Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista, Developers

Announcing the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Customer Preview Program (CPP)

Mike Nash — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:23:00 GMT

Hi, Mike Nash here. In late October I announced the Beta of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 - beginning with a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers. This week we're opening up the beta to a broader audience. Starting today, MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta to begin testing.

Beginning Thursday Dec. 4^th, we will be making the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Beta available to everyone through a Customer Preview Program (CPP). The CPP will launch on TechNet and be available to anyone interested in trying out this service pack. The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT Pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack.

For those of you who choose to test this service pack, we encourage you to install the beta as soon as you can; your feedback will help us to ship a solid and stable service pack for Windows Vista.

Windows Vista SP2 builds on the solid foundation of Windows Vista SP1, and represents our ongoing commitment to Windows Vista today. Windows Vista SP2 includes all of the updates that have been delivered since the release of Windows Vista SP1, and incorporates improvements discovered through automated feedback from the Customer Experience Improvement Program (where users voluntarily opt-in to sending Microsoft error reports from their systems). In addition to these updates, SP2 also includes support for new types of hardware and emerging standards that will grow in importance in the coming months. For specific changes in Windows Vista SP2 - see my previous post on Windows Vista SP2 or check out the notable changes document.

Your feedback from testing will help us deliver the highest quality release possible. As of today, we are tracking to ship Windows Vista SP2 in the first half of 2009.

Check it out: Speech@Microsoft

Nick White — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:18:00 GMT

Nope, it's not a new email address -- it's a new blog. The team responsible for incorporating speech technology into Windows Vista, among other products, has a new blog called Speech @ Microsoft. Their blog started just this month and inaugural posts cover such topics as using speech APIs (COM or .NET) in applications and which languages are supported by Windows Speech Recognition and TTS (text-to-speech) in Windows Vista. If you're interested in Windows Vista's speech recognition capabilities (you did know that it's present in all editions of Windows Vista, didn't you?), then keep this blog on your radar.

New Application Compatibility training available

Peg McNicol — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:19:00 GMT

When we talk about application compatibility for our large customers, it goes beyond making sure the latest game or end user application works. Our enterprise customers sometimes have hundreds of thousands of PCs to manage. That means a lot of different applications, from many different companies, some custom and some customized. To help these customers we created a suite of enterprise tools called the Application Compatibility Toolkit (see my earlier post), and also worked with partners to create a service called the Application Compatibility Factory (see here).

One thing you may not know is that we also have a team of specially trained consultants who work with customers on some of these very large deployments. We try to make sure all our customers can take advantage of the team's knowledge, so we send them to events like TechEd or IT Forum and they contribute significantly to the content you find on TechNet and MSDN. Unfortunately it's not always possible for customers to have one-on-one interaction with this team. That's why we are pretty excited that one of the consultants, Caio Chaves Garcez, recently recorded the full 2 day training the team usually presents to these large customers. The training covers most common application compatibility issues found with Windows Vista, as well as how to use the various tools we make available. Whether you are an IT Pro starting your deployment or a developer trying to make your older applications work with Vista, the content of this webcast is well worth the just over 8 hours it will take you to get through it. If you want to learn more about what the team is working on, you can also check out Chris Jackson's blog.

Download the training

Today's MIX07 Announcements Round-Up

Nick White — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 20:33:00 GMT

Today MIX07 kicks off at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas with the keynote by Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie and General Manager Scott Guthrie. You can continue to catch live, on-going coverage at the Visit MIX website.

Let me take a moment to quickly outline the many announcements that occurred today.

An updated Windows Live Dev website (dev.live.com) has launched and includes brand new controls for developers to tap into Windows Live Services when building mash-ups. Those new controls include a Spaces Photo Control and updated Windows Live Contacts control. The Windows Live Spaces control released allows third-party developers to integrate Windows Live Spaces functionality into their websites. CNET has covered the Windows Live platform news coming out of MIX this week.

The Silverlight Team has several major and exciting announcements that have occurred this morning:

An updated www.microsoft.com/silverlight website
Silverlight 1.0 Beta plug-in for browsers is now available here
A CTP (Community Technology Preview) for Silverlight 1.1 was released, adding the .NET runtime
The Silverlight community website, Silverlight.net, has launched. This website showcases a number of places where you can have the full Silverlight experience, such as at 20th Century Fox's Trailer Library (you'll need the plug-in, of course).

Silverlight Streaming with Windows Live has launched in as an Alpha (i.e., pre-Beta) service. You can upload your Silverlight projects to this hosted service to take advantage of 4GB of project storage "in the cloud." The idea is to give developers and web designers a convenient place for them to host and stream their content, which they can then integrate into their browser services using Silverlight Streaming.

