Walkthrough to Get Your Applications Ready for Windows 7

First Order of Business: Compatibility for Windows Client Applications

The first order of business is application compatibility. Generally, if your Windows client application runs under Windows Vista, you're probably compatible. But to be safe, check out the Windows 7 Application Compatibility Guide. The Guide highlights changes that could affect your application. it also points out differences in performance, reliability, and usability, and provides links to detailed white papers and other developer guidance.

First Order of Business: Compatibility for Web Applications

The browser that ships on Windows 7 is Internet Explorer 8. And users of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 are getting notified through Automatic Update to update to Internet Explorer 8. So if you haven't done so already, be sure both your Web application and your customer-facing Web site are compatible with Internet Explorer 8.

Light up Windows 7

Next, you can light up Windows 7 features in your application. Lighting up your application in Windows 7 gives the users a better experience and shows you are among the development leaders. Many of the features are relatively easy to implement too. Lighting up Windows 7 is about adding to your application, not about rewriting or major revisions. Some of the features can be implemented in just a few lines of code.

Fast Track to Get Started

Before I dive into the main features for line of business applications, you'll want to get:

  • Latest release of Windows 7. I'll be sure to post links on where you can get Windows 7 released candidate as soon as it is publicly available.
  • Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA. Once the release candidate is out, the SDK will be revised and improved within a few weeks. Check the Windows Team Blog or this blog for announcements of the availability of the release candidate software developer kit. But you can get the SDK now to get an idea of what it takes to implement the features you're considering.
  • If you are developing on managed code using C# or Visual Basic, get the Windows API Code Pack for the .NET Library. You'll find sample code there to help you get started for Visual Basic, C#, and C++.
  • Resources for help. That includes Windows 7 developer code samples, forums, and events. More details a the end of this blog posting.

So you have the tools. Here's a list of what features you can light up: Windows 7 Touch, Taskbar, Libraries, Sensor and Location, PowerShell, and much more.

 

Fore more info please visit: http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde/archive/2009/04/25/walkthrough-to-get-your-applications-ready-for-windows-7.aspx