Install and Configure Visual Studio Code

To build Xrt applications using Visual Studio on Windows, complete the following steps:

1. Install Visual Studio Code, if not already installed.

2. Install Build Tools.

   • Install Cmake

   • Download Ninja

3. Install the following extensions:

   • Azure Sphere
   • CMake Extensions

4. Install ncat (part of Nmap) (optional)

5. Navigate to the Azure Sphere example in the VS Code explorer.

   Open .vscode/settings.json

   • Ensure the value of the "DEVICE" configuration is set to the required device service, for example, bacnet or ethernet-ip.
   • Ensure the value of the "BOARD" configuration is set to the required board type. The options are mt3620-dk, mt3620-g100, mt3620-sk or mt3620-sr620.

6. Configure the Application Manifest.

   Open the app_manifest.json in the directory matching the board type, for example, mt3620-dk/app_manifest.json

   • Follow the instructions for the BACnet, EtherNet/IP, or Modbus example to configure the example application in the example Git repo. See Use the Example Code.

7. Attach your Azure Sphere development board to your PC with the USB cable.

8. Start a UDP listener (optional). This allow application logging output to be viewed as log messages are created.

   • Open a command window or PowerShell.

   • Issue the command: PC running ncat.

   ncat -l 1999 --keep-open --udp --recv-only
   

9. Configure the digital twin. See Configuring Xrt Using a Device Twin.

10. Build the application.

    • Select the VSCode CMake view in the Activity Bar (leftmost column).
    • Click the "Build" button in the Status Bar (bottom of the window).

11. Deploy and Debug the application.

    • Select the VSCode Run and Debug view in the Activity Bar (leftmost column).
    • Press F5 to download the application to your Azure Sphere board, the application will then start under the control of the debugger built into VS Code.