Installing Umbraco 9 Beta on Visual Studio and SQL Server

Installing Prerequisites

Update Visual Studio

It is required that Visual Studio is updated to the latest version (or at beyond to a certain version). This is required since there is now no way to install Umbraco 9 using command prompts and Visual Studio Templates. I believe these templates are only supported in later versions of Visual Studio. For reference my version is Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2019
Version 16.10.0.

Update to this version or anything above it.

Install .Net 5.0

As you probably already know Umbraco 9 is built on .Net Core (.Net 5.0). If you haven’t built websites using .Net 5.0 it’s likely you’ll need to install some prerequisites. Follow the link below and install .Net 5.0.

https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/5.0

I have always installed the hosting bundle and had no problems. I would recommend installing the same.

I remember when working on other .Net Core projects I had problems with install versions. I then read an article that advised to install the hosting bundle. Since then I haven't had any problems. Potentially, there is some important assemblies within the hosting bundle to help hosting on IIS Express / IIS.

 

Installing Umbraco 9

Install Visual Studio Templates

Once you have installed .Net 5.0 the next step may feel a little bit different to what you have been used to. It now seems that Umbraco needs to be installed using commands. The first part of this process is to install some Umbraco 9 specific Visual Studio templates. To do this follow the steps below.

Step 1
Open windows command prompt (Windows Key + R then type cmd and run).

Step 2
Run the following command in the command prompt. This will install a new Visual Studio template feed.

dotnet nuget add source "https://www.myget.org/F/umbracoprereleases/api/v3/index.json" -n "Umbraco Prereleases"

Step 3
Run the following command in command prompt. This will install a new Visual Studio template.

dotnet new -i Umbraco.Templates::9.0.0-beta003

Create Umbraco 9 Visual Studio Project & Solution

Now that all the prerequisites and Visual Studio templates are install you can go ahead and create the Umbraco 9 project and solution. Again, this is done through the command prompt, following the steps below.

Step 1
Navigate to the folder you want to install the website solution to. In my case it is C:\Server Files\Git\ so I ran the following command into command prompt.

cd\Server Files\Git

Step 2
Run the following command in command prompt. This will create an Umbraco 9 website solution in the folder of your choice. This will get added to the directory you set in step 1. As you can see, I named my project solution “Umbraco9_GettingUpAndRunning”. You can name this anything you prefer.

dotnet new umbraco -n Umbraco9_GettingUpAndRunning

Step 3
Now close the command prompt and navigate to the directory the new solution has been created in. In my case this is C:\Server Files\Git\Umbraco9_GettingUpAndRunning.

In your new directory you will find all the project files for the new Umbraco 9 project, including a solution file.

Step 4
Open the new solution file in Visual Studio. Once this is open build the project and run. This will then open the database install screen which you may be used to seeing from Umbraco 7 or Umbraco 8. The process from here on is pretty much the same as previous versions on Umbraco.

Setting up SQL Server for Umbraco 9

As mentioned above the process of installing the database is much the same as Umbraco 7 or 8. If you do not already know how to do this then the steps are listed below.

Step 1
Enter your name, email, and password that you want for the main Umbraco administrator then click next.

Step 2
Now go into Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and create blank database and set up user security so we have access to the database with a username and password.

Step 3
Once you have your blank database created go back to the Umbraco Database installer and fill in database credentials so Umbraco can connect to the blank database you created. Click continue when this is done.

Step 4
If you did everything correct you should now be presented with the Umbraco install screen. Once this is finished you will be automatically logged into the Umbraco backend and be fully up and running with Umbraco 9.

 

Further Information

Watch my demo video.

If you get stuck there might be some further useful information found here.

https://our.umbraco.com/Documentation/UmbracoNetCoreUpdates#umbraco-net-core-beta