The is a free
Software Development Kit from
Microsoft that contains
Header Files ,
Libraries , samples,
Documentation and tools utilizing the
APIs required to successfully
Develop Applications for
Microsoft Windows and the
.NET Framework 3.0 . The ''Windows SDK'' can be used to write applications that target
Windows XP and
Windows Server 2003 as well as
Windows Vista while the older ''Platform SDK'' can be used to develop applications for
Windows 2000 , Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The Windows SDK replaces the Platform SDK, the WinFX SDK and the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK. The
Package contains over 100 million words of
Documentation and nearly 1000 samples. Although the SDK itself is available free of cost, obtaining the SDK requires that the copy of Windows be
Validated .
The previously released Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK (SDK for Windows 2000/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003) is available as:
The Windows SDK (SDK for Windows Vista/Windows XP/Windows Server 2003) is available as:
DVDs are also available for purchase
here.
Starting with
Windows Vista , the ''Platform SDK'' has been renamed the to better reflect the content included, and to offer the documentation, samples, build environment and tools needed to develop Windows applications all in one place. Also, the SDK for
.NET Framework 3.0 (previously known as WinFX) and .NET Framework 2.0 (which is also now a part of .NET Framework 3.0) is included in the Windows SDK. The Tablet PC SDK is also included. Thus, all the
APIs which will ship with Windows Vista and the latest compilers are now integrated into the Windows SDK. However, the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK is not included since the .NET Framework 1.1 does not ship with Windows Vista. Also, the Windows Media Center SDK for Windows Vista ships separately.
The Windows SDK also allows the user to specify where the SDK will be installed and what components will be installed where, with even more granularity. Also, it integrates better with
Visual Studio , so multiple copies of tools are not installed. Information shown can be filtered by content such as showing only new Windows Vista content, Win32 development content, .NET Framework development content; or by language or a specific technology.
The previous version, called the Platform SDK contains all the resources (tools, documentation etc.) and compilers needed for 64-bit development on x86-64 and Itanium-based platforms. Microsoft however, recommends using the updated Visual Studio 2005 compilers.
The Windows SDK currently contains compilers and resources that target development on the AMD64 (x86-64) platform. It does not contain the Itanium (
IA-64 ) compiler; that compiler will ship with upcoming releases that target the
Windows Server "Longhorn" platform.
The Windows SDK contains over 304,000 pages, including the following:
- 198,000 pages documenting Managed Code development
- 106,000 pages documenting Win32 development
- Over 100 million words
- Approximately 149,000 “New in Windows Vista” topics
- All SDK docs are posted to http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/default.aspx
The Windows SDK contains the following:
- For Win32 development:
- --- 1,700 Headers
- --- 281 Libraries
- --- 110 Tools
- For .NET (Managed Code) Development:
- --- 14 Reference Assemblies supporting .NET, Tablet PC, Windows PowerShell , MMC, etc.
- --- 33 Intellisense Files
- --- 70 .NET 2.0 Tools + 10 .NET 3.0 Tools
- For Visual Studio 2005 Integration
- --- Utilities to enable Visual Studio 2005 to easily use Windows SDK headers and libs
- --- Visual Studio 2005 Wizards for creating WMP applications
The SDK contains samples in the following topic areas:
- 430 Windows Presentation Foundation samples
- 140 Windows Communication Foundation samples
- 60 Windows Workflow Foundation samples
- 200 New to Vista (Win32/COM-based) samples
- 23 Cross technology samples
All samples found in the SDK can easily be built, assuming that
Microsoft Visual Studio or the free
Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 is already installed:
- Start a ''Visual Studio Command Prompt'' or a ''Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 Command Prompt'' console as administrator.
- Run the ''SetEnv.bat'' file in the SDK root directory to set up the correct build configuration. This will typically be ''Windows XP 32 DEBUG'', or ''Windows XP 32 RETAIL''.
- Run the ''nmake'' command in the directory containing the samples you want to build
