Microsoft Windows SDK Blog

Many Windows SDK users have questions about the system behind the documentation provided with the SDK. Part 1 of this series explained the basic structure behind the Windows SDK help system. It also looked at how ms-help:// URLs can be used to learn about...

Introduction Many Windows SDK users have questions about the system behind the documentation provided with the SDK. Here is the first in a series of posts explaining how this system works and how to customize it. This post provides an overview of the...

Issue : Installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 breaks the Windows SDK Configuration tool in the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. This tool is used to set the version of Windows SDK headers, libraries and tools you wish to build with...

We want to share some preliminary results from the recent Windows SDK customer surveys asking how would you spend $100 on existing SDK features and how would you spend $100 on new SDK features . The results may surprise you! Thanks to those that have...

How would you spend $100 on NEW Windows SDK features? We're planning our next version and subsequent releases of the SDK. In that spirit, we’re running a quick poll of Windows SDK users to help us keep our "vision" for the SDK aligned with yours. If you...

How would you improve the Windows SDK components? If you had a hypothetical $100 to spend on the list of existing SDK components below, what would you improve? There are no rules. You can spend it all on one component you think needs help, or divide the...

The Windows SDK team is happy to announce the availability of the source code for .NET Terrarium 2.0 on http://www.codeplex.com/terrarium2 . For those who are not familiar with Terrarium, I’ll provide a little history. It is a game that was created by...

I’ve been writing about some of the useful but sometimes overlooked tools in the Windows Software Development Kit for Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 . For this installment, let’s have look at couple of tools that are related in that they are both...

This article applies to the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 , when used with Visual Studio 2008 (all versions). This post describes a problem with the GUI version of the Windows SDK Configuration Tool , which is used to set...

The Windows SDK is typically updated only when a Windows operating system or the .NET Framework reaches a major milestone or is released. Unfortunately, this leaves large gaps of time between SDK updates. Are there parts of the SDK would you like to see...

A standalone Windows Installer 4.5 SDK has been released to the Download Center. This Windows Installer SDK release contains updates to tools, utilities, samples, and documentation for Windows Installer 4.5. Aaron Stebner blogged about the new and improved...

The Windows SDK team has received a number of questions about how we manage our registry, so I wanted to take a minute to describe the way that the Windows SDK writes to the registry. On installation of a Windows SDK, including Windows SDK components...

Issue : After installing the Windows SDK for Server 2008, you are no longer able to build at the VS2008 command line. You receive an error that csc, vbc, and/or msbuild commands are not recognized. You are able to build without problems in the VS IDE...

As the builder of the Windows SDK, I have a vested interest in what is delivered with the SDK. I’m sharing some of the interesting jewels I've found in my series “Windows SDK Hidden Gems.” In my last post I talked about the Windows Installer Verbose Log...

This article applies to the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 . Problem: If your usage scenario matches the one listed below , you will be unable to build in the Windows SDK command line build environment. If you type cl.exe in...

This article describes the use of the Windows SDK Configuration tool, which is included in the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 and works with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, including Visual Studio 2008 Express SKUs...

Charles Oppermann on the Speech team wrote a post on the new Speech-related content that ships in the recently released Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 . The content in this new Windows SDK completely replaces the older SAPI...

Several VS 2008 and Windows SDK users have reported that Intellisense stops working for XAML projects after installing the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 . The Windows SDK Team and the Visual Studio 2008 team has been able...

This article describes what you need to do to build Win32 applications using Visual C++ Express and the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 . A more detailed explanation including screenshots can be found here . With the Visual...

This article describes what you need to do to build Win32 applications using Visual C++ Express and the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. A shortened, quick-start version of this article (without screenshots) can be found here...

Did you know that you can search for APIs alphabetically in the Windows SDK Documentation? You can search the online SDK Documents on MSDN . The alphabetical API listing is named “Platform Information” topic. It’s a handy way to find that API reference...

The UI Spy tool did not ship in the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 , released February, 2008. We’re working to get this great tool back into the next SDK release. If you need UISpy, you can find it in the earlier Windows SDK...

The Windows SDK team is proud to announce that the RTM release of the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 is now live for customers to install. Availability: The Windows SDK is available as either an ISO install...

This article applies to the Windows SDK for Windows Vista , the Windows SDK for Windows Vista Update , and the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 (a pre-release SDK at the time this post was written). The Windows SDK installs both SDK-core components...

As one component in a customer data gathering project that involves many on our team, Pat Litherland and I are working on a task to create Windows SDK-specific personas that represent our customer base in future planning activities. With over a million...