No Nios II target connection paths were located. Check connections and that a Nios I

OK, so now I am a bit confused--excuse me, I am a newbie at this, but the lab said nothing about using Quartus II.

Is it necessary to have Quartus open?

The lab says "For this lab, the system definition and design is complete and an FPGA image derived from that has been flashed into the BeMicro SDK kit. Our objective is to learn how to use the Nios II EDS to build software projects forthis system."

Or, is there a better lab to use to make sure the BeMicro is configured?

I am just using this lab to get familiar with the tools, and if there is a better lab to use I will do that, the hardware lab, for example.