Microsoft debuts Windows 10 coding series for absolute beginners

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

Fancy creating your own apps for Windows 10 but have no experience? Well, if you're willing to put in some work, Microsoft has debuted a new video series on its Channel 9 platform for absolute beginners to learn how to code for Windows 10. From the series description:

Your guide through the series, Bob Tabor from http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/, walks you through how to create Windows 10 apps on the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) – meaning you'll gain access to all the Windows 10 screens: PCs, phones, tablets, and even on a Raspberry Pi, HoloLens, and Xbox. Bob will challenge you with exercises, help you build a cheat sheet for future reference, and explain the techniques and concepts being used along the way in a simple, friendly manner.

The series is made up of a total of 80 parts, and is geared towards helping new developers master the Universal Windows 10 platform. There is one catch however, as Microsoft notes that the instructions assume that participants has a basic understanding of C# fundamentals. If you aren't quite up to speed on those, however, you can also check out the C# Fundamentals Series to get started.

Check out the Windows 10 development for absolute beginners series

Thanks to Shubham for the tip!

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

69 Comments
  • Aaaaaaand hobby acquired. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android
  • Exactly
  • This will be helpful for me.
  • Great!
  • This is a great gift by MS! I'll check this out as soon as I muster some free time.
  • Oh well that will be interesting
  • If you want to learn to code, Bob is the guy! I enjoyed many of his lessons. He is a great teacher.
  • The man's a living legend in my book!
  • I am a web and app designer but I want to code my own apps for Windows 10. This kind of course will let me start from zero? I mean the one this guy makes?
  • It's for absolute beginners with the requirement being basic knowledge of C#.
  • Don't even need that. He literally teaches you under the assumption that you know nothing about coding.
  • I found that absolutely absurd too lol
  • +1
  • I've been bookmaking these since Windows Phone 8 for Absolute Beginners. Yes, I've been putting them off a bit, haha.
  • Haha same here pal. I really need to get on it. I'm putting your handle in a reminder and will check back in a month. I challenge you to get started. How many can you get through in 30 days? I'll assume you're busy like me and need to learn C also. So get to it!
  • Same here! I took a semester of intro to C++ recently, so I'm hoping I can finally jump into this. I think what I know will translate to C# easily enough.
  • Cool..have a couple of app ideas that could benefit me work-wise...
  • I've done his C# and Windows 8.1/XAML for absolute beginners series and they're great. I'll definitely check this out.
  • Seconded.  I've done those two series' also, and they're fantastic, making it very easy to learn and understand potentially complicated topics.  Bob is an excellent instructor.
  • Noob question here. Would the cheap $200 laptops be good enough to learn on? I'm aware that the course is more hands on learning than just looking at the videos...
  • Visual Studio is a huge program that requires a fast computer to run smoothly, especially the visual design part.
  • Solid answer
  • If you're just testing the waters though, yeah that would probably be fine
  • Really just want to feel it out. Thanks alot for your help. Much appreciated!
  • @idey, you can also download visual studio express for free.
  • It's Visual Studio 2015 Community now for Windows 10 apps. Community is great, they pulled in extensions and a bunch of other Professional features. I recommend downloading the Productivity Power Tools 2015 extension, really helpful.
  • Good, free suits my budget just fine :D
  • Absolutely! I use Visual Studio in my Programming Fundamentals class and thanks to online training with MVA, I'm probably better at using the program (especially the debugging feature) than the professor :P Definitely take the time to learn C# and the concepts of object-oriented programming before throwing yourself headfirst into app developing though - I still wish I had completed the C# course before starting my first app.
  • I use an old Sony Vaio Centrino Duo running Windows 10, that I bought for 26 dollars, that works fine. But yeah, you cant have a ton of stuff running in the background.
  • Cool, ill look for a cheapo laptop, if im any good ill invest further.
  • you would need a Windows Pro version for testing your implementation
  •   Thanks, i guess by then it would be worth the investment.
  • or they can made Hyper-V a standalone product(for emulation of Windows apps) that can be bought cheaper than instead of buying whole Pro Version for Development on Windows 
  • or they can made Hyper-V a standalone product(for emulation of Windows apps) that can be bought cheaper than instead of buying whole Pro Version for Development on Windows 
  • you would need a Windows Pro version for testing your implementation
  • You'd probably be better served with a used desktop or workstation from just a couple of years ago. Something with a strong higher-end i5 or i7, or an AMD Phenom or Phenom II that you can pack full of RAM on the cheap. I picked up an AMD Phenom Quad box with 6GB of RAM to run Windows 10 for $120 and bumped it up to 16GB and slammed a SATA III SSD into it and have a top box for under $300. I could add a good video card and run some games on it if I wanted. Something like that will do you better to run VisualStudio than an Atom, Celeron, or Core M portable.
