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Windows 7 sessions at PDC

Sep. 30, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

Those interested in the next version of Windows can find a few clues to its contents in the descriptions of the Windows 7 sessions planned for next month’s PDC in Los Angeles. These include:

Windows 7: Web Services in Native Code

Windows 7 introduces a new networking API with support for building SOAP based web services in native code. This session discusses the programming model, interoperability aspects with other implementations of WS-* protocols, and demonstrates various services and applications built using this API.

Windows 7: Extending Battery Life with Energy Efficient Applications

A single application can accidentally halve battery life for the average laptop. This session demonstrates best practices for designing energy efficient applications and shows utilities for diagnosing common application battery life problems. Learn about how Windows 7 makes it easier for developers to design energy-efficient applications which do not negatively impact mobile PC battery life.

Windows 7: Developing Multi-touch Applications

In Windows 7, innovative touch and gesture support will enable more direct and natural interaction in your applications. This session highlights the new multi-touch gesture APIs and explains how you can leverage them in your applications.

Windows 7: Writing Your Application to Shine on Modern Graphics Hardware

This session centers on the new enhancements to DirectX that enable Win32 applications harness the latest innovations in modern graphics hardware. Learn how to use the Windows 7 graphics infrastructure to enable your applications to display graphics content on different generations of graphics hardware, across multiple displays and on a remote desktop. Also learn how you can test your application for DPI awareness, what to look for, and how to make it provide the best experience on high-DPI displays.

Windows 7: Unlocking the GPU with Direct3D

Learn how to use the latest version of Direct3D to unlock the rendering and computing power of the GPU and to target the wide variety of hardware used by your customers. Learn techniques for integrating this high-performance 3D graphics pipeline within your Win32 applications.

Windows 7: Building Great Communications Applications

TBD

Windows 7: New Shell User Experience APIs

TBD

Windows 7: Benefiting from Documents and Printing Convergence

Discover how updating your printing infrastructure to XPS allows your application to seamlessly bridge across both electronic and physical paper and benefit from new document workflow and interoperability scenarios.

Windows 7: New APIs to Find, Visualize, and Organize

TBD

Developing for Microsoft Surface

This session introduces the newly available Microsoft Surface SDK. Hear about the unique attributes of Microsoft Surface computing, dive into vision-based object recognition and core controls like ScatterView, and learn how the Surface SDK aligns with the multi-touch developer roadmap for Windows 7 and WPF. Additionally, learn how you can become a part of the expanding partner ecosystem for Microsoft Surface and leverage your existing investments in WPF and Visual Studio to build engaging end user applications. Attendees will receive access to the Microsoft Surface SDK.

Windows 7: New Text and Graphics APIs

TBD

Windows 7: Designing Efficient Background Processes

Inefficient background activity has a dramatic impact on system performance, power consumption, responsiveness, and memory footprint. This session demonstrates best practices for background process design and dives deep on the capabilities of the Service Control Manager (SCM) and Task Scheduler. It also covers how to use new Windows 7 infrastructure to develop efficient background tasks.

Windows 7: Design Principles for Windows 7

Together, we can increase customer enthusiasm, satisfaction and loyalty by designing user experiences that are both desirable and harmonious. In this session we introduce the Windows User Experience Principles approach to shipping software. Along the way we share stories and lessons learned along the journey of designing the user model and experience for Windows 7, and leave you with a set of principles that you can apply as you build your applications for Windows.

Windows 7: Integrate with the Windows 7 Desktop Taskbar

This session dives into new APIs that enable integration with the latest Windows desktop features. Learn about new extensibility methods to surface your application's key tasks. Discover how enhancements to the taskbar, Start Menu, thumbnails and their desktop elements provide new ways for you to delight your users. This talk is a must for application developers who wan to provide the best user experience for their applications on Windows 7.

Windows 7: Welcome to the Windows 7 Desktop

The Windows desktop is evolving--is your application ready to evolve also? This session sets the stage for exciting enhancements to the taskbar, Start Menu, and other desktop elements.

Windows 7: New APIs for Building Context-Aware Applications

TBD

Windows 7: Deploying Your Application with Windows Installer (MSI) and ClickOnce

If you are a developer involved in the creation of application deployment packages using Windows Installer (MSI) or ClickOnce, this session is for you. Learn how you can take advantage of new features in Windows 7 to shorten application installation times, reduce UAC prompts, write less custom code, take less time to write installations for complex packages, and much more!

