January, 2006

First of all Happy New Year!

I have been "in a cave for almost a month"... half of which I spent relaxing diving catching cray's... the other half I spend learning and networking in rainy Seattle.

I have so much to share and talk about but I need to be careful not overload and throw everything out at once... so here goes my first post of the year.

Ari Bixhorn has let the cat out of the bag that we are supporting "Go Live" licenses for the Windows Workflow Foundation Beta2 Runtime (WF) and Windows Communication Foundation Beta2 Runtime (WCF)... it is important to be clear these are isolated releases of these two foundation frameworks outside of the WinFX runtime components.... there is no "Go Live" license for the WinFX January Community Technology Preview (CTP).

Download the WF & WCF B2 runtimes from here.

Please Read: Important Factors to Consider Before Going Live
There are several important factors that you should take into consideration before deploying applications based on the pre-release technologies in a live operating environment:

These are pre-release technologies and they may not operate correctly.

• Microsoft does not offer support for the pre-release technologies. Informal community support is available via online forums and similar resources. However no patches, updates, or other fixes will be provided. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/community/  for a list of community resources.    
  The community site for Windows Communication Foundation is available at http://www.windowscommunication.net 
  The community site and forum for Windows Workflow Foundation is available at http://www.windowsworkflow.net
   
• You may not distribute Windows Communication Foundation or Windows Workflow Foundation. For example: end users of an ISV application based on one of the Go-Live releases referenced above must obtain Windows Communication Foundation and/or Windows Workflow Foundation from Microsoft, and agree to both the software license terms and the Go-Live License.
   
• APIs and functionality in the Go-Live* versions referenced above may change in the commercial release of the technologies and applications that rely on APIs in the Go-Live* versions might not work.
  Carefully review the software license terms and Go Live License for rights and conditions on use.

At this stage I'm not sure what this means for running on the Dec CTP of Vista... but I'll strive to find out.

*update*

Yup this stuff will work with the Dec CTP of Vista... the Vista “where to get the beta” site will also points to the WinFX Runtime January CTP.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=64750EEF-D4A7-4CC8-92F2-9A201268A231&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5A0AE4CD-DC79-4B12-8A05-B6195F89FFA2&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A2151993-991D-4F58-A707-5883FF4C1DC2&displaylang=en

http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/support/relnotes/winfxjanctp/default.aspx

Chris Auld has blogged about the good work his company has been doing on the Hands On Labs for WF Beta 2.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.