Windows 7 RC Training Kit for Developers

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Looking to dive into coding with Windows 7?  The RC Training Kit is a great resource for developers, with hands-on labs and presentation materials covering many of the Windows 7 features, including:

  • Windows 7 Taskbar
  • Libraries and Federated Search
  • Multi-touch
  • Sensor and Location APIs
  • Ribbon
  • Background Services and Tasks
  • Instrumentation and Performance

There’s also the Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework, currently at version 0.90, which provides a namespace of managed code wrappers for many, but not yet all, of the COM and C++ interfaces exposed by the new Windows 7 features.

You’ll note that the examples in the RC Training Kit use a different set of managed code wrappers from what’s in the API Code Pack.  There’s an on-going plan to port most of the older Vista Bridge code (in the training kit) to the API Code Pack, but until the Code Pack reaches its version 1.0 RTM milestone, you may end up dealing with one (or both) managed code layers depending on what features of Windows 7 you’re working with and what code samples you’re consulting.