With this morning's keynote on Windows 7, I can finally share details about what's changed in WIC in Windows 7! We've spent much time fixing many issues that both our customers and we found since we shipped Windows Vista. We also added a number of important features that were asked for by customers. Here's a list of new features and improvements you'll find:

• Enhanced metadata support
• GIF:
• Metadata handlers exposed, enabling developers to gain access to the animation information. These include Logical Screen Descriptor (LSD), Image Descriptor (IMD), Graphic Control Extensions (GCE), Application Extensions (APE), Comment.
• PNG:
• New metadata handlers added, including iTXT, gAMA, bKGD, cHRM, iCCP, sRGB, tIME.
• JPEG:
• New metadata handlers added, including Comments, Chrominance, Luminance.
• Ability to read spanned APP13 blocks.
• Existing metadata handlers:
• Many bug fixes!
• Enhanced TIFF support
• Support for tiled, planar, and JPEG compressed TIFFs
• Cross-apartment and MTA support.
• IWICPixelFormatInfo2
• Adds information about transparency and numeric representation of the pixel format.
• IWICProgressiveLevelControl
• This allows developers to gain access to an image's progressive levels.
• Supports on GIF, PNG, and JPEG.
• Additional Pixel Formats, including ones for high color

If you have any questions about WIC on Windows 7, please feel free to either email us or visit the forums.