Megh Neupane

Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for September Customer Technology Preview (CTP) was released on September 28, 2006. The Windows SDK contains documentation, samples, headers, libraries, and tools designed to help you develop Microsoft Windows applications. The documentation, samples, and tools provided in the Windows SDK support application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) versions of Windows. Not all API support all platforms. You can look under the specific API documentation to determine which platform the API supports.

The documentation, samples, and tools provided in this release are preliminary and subject to change. This SDK is designed to use with Windows Vista build 5728 and the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime September Customer Technology Preview. This release of the Windows SDK is compatible with the RTM versions of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio Extensions for .Net Framework 3.0 are available in the related resources.

NOTES:
There are a number of known issues with this release. Please consult the Release Notes associated with this download for more information. Reminder: This version of the Windows SDK will not work with previous pre-release versions of Windows Vista, the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components for Windows XP or Windows Server, or previous pre-release versions of Visual Studio.

Please note that this download contains SDK content only. To build .NET Framework 3.0 applications for Windows XP or Windows Server, the .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime Components for September CTP must be downloaded separately.

Microsoft has released the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta. “Visual Studio 2005 shipped in November of 2005 and this Service Pack incorporates fixes that we have addressed since that release”, announced Microsoft today. Following are the type of fixes you will find in this beta service pack:

• The Hotfixes and General Distribution Release Updates released between Visual Studio 2005 Release to Market and the end of the Service Pack customer beta period.
• Any fixes addressing security issues categorized by the Microsoft Security Response Center as “Critical”, “Important” or “Moderate”.
• Fixes for product reliability and stability issues, including those reported by customers via the Product Feedback Center, and the crashes most frequently reported via Watson.
• Fixes for common “eligible” functional issues reported by customers via the Product Feedback Center. “Eligible” functional issues are those that do not require breaking changes, architectural changes, or Design Change Request level feature work and that do not create unacceptable product quality risk and/or cost of implementation.
• Fixes for the top customer and supportability issues as reported by Customer Support Services.

Somasegar’s WebLog mentions VS2005 is triggered to make itself compatible with Windows Vista. Such a support will be announced in the coming months. Presently, VS2005 SP1 will run on Vista but may likely have some compatibility issues. Visual Studio .NET 2002 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 support will be dropped as development environments on Windows Vista however, you can continue to use Visual Studio .NET 2002 or 2003 on Windows XP to develop applications that can run on Windows Vista.

Download VS 2005 SP1 Beta

NOTES

• While installing on Vista, if you get “Error 1718. File was rejected by digital signature policy”, follow KB 925336 for a successful installation.
• Custom Actions under UAC in Vista