Microsoft Windows SDK, and its predecessors Platform SDK, and .NET Framework SDK, are software development kits (SDKs) from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

that contain documentation, header files, libraries, samples and tools required to develop applications for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and .NET Framework. These libraries are also distributed as Windows System Files. The ''Platform SDK'' specializes in developing applications for

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

, XP and Windows Server 2003. ''.NET Framework SDK'' is dedicated to developing applications for .NET Framework 1.1 and .NET Framework 2.0. ''Windows SDK'' is the successor of the two and supports developing applications for

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

and later, as well as .NET Framework 3.0 and later.

Features

''Platform SDK'' is the successor of the original Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 3.1x and Microsoft Win32 SDK for

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems released from 1995 to 2000 and supported until 2006, which were based on the kernel introduced in Windows 95 and modified in succeeding version ...

. It was released in 1999 and is the oldest SDK. Platform SDK contains compilers, tools, documentations, header files, libraries and samples needed for software development on

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called ''i386'') is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the i386, 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarn ...

, x64 and IA-64 CPU architectures. however, came to being with .NET Framework. Starting with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, the Platform SDK, .NET Framework SDK, Tablet PC SDK and Windows Media SDK are replaced by a new unified kit called ''Windows SDK''. However, the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK is not included since the .NET Framework 1.1 does not ship with Windows Vista. (Windows Media Center SDK for Windows Vista ships separately.) DirectX SDK was merged into Windows SDK with the release of Windows 8. Windows SDK allows the user to specify the components to be installed and where to install them. It integrates with Visual Studio, so that multiple copies of the components that both have are not installed; however, there are compatibility caveats if either of the two is not from the same era. Information shown can be filtered by content, such as showing only new Windows Vista content, only .NET Framework content, or showing content for a specific language or technology. Windows SDKs are available for free; they were once available on Microsoft Download Center but were moved to

MSDN Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

in 2012. A developer might want to use an older SDK for a particular reason. For example, the Windows Server 2003 Platform SDK released in February 2003 was the last SDK to provide full support of Visual Studio 6.0. Some older PSDK versions can still be downloaded from the Microsoft Download center; others can be ordered on CD/DVD.Microsoft Software Development Kits CD Order

Documentation

The Windows SDK documentation includes manuals documenting: * Desktop app development with Windows API and managed code * Metro-style app development using Windows Runtime and Universal Windows Platform * Web app development using ASP.NET,

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

, CSS and JavaScript * Language-related topics for C++, C#, Visual Basic.NET, F#, JavaScript, CSS and HTML, such as syntax and conventions ( Windows PowerShell language is not covered.)

References

External links

Archived Microsoft TechNet Wiki

Windows SDK Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Microsoft Windows Sdk Windows SDK Software development kits

Features

Documentation

See also

References

External links