Microsoft Windows SDK Blog : Vista

Windows SDK Configuration Tool May Report an Error When OS Display Format is not English

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:33:00 GMT

This post describes a problem with the Windows SDK Configuration Tool, which is used to set the version of Windows SDK headers, libraries and tools you wish to build with in the Visual Studio or Windows SDK build environments.

Issue: When you launch the Windows SDK Configuration Tool on a system which has Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 and the display format of the operating system is not English, an error may be thrown: “Your system does not have Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 installed."

This error will occur when the OS is Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 is installed. This error can be reproduced in the Windows 7 SDK and the Windows Server 2008 SDK.

Cause: With some non-English operating system display formats, the Windows SDK Configuration Tool is unable to parse the version number of Visual Studio as written in the registry.

Solution: There are two workarounds to the problem:

(1) Use the command-line version of Windows SDK Configuration Tool to change to the version of the Windows SDK you wish to target. For example to target the Windows 7 SDK go to the Windows SDK prompt by Clicking All Programs -> Select Microsoft Windows SDK v7.0 -> Select CMD shell. At the Windows SDK command prompt, type “ WindowsSdkVer.exe -version:v7.0 “ [without quotes]

(2) Change the OS Display Format to English (United States). Go to Control Panel and navigate to your Regional and Language Options. On the Formats tab ensure English (United States) is selected. You should now be able to use the Windows SDK Configuration Tool to target the appropriate build environment. Note: once you have changed the target you may return your OS Display Format to its original setting.

Send your thoughts to the Windows SDK Feedback alias. Tell us how you use the SDK and what we can do to improve your development experience. The MSDN Windows SDK Developer Center is the place to find resources and links to Windows SDK products, release notes, technical articles, and more.

Window SDK Team

The Windows SDK Update for Windows Vista is live

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:05:00 GMT

Update: A more recent Windows SDK is now available. Find out more here. You can always find the most recent SDK on the MSDN Windows SDK Developer Center.

On behalf of the Windows SDK team I am excited to announce the Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit Update for Windows Vista™ and .NET Framework 3.0.

The Web Install:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4377f86d-c913-4b5c-b87e-ef72e5b4e065&displaylang=en

ISO Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ff6467e6-5bba-4bf5-b562-9199be864d29&displaylang=en

What’s new and special in this release? The SDK Update contains updated compilers and documentation.

The Update ships upgraded compilers from the Visual C++ team that enable developers to leverage a security-related feature in Windows Vista called ASLR. The updated compilers are the same ones that recently shipped in Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1. In addition, there are documentation updates that weren’t available when the Windows SDK for Vista locked down. Shipping the Windows SDK for Vista Update has enabled us to provide high priority content updates such as these to developers who create Windows applications.

If you have our Windows SDK for Windows Vista release installed, you will need to uninstall it before installing the Update. This Update release is intended to replace the previously-released bits.

As always, please let us know what you think of the release.

Pat Litherland
Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation – Windows SDK Team

Windows SDK for Windows Vista is live

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:57:00 GMT

It is with great pleasure that I announce that the Windows SDK for Windows Vista has been released to web.

Update: A more recent Windows SDK is now available. Find out more here. You can always find the most recent SDK on the MSDN Windows SDK Developer Center.

The Web Install:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4377f86d-c913-4b5c-b87e-ef72e5b4e065&displaylang=en

ISO Download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=ff6467e6-5bba-4bf5-b562-9199be864d29&displaylang=en

A lot of people from all over the greater Windows organization have spent years (literally!) creating great content for the Windows SDK Team to bring together for our developer customers. I would like to thank everyone who delivered such outstanding new content for this SDK.

Below are just a few interesting statistics about this SDK.

The Windows SDK for Windows Vista includes support for .NET Framework 3.0 and can be used to write applications that target Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as well as Windows Vista.

Stats for the Documentation:

a. SDK docs have over 100 million words

b. Approximately 304K topics: 106K native + 198K managed

c. Approximately 149K “New in Vista” topics

Stats for the Samples:

a. 745 Non-.NET 3.0 Samples

i. 200 New to Vista

ii. Covers 164 (48%) of Vista features with new Win32 APIs

iii. Mostly native Win32/COM in C++

b. 801 .NET Samples

.NET 3.0 Samples # of Unique C# Coverage VB Coverage

WCF 146 100% 72%

WF 60 100% 95%

WPF 434 98% 58%

Cross Technology 23 96% 9%

.NET Framework 2.0 138 95% 80%

Totals 801 98% 66%

Stats for the Tools:

a. Native Development: 1,700 Headers + 281 Libs + 110 Tools

b. .NET (Managed) Development

i.14 Reference Assemblies supporting .NET, Tablet PC, Windows PowerShell, MMC, etc.

ii.33 Intellisense Files

iii. 70 .NET 2.0 Tools + 10 .NET 3.0 Tools

c. Visual Studio 2005 Integration

i. Utilities to enable Visual Studio 2005 to easily use Windows SDK headers and libs

ii. Visual Studio 2005 Wizards for creating WMP applications
Fully componentized Setup

a. Appropriately granular custom setup options

i. 36 separate MSIs, from a variety of teams including the SDK team

ii. Recognizes external MSIs that are already installed

b. The web install downloads only what you select

i. Estimated download time per selected component

ii. Cumulative and per component disk space costing

The entire Windows SDK Team worked incredibly hard behind the scenes improving the infrastructure that’s needed to manage all this content and build the final setup package.

Lori Pearce
Product Unit Manager, Windows SDK

Vista Bridge Sample Library Discussion

wsdkblog@microsoft.com — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:47:00 GMT

I've just posted the first in what I hope will be a long series of blog posts providing sneak previews of and updates to the Vista Bridge sample library that ships with the Windows SDK. Vista Bridge is a collection of samples that provide a way for managed code developers to access many of the new Vista native APIs, and while the feature set in the current shipping builds is quite good, we continue to add more APIs and features every day, with plans to continue doing so through Vista RTM and beyond. The current plan is to then make the updated versions of the sample library available on a semi-regular basis via blogs and/or other downloads, though the exact vehicles are still TBD.

For complete information, see the full post on my blog.

.NET 3.0 Samples	# of Unique	C# Coverage	VB Coverage
WCF	146	100%	72%
WF	60	100%	95%
WPF	434	98%	58%
Cross Technology	23	96%	9%
.NET Framework 2.0	138	95%	80%
Totals	801	98%	66%