Windows Vista developer story

Over the course of Microsoft’s history, there have been a few seminal events that enable a whole new generation of applications such as the launch of Windows 95 and the advent of the .NET Framework. With the impending release of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System, we have a big opportunity for developers to create the next generation applications with new user experiences and seamlessly connect to other systems.

Over the next several months, I am going to blog regularly about some of the new scenarios and features that developers will see in these two families of products.

 

I want to start out by pointing out some of the new technologies that are included in Windows Vista. We've talked extensively about some of the great technologies coming in the .NET Framework 3.0 which is a part of Vista. I am very excited about the new user experiences that you can create using Windows Presentation Foundation and the new ways that you can connect applications using Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation.

Here is a trivia for you. We have added more than 7,000 new native APIs for Windows developers in Windows Vista. Examples of some of the exciting new areas where we have exposed new APIs include the new integrated search capability and the new peer-to-peer functionality. To get the whole story, please check out the Windows Vista Developer Story at the Vista Developer Center.

 

While Windows Vista will provide a tremendous number of new technologies, the team has worked to make this highly compatible with previous versions of Windows. If you haven’t already started, now is a great time to start testing your applications on Windows Vista. You can find a lot of details on how to do this on the Developer Readiness Center. This will give you information on things that may have changed under Vista, how you can make your application perform well with User Access Control and ways to enable your application to take advantage of the new functionality.

 

Namaste!