hello to everyone! i´m an absolut beginner in programming and i´d like learning to programm in c. apart from having purchased a book for starters in c, i´ve downloaded the visualc++ toolkit 2003, it says it carrys a c/c++ compiler. it has been installed and the program carries various samples, tryouts before i write my own programs, but i cannot run them - i don´t know if the problem is that i just don´t know how to compile or i don´t know how to run the programs! is anyone familiar with the software who could help me? i think i need every step explained.. thanks a lot! Natalie

If I were you, I'd download the code::blocks studio IDE (google it). It can be easily set up to work with the VC++ Toolkit (it'll detect it on install, and ask if you want to set it as the default compiler) and has nice buttons that'll compile, link and run your code without any command line shenanigans.