Getting Started with MSDN Services

Welcome to the getting started guide for MSDN Services. This section will walk you through the essential steps to begin integrating our powerful services into your applications.

1. Prerequisites

Before you can start using MSDN Services, ensure you have the following:

  • A Microsoft Account.
  • An active Azure subscription (for cloud-hosted services).
  • The necessary development environment set up (e.g., IDE, SDKs).

2. Sign Up and Authentication

To access MSDN Services, you need to register and obtain API keys or set up OAuth 2.0 authentication.

For API Keys:

  1. Navigate to the MSDN Services Developer Portal.
  2. Log in with your Microsoft Account.
  3. Go to the "API Keys" section.
  4. Click "Generate New Key" and follow the prompts.
  5. Important: Store your API key securely. Do not share it publicly.

For OAuth 2.0:

Follow the instructions in the Authentication Guide to register your application and obtain client credentials.

3. Making Your First Request

Let's make a simple request to one of our core services, for example, the "Metadata Service".

Assuming you have an API key, your request will look something like this:

GET /v1/metadata/platforms HTTP/1.1
Host: api.msdn.microsoft.com
Authorization: ApiKey YOUR_API_KEY_HERE
Accept: application/json

Replace YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with the actual API key you generated.

Example using cURL

You can test this using cURL from your terminal:

curl -X GET "https://api.msdn.microsoft.com/v1/metadata/platforms" \
  -H "Authorization: ApiKey YOUR_API_KEY_HERE" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

4. Exploring the SDKs

For a more streamlined development experience, we offer Software Development Kits (SDKs) for various popular programming languages.

Refer to the SDKs page for installation instructions and usage examples.

Next Steps

Now that you've made your first request, you're ready to dive deeper:

  • Explore the API Reference for detailed endpoint information.
  • Try out the tutorials to build more complex applications.
  • Review our best practices for optimal performance and security.
Explore API Reference