Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Windows 7 SDK beta arrives

Last weekend, Microsoft unleashed the Windows 7 beta (take our in-depth tour) and the Windows Server 2008 R2 beta to the web. Due to the chaos and craze over downloading a beta operating system, many missed the news that Microsoft had also made the Windows 7 beta SDK available. If you're a developer, or you're just slightly interested, you can grab it from the Microsoft Download Center (1304.8MB). Here's what's on the .iso file:
The Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA provides the documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools (including C++ compilers) that you need to develop applications to run on Windows 7 BETA and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. To build and run .NET Framework applications, you must have the corresponding version of the .NET Framework installed. This SDK is compatible with Visual Studio® 2008, including Visual Studio Express Editions, which are available free of charge.

If that got you interested, be sure to check out the Release Notes as well. The most important thing to note about this release is that the SDK will definitely change by the time Windows 7 is released, and developers should keep this in mind when they're using it. I would still recommend downloading it and getting a feel for what you'll want to update in your application to take advantage of the improvements of Vista's successor.

Read More...

No comments: