Welcome to Map Suite™ from ThinkGeo, a complete family of GIS software development kits that will help you build cutting-edge mapping and spatially aware applications. Using Map Suite's intuitive APIs, programmers who write code in C# or VB.NET can create professional-grade Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software featuring interactive maps, spatial analysis, geoprocessing and location, and much more. Even developers inexperienced with GIS can add fully-functional maps to their projects in just moments.

In this article, we will discuss how to install Map Suite on your computer and prepare your development environment for creating Map Suite-powered projects.

• Microsoft Windows 7 or newer, or Microsoft Windows Server 2012 or newer
• Visual Studio or Visual Studio Express, 2010 or newer
• .NET Framework 4.0 or higher
• 1.2 GHz Intel® Core™ processor or better recommended
• 2 GB RAM or more recommended
• C#, Visual Basic .NET, and other .NET-compatible languages are supported for development
• For Map Suite MVC Edition:
  • ASP.NET MVC 3, ASP.NET MVC 4, ASP.NET MVC 5
  • Traditional ASPX or Razor ViewEngine

Map Suite requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or newer.

• Download the .NET 4.0 web installer free from Microsoft

To develop an application with any Map Suite control or component, you will need one of the following development environments:

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• Visual Studio Express
  • Select Visual Studio Express for Web if you want to develop web-based applications with Map Suite Web Edition, MVC Edition, Silverlight Edition or WMS Server Edition
  • Select Visual Studio Express for Windows Desktop if you want to develop desktop applications, console apps or services with Map Suite WPF Desktop Edition, WinForms Desktop Edition, Services Edition, Map Suite Geocoder or Map Suite Routing

If you are using Visual Studio 2010, make sure to install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1.

If you are using Visual Studio 2010 or Express 2010, then you may need to install additional toolsets depending on the edition of Map Suite you intend to use. Refer to the table below to see if your preferred Map Suite edition requires this. If you are using Visual Studio 2012 or newer, you do not need to install any of these additional tools.

Launch the ThinkGeo Product Center application to explore the exciting world of Map Suite GIS. Each Map Suite edition ships with code samples, kick-start templates, videos and more to help you start developing your first application quickly!

Next, we recommend that you take a look at our ThinkGeo Product Center article to learn how to find your way around the Product Center application.