Today, Windows Vista Beta 1 is being delivered to select Beta testers via the Windows Vista Technical Beta Program, MSDN developer program and Microsoft TechNet.
Software developers can start start building applications for Windows Vista with this release. All developer-related information for Windows Vista can be found on the newly launched MSDN Windows Vista homepage.
The focus of Windows Vista Beta 1 is on the “fundamentals”: security, deployment, manageability and reliability & diagnostics. Windows Vista Beta 1 is primarily an infrastructure release and as it's a beta release it does not contain all of the end-user features. These end-user features will be included in Beta 2.
Developers will be able to leverage their Win32 and .NET Framework development skills to build applications using the full beta 1 of the WinFX Runtime Components, formerly code-named the "Microsoft Pre-Release Software Code Named “Avalon” and “Indigo” Beta1 RC".
With the arrival of beta 1 of the WinFX Runtime Components the codenames "Avalon" and "Indigo" have received their final names: Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly “Avalon”), Windows Communication Foundation (formerly “Indigo”), and “InfoCard” for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
As the homepage states, Windows Vista will bring clarity to the world of the developers:
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Create The Experience: Today, users want software that is faster, easier, and visually exciting. With Microsoft Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," developers can differentiate their applications by the user experience and provide new ways to help users be productive and make applications more relevant and just plain fun to use. Microsoft is offering new technologies and a set of user experience (UX) guidelines that show how to use the innovations in Windows Vista environment to build graphically rich user experiences that take advantage of the power of the end user's personal computer.
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Secure It: The ubiquity of network connectivity has caused a nightmare for computer security. In addition to improvements in the security of the underlying operating system, Microsoft Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," provides advances that enable developers to create more secure applications and to ease the burden on system administrators and end users when it comes to securing systems.
In particular, Windows Vista tackles the problem of privilege. Malicious software, or malware, typically runs under the privilege level of the user currently operating the computer and most users run with elevated privileges by default. When you put these together, malware often runs with Administrator privileges. Having all operations take place with the least possible privilege necessary is a primary focus of Windows Vista. In addition, Windows Vista provides tools for assessing and reporting on vulnerabilities in your applications and mechanisms for fully integrating firewall and anti-malware tools with the operating system and the Security Center.
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Make It Reliable: Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," provides a new set of APIs that help you make applications more predictable and manageable. Enhanced portal services help you understand how your applications behave in real-world deployments.
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Get Connected: New features in Windows Vista™, formerly code name "Longhorn," make it easy to develop applications that communicate across the enterprise, around the world, as well as with nearby devices and machines. The Windows Communication Foundation (formerly code name "Indigo") Web service APIs make it easy to build and consume secure, reliable, and transacted Web services. New peer-to-peer capabilities enable the discovery and sharing of data between computers and nearby devices. Performance improvements have made communications faster than ever before and improved support for standards like IPv6, WS-*, and RSS makes Windows Visa a great way to write applications that communicate with each other.
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Integrate Data: The Windows Vista™ (formerly Windows code name "Longhorn") platform introduces new data storage and search technologies that enable developers to build applications that are searchable and that integrate disparate data formats-applications that find and share the data that users want to see.
New features oriented around finding, organizing, and sharing data are accessible to developers through both Win32 and WinFX APIs. In particular, Windows Vista introduces a new XML Paper Specification (XPS) that is accessible through the Windows Presentation Foundation (formerly Windows code name "Avalon") presentation technology. It also provides a complete RSS (Really Simple Syndication) subsystem that enables developers to find and consume RSS feeds through system-level APIs instead of through a dedicated RSS reader.
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Be Discoverable: Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," changes how users interact with their files, messages, and other items. Users are no longer restricted to only using folders as a way of organizing their content. Windows Vista introduces concepts such as virtual folders, stacks, grouping, and filtering and also provides ways for developers to enable file types or other data sources to be indexed and searched.
As a developer, all you need to do to enable Windows Vista to access the content and metadata of your application files is to write a property handler that implements Windows Vista search metadata management interfaces. Windows Vista Explorer uses these property handlers to search and display your application metadata using features like list provider and preview list handler. In addition, you can use the property access and query APIs to implement built-in search capability in your application.
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Make It Deployable: Windows Vista™, formerly code name Windows "Longhorn," makes deploying and updating applications easier. Developers can choose to deploy applications using ClickOnce, or take advantage of improvements in Windows Installer.
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Go Mobile: For developers building applications for mobile computers, Microsoft Windows Vista is a huge advance. Read about the new auxiliary display, advances in power management and network awareness, and the new ubiquitous Tablet PC capabilities in all versions.
Meanwhile you can start the download of one of these Windows Vista versions on MSDN Subscriber Downloads:
- Windows Longhorn Professional Edition Beta 1 - checked/debug (English)
- Windows Longhorn Professional Edition Beta 1 (English)
- Windows Longhorn Professional Edition Beta 1 Windows Developers Kit (English)
- Windows Longhorn Professional x64 Edition Beta 1 (English)
A new exciting era for developers on the Windows platform starts today!
Check out the videos in the lower left "Main Viewer Selection" area. And don't forget to sign-up for the betas!
Brian Goldfarb announces the launch of the new ASP.NET 1.x -> 2.0 Upgrade Center on MSDN. This new site can be considered as "the" point of content for all ASP.NET 1.1 to ASP.NET 2.0 upgrade related information.
Together with the new site the Web Platform and Tools Team has also created a brand new whitepaper that delineates in detail lessons learned, best practices, and techniques that will help developers upgrade there apps in several hours. In addition to content, the product team has done significant product work to increase the quality of the upgrade wizard.
For migrating ASP and other web technologies to ASP.NET check the MSDN migration center at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/migration/.