Windows 7: Deep Dive: What's New with user32 and comctl32 in Win32

Hear about the lowest level user interface components (user32, comctl32) that appear in almost every Windows application. Learn about "recent" changes and enhancements in these subsystems, plus be subjected to some philosophical musings on how foreground activation is like love. (No really, it will actually help you write better software.)

Windows 7: Programming Sync Providers That Work Great with Windows

Learn how you can enable your application to synchronize with other applications that use the Microsoft Sync Framework. This session covers how to implement sync for contacts and other PIM data, how to package sync providers for distribution and installation, and how to register sync provider for use on Windows.

Windows 7: Using Instrumentation and Diagnostics to Develop High Quality Software

Learn how to enhance the quality and supportability of your software during developing and deployment using the Windows 7 instrumentation and diagnostic platforms. This session focuses on key aspects of the event and performance counter infrastructures, and discusses best practices around adding instrumentation to your code. We introduce the new Windows PowerShell-based diagnostic platform, and how it enables you to easily monitor multiple data sources to empower the end user and IT pro to detect and resolve software problems.

Windows 7: Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User

The application development requirements in Windows 7 for UAC-compatibility are exactly the same as in Windows Vista: Vista-compatible applications will interact with UAC in Windows 7 without any modification. No new APIs are required or provided. The UAC improvements for Windows 7 will impact the user's experience but not the application interface. Logo requirements regarding UAC compatibility are the same as in Vista.

Windows 7: Writing World-Ready Applications

This session centers on globalization features for Windows 7, including sorting and string comparison, locale support, and coverage for new languages, with an eye to helping developers extend their applications to a global user base. This session introduces the Extended Linguistic Services API, the next step in the evolution of globalization support for Windows developers. This session also covers the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) technology inside Windows 7 and .NET, and walks you through an end-to-end look at how to make your application MUI-enabled so that you can easily take your application worldwide and extend your customer base into new language markets.

The number of TBDs in there is sort of interesting. My guess is that this is a secrecy thing, though the general language used in some other session descriptions suggests its possible to describe something without describing it at all, so why not just do the same for all of these?

