Lab Environment Setup

These exercises are designed to be completed in a hosted lab environment. If you want to complete them on your own computer, you can do so by installing the following software. You may experience unexpected dialogs and behavior when using your own environment. Due to the wide range of possible local configurations, the course team cannot support issues you may encounter in your own environment.

Note: The instructions below are for a Windows 10 computer. You can also use Linux or MacOS. You may need to adapt the lab instructions for your chosen OS.

Base Operating System (Windows 10)

Windows 10

Install Windows 10 and apply all updates.

Edge

Install Edge (Chromium)

.NET Core SDK

  1. Download and install from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download (download .NET Core SDK - not just the runtime). If you are running the labs in this course on your own machine, you will need .NET 7.0 installed.

C++ Redistributable

  1. Download and install the Visual C++ Redistributable (x64) from https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe.

Node.JS

  1. Download the latest LTS version from https://nodejs.org/en/download/
  2. Install using the default options

Python (and required packages)

  1. Download version 3.8 from https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html
  2. Run setup to install - Important: Select the options to add Miniconda to the PATH variable and to register Miniconda as the default Python environment.
  3. After installation, open the Anaconda prompt and enter the following commands to install packages:
pip install flask requests python-dotenv pylint matplotlib pillow
pip install --upgrade numpy

Azure CLI

  1. Download from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/install-azure-cli?view=azure-cli-latest
  2. Install using the default options

Git

  1. Download and install from https://git-scm.com/download.html, using the default options

Visual Studio Code (and extensions)

  1. Download from https://code.visualstudio.com/Download
  2. Install using the default options
  3. After installation, start Visual Studio Code and on the Extensions tab (CTRL+SHIFT+X), search for and install the following extensions from Microsoft:
    • Python
    • C#
    • Azure Functions
    • PowerShell

Bot Framework Emulator

Follow the instructions at https://github.com/Microsoft/BotFramework-Emulator/blob/master/README.md to download and install the latest stable version of the Bot Framework Emulator for your operating system.

Bot Framework Composer

Install from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/composer/install-composer.