Entity Framework: A Guide to Installation with NuGet Package Manager

Entity Framework is a premier Object Relational Mapper (ORM) which facilitates developers to control database interactions within their applications. It’s a feature-rich tool that enables you to effortlessly connect to databases, conduct CRUD operations, and process data models with the convenience of object-oriented programming.

Step 1: Prerequisite Verification

Before plunging into the installation process, it’s imperative to ensure that you have the following prerequisites:

1. Visual Studio 2017 or higher version
2. .NET Framework 4.6 or improved edition

Suppose you don’t meet the requirements mentioned above, download and install them before initiating the Entity Framework installation.

Step 2: Installing Entity Framework

The installation process can be accomplished via the Command Line Interface (CLI) or NuGet Package Manager. However, for this article, we will use NuGet Package Manager for Entity Framework installation.

1. Open the Visual Studio 2017 project
2. Right-click on the project name in the Solution Explorer panel
3. Select “Manage NuGet Packages”
4. Click on “Browse” tab and enter “Entity Framework” in the search bar
5. Choose “EntityFramework” from search results and click on “Install” button
6. Upon completion of installation, you will receive a pop-up message in the Output window confirming the successful installation of Entity Framework.

Step 3: Verification of Installation

You can verify the installation of Entity Framework by adding a new item to your project and checking if Entity Framework templates are available.

1. Right-click on your project in the Solution Explorer pane and select “Add” → “New Item”
2. Select “Data” in the left-hand panel of the dialog box that appears
3. In the “Templates” section, select “ADO.NET Entity Data Model”
4. Confirmation of successful installation of Entity Framework is possible if you see available templates like “EF Designer from database” or “EF Designer from Code First”. Select any choice and click on “Add” to establish a new entity data model.

Conclusion

The Entity Framework offers a user-friendly means of managing database interactions within applications. We hope that by following our installation guide mentioned via NuGet Package Manager, you’ll be able to install the Entity Framework in Visual Studio 2017 smoothly. By using Entity Framework, you can simplify database programming in your applications.