title: Asp.net MVC 4 EF Code First Membership Providers for Beginners
body: <p>Though I asked few questions about the how to use membership providers with ASP.NET MVC 4 but hardly got any response. It is taking me time (as a newbie) to get started with membership providers in ASP.NET MVC 4. I have been reading article, trying stuff but that only added to the confusion rather than helping.</p>
  
  <p>What would be the answers to the following queries by a beginner:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>I want to try all the membership providers (including the simple membership provider) before deciding which one should I use for which project. What membership providers can I use with ASP.NET MVC 4 and How can I configure each one of it. Any documentation or links?</li>
  <li>Though the internet template comes with pre-configured Account controller which sets the membership functionality, but how can I add membership functionality to the basic template. What steps should I follow in order to configure membership using membership providers (I assume there will be different set of steps/configuration/settings for different membership provider).</li>
  <li>Running the ASP.NET MVC 4 project created with internet project template (without making any changes to it) create 5 tables in the database namely UserProfile, webpages_Membership, webpages_OAthMembership, webpages_Roles, webpages_UsersInRoles). In <code>AccountModel.cs</code> I see definition for only one, UserProfile. Where are the other tables defined. Do I always need to have all these tables in database in order to use membership. Can I customize  them, rename them or choose not to use some of them?</li>
  <li>I do not see any membership configuration in web.config for the internet project template yet is using membership. In some of the articles tutorial I saw people configuring it by adding <code>&lt;membership&gt;&lt;/membership&gt;</code> to web.config. When do I need to add configuration settings to web.config and when do I need not?</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I think membership providers are meant to make developers life easy yet for me it is making it more difficult.
  I know I really need to study it and that's what I am trying for the last 7, 8 days but unable to figure out.
  Any help, links (hopefully not those which I went through many times) are more than welcome.</p>