browser (e.g., Edge), navigate to the VSCode download page.

   

2. Click on the button titled “Download for Windows”.
3. You will be redirected to a “Getting Started” page. You can close this page, since we will explain what to do next.

4. Look in your Downloads folder for a file named something like VSCodeUserSetup-x64-1.71.0.exe. If you don’t know where to look for your downloads folder, you can sometimes ask your web browser. E.g., when using Edge, look for the three dots in the upper right corner of your browser window, click on them, then click on Downloads.

   

   After that, move your mouse to the right of the VSCodeUserSetup-x64-1.71.0.exe filename and click on the little folder icon.

   

   This will open your Downloads folder.

5. Double-click on the file named VSCodeUserSetup-x64-1.71.0.exe. This will start the VSCode installer.

   

6. Click I accept the agreement and click Next.
7. Click Next again.
8. Click Install.
9. Start Visual Studio Code by double-clicking on the icon.
10. Click Finish.
11. To start VSCode, press the Windows key and type Visual Studio Code and then click on the icon that appears.

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Installing VSCode on a Linux computer

If you’re running Linux, we’re going to assume that you’re already an über hacker, so just follow these instructions.

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Installing VSCode on a FreeBSD computer

LOL, really?

$ sudo pkg install vscode

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