  • Sounds promising.
  • Thank you!!! I tried learning via virtual academy but all the videos were for 8.1 and 8.0 stuff. This is a fresh start to get beginners like myself coding for Windows 10
  • There is a UWP training series in MVA by Jerry Nixon and Andy Wigley. There is also an updated series by Andy and Shen. But more like advanced though. If you are trying to get your feet wet, Bob is the guy. I liked his WP 7 and 8 series as well.
  • MVA trainings are more an overview. Bob encourages you to get your hands 'dirty' in the code and has been fine tuning his teaching technique. Good stuff.
  • Just what I was looking for!
  • Bob Tabor is an excellent teacher if you want to get into programming. If you are more advanced it will probably be too slow for you (this assumption is solely based on his previous series as I haven't checked this one out) but then again, if you want a quick refresher you can quickly scan through some videos to get up to speed again. I will definitely check this out once I have some more time.
  • Oh...thats something... I have some new ideas for mobils apps...may be I will try but don't know if i qualify as 'absolute beginner'
  • I'll probably just check it out to learn more about the concept and framework universal apps. Sounds like a good investment of my time.
  • Sounds good I've been doing bobs c# course and he is a very good teacher
  • Watch out for my app, guys. Coming soon c;
  • Cool, already ordered my Pi 2 W10iot kit. Just waiting for delivery......
  • Outstanding series.  Has the basics but also goes into complete apps which makes it much better than the one page code demos.
  • Sometimes these are good even if you are not an absolute beginner. Programming has gotten much more diverse and complex over my career. It's hard to keep up with what's out there these days.
  • I know the feeling, I work on Enterprise software so rarely get to touch anything new, started working on a Universal app a few weeks ago but the biggest blocker for me is XAML and Data Binding, it's fantastic but such a 360 degree turn from classic .NET. I only get a few hours a week to work on the app so I think I won't have anything releasable for at least 6 months. Will check out this course anyway just to get some pointers on XAML since Pluralsight still doesn't have a decent Windows 10 Universal course.
  • Bob Tabor is the best! I first learned to code for WP7 thanks to his videos, and was going to get back into it for Win10, and was hoping that there would be a video series like this!
  • Cool I love this because I want to know how to develop app my self. But if ms can create a app visuals studio for phone would be much ease to learn, you can code an app with your phone and run test. That will get many people exposed to app developer and programmer.
  • With the Surface Phone hopefully that will be possible, however, the actual coding experience will be terrible without a physical keyboard and I think that would put people off more than anything. Personally I can't wait to give it a go but I won't be throwing away my desktop anytime soon!
  • Annnnnd new hobby! As said before! This is great
  • What was that web app from Microsoft that
    allowed the user to piece together an app for Windows phone? Anyone know if the that will be updated for Win 10?
  • Knowledge from any way is good.
    But, I seriously think this can be taken more for hobby than as profession.. After windows 10 universal apps, any android app can be converted to windows, making windows app development obsolete... Comments?
  • Or, you can use Xamarin after learning C# and create apps that work on Windows, iOS and Android natively. A simple 1 click port with no changes will never be as good as a true native app. To get the best out of the bridge you need to tune your code and UI design so everything runs smooth and looks good on Windows. The bridge is meant to help Android and iOS developers get into Windows faster and easier, a lot of developers will just port, publish and then stop working on it but that is the same situation we have now where companies create a bad app for Windows Phone and never update it.
  • For anyone interested, checkout http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com
  • Not exactly absolute beginners if you already need to be using C# but there's a course for that too which is great. Microsoft has been amazing at providing resources for developers and aspiring developers the past few years so it's great to see that continue. I'll have to give this a shot and see what I can do...
  • Its Ironic that you can't download the videos from Microsoft Edge. You've to use Chrome.
  • This is the stuff they should have in schools.
  • Cannot big up Bob enough for his videos, especially these beginner series. I spent a weekend going through his videos on WP7.5 and managed to release an app over said weekend.
  • Excellent! Got a few simple app's I'd like to make.
  • Bob is aweseome.
  • MS should enroll its own people to these courses.
  • Thank you for posting this!
  • Any single link/playlist link address to download all 80 videos at once in high quality ?
  • Thanks for the post! :)
  • Anyway to download these video tutorials so i can watch them without a connection?