Windows SDK File System Layout

Looking for SDK components? By default, the Windows SDK is installed to your hard disk to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\[version number] in the subdirectories below. You can change the install location during SDK setup. Samples are installed by default to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\[version number]\Samples directory, but this directory can be also be changed, independent of the rest of the SDK content, during SDK install. If you install the samples to the default Program Files directory, you can be sure you’ll always have a pristine set of samples, since files in Program Files are Read Only. But I sometimes like to install to a directory like C:\Samples so I can build without copying the samples from the Read Only Program Files to a directory to which I have write access.

Where are the Release Notes? You’ll find them right at the SDK root: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\[version number].

Directory Contents

\Bin Windows SDK tools

\Help Windows SDK documentation

\Include Windows SDK headers

\Lib Import libraries and TLB files

\License Windows SDK license information

\No Redist Non-Redistributable files

\Redist Redistributable files

\Samples Windows SDK samples

\Setup Setup files

\VC VC Compilers*

*The C++ compiler install directory will be changing in the RTM version of the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5, scheduled to release when Server 2008 is shipped. In the upcoming Server 2008 SDK, the compilers will install to the same directory that Visual Studio uses, so that the components can be shared (and you end up with less duplication on disk).