The Microsoft Expression Studio has been released as a suite consisting of Expression Design, Expression Web, Expression Blend and Expression Media. Attendees of MIX07 were given a special commemorative edition of the Expression Studio suite. You can dip your toes into incorporating Silverlight into your web creations using the preview version of Expression Blend 2.0 and the trial version of Expression Media Encoder.

This is just a brief overview of the announcements made today at MIX07, with more to come.

Windows Vista Gadgets Competition on Code Project - final results

Nick White — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:17:00 GMT

Last month we posted an update to the Windows Vista Gadgets Competition on Code Project. Now that the competition is complete, the team behind it would like to thank everyone who entered. The goal of the contest was to deliver 20 quality Sidebar Gadgets; we surpassed our goal considerably with a total of 29 gadget entries. The source code for the top 10 gadgets was downloaded by about 159,000 developers.

Join us in congratulating the winners, and give their gadgets a whirl and let us know what you think:

Soapbox Video Gadget

and

.NET Interop for Gadgets – A C# GMail Inbox Reader Example

An Honorable Mention was earned by A Virtual Earth slide show Gadget for Windows Vista.

This contest was certainly a success in encouraging developers to create interesting and quality Windows Vista Sidebar Gadgets. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Microsoft Announces Silverlight

Nick White — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:29:00 GMT

Yesterday we officially unveiled the name for what was previously known as the extremely catchy "WPF/e" (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters Conference. WPF/e is now Microsoft Silverlight.

OK, so what? Just what is Microsoft Silverlight? It's a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in that allows users a new and richer multimedia experience when using a Web browser (for example, it supports 720p HD media playback). Web developers targeting IE, Firefox and even Apple's Safari browser can all make use of Silverlight for a consistently amazing experience. It's also a client- and server-agnostic platform; this means that the runtimes are the same on any platform, allowing you to deliver the Silverlight experience from an Apache web server, if you like -- without requiring any MS software on the server. How's that for interoperability?

Plus, existing Windows Media-encoded content can be streamed or downloaded without the need for re-encoding.

You'll notice that the MS Silverlight Website includes demo videos and FAQ and evaluation downloads. On 30 April, just in time for MIX07, the site re-launches with a full-on Silverlight experience.

Check out Sean Alexander's demo of Silverlight over on Channel 10.

Tim Sneath has a top 10 list of reasons why you want to use Silverlight.

And saving the best for last, my former colleague from the Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Loke Uei, shares some excellent information on Silverlight, including a comparison chart between Silverlight and .NET 3.0.

This is just the beginning -- like I said, expect to hear more at MIX07 in just a few weeks.

New Mobile PC development webcast series

Nick White — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:26:00 GMT

Our development team has put together a series of webcasts starting Monday 2nd April and continuing weekly through June. These online-only Live Meetings are mainly for the developer crowd who's currently (or looking to be) building applications that run on mobile PCs. Topics center on getting the most out of Windows Vista's mobility features, running the gamut from creating SideShow Gadgets to ink-enabling an application to creating applications that are network- and battery-aware.

You can join any of these webcasts by just clicking on the title link no later than 15 minutes before the event begins on the day of the event. If you happen to miss one, each webcast will be recorded and posted here as well, where you'll also find an archive of previously recorded sessions -- if you don't want to wait!

The Windows Vista Gadgets Competition on Code Project

Nick White — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:33:00 GMT

We're only one month into the Windows Vista Gadgets Competition on Code Project, and already developers have exceeded our expectations in finding new ways to enhance the Windows Vista Sidebar experience via Gadgets. Some of the cooler gadgets include a daily Dilbert cartoon display and a tool that places your email Inbox at your fingertips. At this point we've already received dozens of contest entries and we're expecting even bigger things to come. It's pretty easy to make a gadget if you're a professional -- or even an amateur -- developer, and prizes ranging from cash to Zune player (not to mention promotion on the Code Project site) provide good incentive to take the plunge and try your hand.

If you're interested in building an innovative creation for Windows Vista Sidebar, check out the how-to articles here. And if you want to offer your opinion on contest entries, you can join the site and post your thoughts to the forums.

Here's a sampling of who've been recognized for their creations thus far:

.NET Interop for Gadgets – A C# GMail Inbox Reader Example by Acoustic

How to call absolutely any .NET code from your Windows Vista Sidebar Gadget.

