I've been making a point of reading the " Heroes Happen Here " online comic because it's just a pure delight for me. It's told a fun, albeit slightly far-fetched story that has brought our heroes all around the world in an effort to stop a nasty virus...

One of the most fun tasks I've done as a member is this team has been to post our MSDN Developer Center . This site is intended to be a one-stop portal for all issues pertaining to the Windows SDK, including download information, our latest release notes...

Richard Russell (aka RGR) of the Windows Fundamentals team has posted a really nice description of Windows Performance Tool Kit, a new tool we're shipping with the latest version of the Windows SDK . As he says, "Xperf is an important tool for anyone...

Whoo hoo! The Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 is now live and ready for your download in either ISO or Web Setup format. There's scads and scads of new content in this release - content that my colleague Barry has listed in...

Anyone who knows much about me knows I'm a big comic book fan. So it's been especially fun to be a small part of a new online comic that Microsoft and Seagate are working on that is intended to highlight the great work that developers and IT professionals...

There are certain times of the year at Microsoft that I like to think of as "golden time," when email is slower, meetings are fewer, and we all have more time to stretch out and dive deep into tasks that we never usually seem to have sufficient time for...

Hey, if you're a Microsoft MVP of any type, stop by and join our Windows SDK chat tomorrow morning. We consider MVPs to be some of the most thoughtful and involved users that we have, and we have these chats in order to strive to become more connected...

Today we hit the first of a series of ZBBs for our next release, the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008. At the same time, we're essentially closing up work on our components in Visual Studio 2008. Working on these two releases has made for one of the...

I'm excited to announce that in the RTM Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 release, we'll be considering adding a new file to the SDK that many users have been asking for: a way to determine which build of the SDK is installed on disk, and a way to determine...

Our frighteningly productive team has just published yet another release live. The Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 is now live and ready for download . This a pre-release SDK that exposes the latest headers, libs, tools and...

After two years of working as the Setup and Communities PM on the Windows SDK, I'm switching over to a new role within my same team. I'm now taking on a whole set of new tasks: Online release notes Offline release notes Vista logo compliance...

Probably the most common mail I get from users about the SDK setup is some variation of this mail: I am attaching the SDK Setup log. Can you tell from this why the SDK will not install on my machine? I have tried twice, but it stops and says "failed...

Do you like to create useful tools to help your colleagues be more productive? Are you frustrated by huge software projects that take years to ship? Would you like to work on small, delivery focused projects where you have lots of creative input, authority...

This is one of those posts where I have to state my biases up front because people tend to have strong opinions about it. Like everyone, I've always liked to use Google. I started using the site pretty much when it first appeared on my radar, and like...

I thought you might enjoy hearing about what the Windows SDK's download and user-submitted data are looking like. This data is as of May 7th, 2007. Successful downloads of the Windows Vista Client RTM: ISO 335,909, 37% Web 577,760, 63% Total 912,850...

I thought it would be interesting to share a thread that I'm taking part in in the Windows SDK Forum about download failures. It's easy to blame download failures on the download servers, but there is really no way the web install can be "hosed." Our...

One of the frequent install problems we have with the SDK is that users have bad downloads of our ISO file. Thankfully, there's a handy tool out on the Microsoft Downloads Center to check the file's integrity. The Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier...

We just had a beautiful spring weekend here in the Seattle area. I spent much of the weekend around stately Sacks Mansion (ha!) pulling weeds, cutting grass, and thinking about the Windows SDK's side by side story. What can I say; I can't help but to...

My friend Karin Meier has written a nice four-part blog entry on how to resolve sample build issues in the Windows SDK on x64 machines. It's a terrific article to look at if you're having any sorts of problems with that sort of work, so check it out if...

Looking to join an fast-paced and exciting team at Microsoft? Looking to help drive our strategy around delivering both .NET Framework and C++ tools to a large and passionate audience of users? Then consider applying for a Program Manager position on...

The SDK team is working hard to produce a localized build for release over the next few weeks. Localization, for those of you not familiar with the term, is the act of producing content in a particular language, in other words, specific for one locale...

One of the most exciting and frustrating parts of any job is that people become successful and move on to new and different jobs. My buddy Dave, who had the office next to me, has left the team. He was what we call a SDET, Software Development Engineer...

One of the most useful tools for me in the Windows SDK is Orca.exe. Not to be confused by "Orcas", which is the code name for the next Visual Studio release, Orca is a tool by which a user may view and edit MSI tables. It's incredibly useful for anybody...

One of the trickiest things about being the setup PM on my team involves the issue of how we design the actual installation process of getting stuff to disk. There are as many ways to install a product as there are products themselves, and everybody that...

Finally it's here. Windows Vista is going out into the wild, and now everyone gets to use it. It's cool to see this product finally start to hit the streets. It's been a long time coming, but I think many aspects of it will be worth the wait. Yeah, you...