Writing Windows Software
Monday, August 22nd, 2011Windows development is the process of writing software that will run on standard computers including your desktop, laptop, or general purpose computer. Windows applications can take full advantage of a computer’s power. The software development kits from Microsoft that contain header files, libraries, samples, documentation and tools required to develop applications for Microsoft Windows and .NET Framework are Microsoft Windows SDK, Platform SDK, and . NET Framework SDK. The difference between these three SDKs lies in their area of specialization. For Platform DK it specializes in developing applications for Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003. .NET Framework SDK is dedicated in developing applications for .NET Framework 1.1 and .NET Framework 2.0. And for Windows SDK it is the successor of the Platform SDK and .NET Framework SDK and supports developing applications for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.0, .NET Framework 3.5 and .NET Framework 4.0. It also contains extensive documentation and around 800 samples.
Starting with Windows Vista, the Platform SDK has been replaced by the Windows SDK, to better reflect the content included, and to offer the documentation, samples, build environment and tools needed to develop Windows applications all in one place. The SDK for .NET Framework 3.0 /.NET Framework 3.5 and .NET Framework 2. Is included in the Windows SDK. The Tablet PC SDK and the Windows Media SDK are also included. Thus, all the APIs which ship with Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008 and the latest compilers are now integrated into the Windows SDK. However, the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK is not included since the .NET Framework 1.1 does not ship with Windows Vista. Also, the Windows Media Center SDK for Windows Vista ships separately. The Windows SDK allows the user to specify where the SDK will be installed and what components will be installed where. This new SDK integrates better with Visual Studio, so multiple copies of tools are not installed. Information shown can be filtered by content, such as showing only new Windows Vista content, Win32 development content, .NET Framework development content; or by language or a specific technology.
You can get free Windows SDKs on the Microsoft Download Center, in ISO and Web-download formats. Users can install the entire SDK or choose to install only some SDK components, like code samples demonstrating only native development or only the tools for managed development. Some Windows SDK components are also included in Microsoft Visual Studio. The latest Windows SDK is the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4, released May 21, 2010. This SDK release supports Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP SP3, and Windows Server 2003 R2 and is compatible with Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2008, and Visual Studio 2005 SP1, including Visual Studio Express Editions. The Windows SDK contains the following: for Win32 development it contains 1,915 Headers, 348 Libraries, 100 Tools; for .NET (managed code) development contains 14 Reference Assemblies supporting .NET, Tablet PC, Windows PowerShell, MMC, etc., 33 Intellisense Files, 70 .NET 2.0 Tools + 10 .NET 3.0 Tools + 35 .NET 4.0 Tools; and for for Visual Studio 2005/2008/2010 integration, Utilities to enable Visual Studio 2005/2008 to easily use Windows SDK headers and libraries, Visual Studio 2005/2008 Wizards for creating Windows Media Player applications. Some users may encounter problems with Visual Studio 2010 and recent Windows SDK in non-English environment due to bug in Windows SDK configurator.