A Vista sidebar gadget to provide weather information by bodrick

This article will show the different capabilities of the Windows Vista sidebar, including settings, fly-outs, different states when docked and undocked, and pulling in live data feeds over the internet.

Daily Dilbert 1.0*: A Sidebar gadget for Windows Vista by Quartz...

Daily Dilbert is a simple Windows Vista sidebar gadget which delivers the daily dilbert cartoon on your desktop.
(*Note that there’s already an updated, improved version of this gadget posted.)

A Gadget for Browsing the Astronomy Picture of the Day by Michael Dunn

This article shows a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget that you can use to browse the APOD site and view previews of each day's picture.

Windows Vista Weather SideShow by Dr.Luiji

WeatherSideShow - A SideShow application that communicates with a weather Web service.

This contest runs for the next two months -- keep an eye on the entrants and their innovations!

It's Windows Vista Week at Channels 9 and 10

Nick White — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:21:00 GMT

Windows Vista Week has begun at Channel 9 and Channel 10. Over on Channel 9 they're covering Windows Vista from the developer side, focusing on building apps for Windows Vista as a user-centric operating system. What technologies underlying Windows Vista make it what it is for the user? And what can developers get out of those technologies to improve the user's experience with their Windows apps? Channel 9 will take a deep-dive into those technologies this week. Expect topics to range from UAC to the networking stack and beyond.

Also, Channel 9's Charles Torre has posted his interview with Michael Wallent on the 'what' and 'why' of Windows Vista's developer appeal. Incidentally, I had the opportunity to interview Michael about Windows Vista product quality back in November, and he had some illuminating things to share, so I'm sure his words for devs will be equally valuable.

On Channel 10, the team will be covering a wide range of Windows Vista topics, too, in this case targeting power users (is that you?). For instance, Tina Wood works hands-on with Ernie Booth while installing Windows Vista, and Laura Foy interviews Windows Mobile's Mel Sampat (creator of FlexWallet) about getting Windows Sidebar Gadgets to run on your Windows Mobile device.

Should be an interesting week ...

Small Software Developers: Get Flying with Windows Vista

James Senior — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:02:00 GMT

Project codename "Glidepath" is an Evangelism initiative targeted at helping MicroISVs get started and be successful with a focus on Windows Vista.

Project Glidepath includes a free software factory add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that delivers, via RSS, guidance, content, code samples, step-by-step instructions and even custom tools that help MicroISVs take full advantage of Windows Vista including .NET 3.0 (WPF, WCF, WF, and CardSpace) as well as many non-technical aspects of being a MicroISV.

Project Glidepath also features the Windows Vista Spotlight highlighting MicroISV applications available worldwide that are compatible with Windows Vista.

Full information plus community forums and a blog are available via www.projectglidepath.net

James’ Go Do: Create some of your own WOW!

More devs & guitars

Nick White — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 02:20:00 GMT

Still rocking, still rolling, still writing code -- Windows Vista devs are at it again.

This is the third and final installment in the mock/rock/documentary series (unless I can dig up some more footage, that is ;).

Windows Vista Devs Rocking Out #3

Windows Vista developers: What's behind the music?

Nick White — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:09:00 GMT

Now that the coding of Windows Vista has been completed, the product has been handed off to our partners for them to ready drivers and applications that work with it, and the Marketing department is tasked with finding new and clever ways to sell it, you must be wondering: what exactly is our development team up to?

Well, wonder no more. A couple of them have taken some time out for a new pursuitsince releasing Windows Vista. As this "rockumentary" series shows, these guys are pretty good.

(I guess that's what they mean when they say the dev team is now devoting itself to a little R & R -- rock-n-roll!)

Windows Vista Devs Rocking Out #1

Windows Vista Devs Rocking Out #2

Check it out ...

For Developers: Windows Vista Readiness Hands-on-Lab

Nick White — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:36:00 GMT

Thom Robbins, Microsoft Director for Developer Marketing, points out a fantastic hands-on lab focused on helping developers create great experiences for customers running their applications in Windows Vista. Here's how the download page describes the lab:

Microsoft has put together a Hands-on Lab designed to educate developers on known Microsoft Windows Vista application compatibility issues. This process will walk the developer through specifics, focusing on solutions that will enable customers running your application to have a better experience on Microsoft Windows Vista. After completing this lab, the developer should be able to determine if and how the most commonly known application compatibility issues could affect their specific application.

Download the Lab here.

If you're a developer (or just interested in application compatability on Windows Vista), you can also head over to MSDN's Windows Vista Developer Center for a wealth of resources on developing applications specifically for the new OS.