Hi everyone,

For the presentation I'm giving on Wednesday, I'll be showing off a feature of VS Code called Live Share that lets a group of people collaborate on a project. I thought that it would be fun to demo this feature during the meeting and to do that I'll need people to collaborate with. Below are instructions on how to set up VS Code so you'll be ready to participate in the demo if you would like to. If not, you can disregard the rest of this email.

1. Go to code.visualstudio.com and download the latest .tar.gz. Extract it, then create a new directory called "data" in the extracted directory. VS Code will store all of its configurations, extensions and other data in this folder instead of the default places on your system so if you want to remove it after the presentation you can just delete the folder.

2. Launch VS Code. By default, usage information and crash reporting is sent automatically to Microsoft which some of you may want to disable. To do this, press Ctrl+, and search for "Telemetry" in the configuration editor. Uncheck "Enable Telemetry" and "Enable Crash Reporter".

3. Click the Extensions view (5th icon down on the left sidebar) and search for "VS Live Share Extension Pack". Click install. You'll need a Microsoft or GitHub account, but don't worry about signing in until the presentation.

4. At this point, you may be ready for the presentation but you may get a warning saying something like "You may be missing key Linux libraries." You can either let VS Code try to install them for you, or click "More Info" on the dialog for a list of distros and packages they usually ship without that VS Code needs for Live Share. After installing the missing packages, if you restart VS Code and don't get the warning, you're good to go.

I look forward to seeing you all Wednesday and giving what I assume is the first LUG@NCSU presentation on a Microsoft product.

-William Harrell