Exercise—Start developing faster

  • 3 minutes

Now that you've accessed your Windows 365 Cloud PC, the next step is to begin working as a developer.

In a traditional setup, this is where you would configure and troubleshoot your environment. In this experience, those steps have already been completed for you.

Your goal here's simple: move directly from sign-in to development work.

Scenario

You've successfully signed in to your Cloud PC and confirmed that your tools are available on your first day with a new team. Now you need to start contributing to a project.

Tasks

  1. Open a project or repository available to your team. Access an existing codebase or sample project. Review the structure and available files
  2. Explore your development tools. Confirm that your editor, terminal, and other tools are ready to use. Verify that little or no extra setup is required. When using Image with Developer Configuration (preview), Visual Studio Code might include preinstalled extensions, and your terminal environment might already be configured for common workflows across both Windows and Linux (WSL).
  3. Run or build the application. Execute a build, run, or test command. Observe how the environment supports development workflows out of the box.
  4. Work across environments (optional). Use a terminal or command-line interface for common tasks. If applicable, access Linux tools through WSL to support your workflow.

Expected outcome

By the end of this exercise, you should be able to start working with code shortly after signing in.

  • Your tools were already installed
  • Your dependencies were already configured
  • Your environment was ready to support development tasks

You moved from access to execution with minimal interruption.

Why this matters

This is the key moment in the experience: even though it was day one, you didn't prepare your workstation—you used it.

By using standardized developer images, organizations ensure that developers can move between projects or devices without reconfiguring their environment, while still supporting different workflows such as Windows-native or Linux-based development. This model is especially beneficial in workflows that benefit from fast onboarding, or to give established team members a consistent experience across multiple devices.

In the next unit, you'll look at how these environments can scale and adapt to different types of development work.