Discuss this Article 32

rjohn05
on Sep 30, 2008
Anyone know what "Gesture" is? There is a session about multi-touch and "gesture". What is that?
Lindy
on Sep 30, 2008
Windows 7: A better name than Vista SP2 or Vista R2:)
DarkSages
on Sep 30, 2008
"Gesture" has been use or a long time in tablet pcs, Palm devices, and other touch screen devices like the iphone(they don't call it that). A gesture is basically a special flick of the finger/s or stylus that can be use for anything. For example in windows mobile 6.1 in the main windows keyboard you can enable gestures for backspace, space bar, capital, lowercase letters. So instead of pressing on the tiny back space you gesture a line from left to right to back space. There are many other examples, but just think of them as shortcuts using the touch interface. Other "Gesture" feature that was not announce yet was that in windows mobile 7 you could do things like shake the phone to answer it. Basically they are still working on gestures that make sense to implement and help the user get things done more efficiently. Right now my touch diamond ignores calls if i flip it face down.
rjohn05
on Sep 30, 2008
DarkSages, thanks for the explanation! I am curious if anyone thinks it is possible that Windows 7 may include the ability to interact with the UI without having to use a mouse or touch the screen. It's sort of like what I saw in Iron Man and in a Microsoft Research video.
DarkSages
on Sep 30, 2008
Windows 7 I think is only the start we are going to have to wait many more years to see this take off. I agree with what Paul has said in the pass that touch or at least touch screen is not really the way to go. I hate having fingerprints in my screen and would you really let your kids touch your screen. I think that is is nice but even Microsoft surface table that I was able to play with at Disneyland "inoventions" was full of smudges from kids. To me the tablet pc made more sense because your not really touching your screen. The most brilliant thing was that you did not have to touch the screen until you had to click or write. The cursor would follow the pen if it was at a short distance. Maybe they can implement something like that so you never touch the screen. So you wear something on the tip of your finger/s and the screen can detect proximity and gestures. Well one day I guess we will have projections instead of a screen so we don't have to worry about cleaning it.
DarkSages
on Sep 30, 2008
@Lindy 10.4, 10.5, should be 10.3.3 come on apple can do it why can't Microsoft. Who cares don't buy it if you don't think it's worth it. Vista was not really broken as much as 10.5 was when it was release and still is.
rjohn05
on Sep 30, 2008
DarkSages is right about 10.5. I was pretty messed up. And still is in a lot of ways. Which makes me wonder if Snow Leopard is a glorified "fix".
subzerohitman721
on Sep 30, 2008
I'm glad to see that Microsoft is getting the word out in preparation for Windows 7. Perhaps developers this time around will get off their duffs, and start really working with these tools and techniques. The reason why Vista isn't further along is because these guys are wasting time with XP. XP is the past and its time to move along. Vista and 7 are the present and the future and its time to ahead. I've been calling for Apple to put Snow Leopard on hold while they fix all the problems with security and bloat in their exisiting systems. Clearly, Apple is having a disconnect with trying to expand their base. The code quality and hardware quality this year has just not been there. The secrecy and lack of beta programs is catching up to Apple. Even Wall Street has downgraded Apple's stock, because of slowdown int the Macintosh Unit. An article was on CNBC. What can I say, Seven looks impressive. I just hope all the promise lives up it the RTM version.
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
"makes me wonder if Snow Leopard is a glorified "fix"" Of course it is - Steve even said so.
Lindy
on Sep 30, 2008
Windows 7: Vista RTM
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
OT: Anybody notice that Hyper-V Server still isn't out? The clock is ticking....only 8 more days left to release it, according to the schedule from the press release.... Kinda wondering why SBS isn't supported as a Hyper-V parent, even though it has support for the server role....performance/stability issues running too many roles on one server?? The October Action Pack ships with RTM copies of SBS & EBS, along with a copy of WHS, so I can't wait!!
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
Snow Leopard: Mac OS X Beta 6
Lindy
on Sep 30, 2008
Windows 7: You will like this one.....we hope.
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
Apple: We invented the for-pay service pack.
shark47
on Sep 30, 2008
OT: Isn't it funny that of Microsoft's two biggest competitors, one (Google) refuses to remove the beta tag on its products even after 3-4 years of availability (example: GMail), while the other (Apple) refuses to attach a beta tag to its products and uses paying customers as beta testers (example: everything).
Lindy
on Sep 30, 2008
Windows 7: The real Mohave
whiplash55
on Sep 30, 2008
I'm interested in Windows 7 I hope it really is just a major update to Vista. I think all the petty sniping started by Lindy but continued by others is kind of funny. If you like Macs so much why bother to go to a winsupersite forum? I'd prefer to hang out at a Mac Rumor site or something that might interest me more. I guess besides the new and not to interesting ipods, there isn't much happening there. What happen to the new MacBooks, they're getting a little old. Maybe they could update the MacBook Pro to be a little more user upgradeable. Maybe a nice single screw holding the hard drive in the machine. Oh that wouldn't be elegant! I find it interesting that on MacBreak Weekly Alex Lindsey a confirmed Mac fanboy described Leopard as "the least stable OS he'd ever used". I don't hate Macs I actually still have one, but the idea that they are superior to Vista, is ludicrous.
lotsamystuff
on Sep 30, 2008
"Together, we can increase customer enthusiasm, satisfaction and loyalty by designing user experiences that are both desirable and harmonious." That sounds awfully touchy-feely. Sounds like something that would come out of Cupertino, not Redmond.
scoobyclub
on Sep 30, 2008
If it's called Winsupersite then why does Paul report on Apple, Linux et al. I suspect most Apple people here used to read the internet nexus blog before it got consolidated here. Lotsa, I think it sounds like something Redmond would ask their marketing agency to write to try and sound like Apple. I doubt Apple would come out with words that are so squirm inducing. Snow Leopard is a re-architecting of areas of Leopard that adapts to the improvements in hardware architecture ( multiple cores, GPUs etc ). That's progress and something that I bet MS wishes it could do but can't. Instead they'll re-heat some Vista code lying around and serve it up as something great. Very first release of Leopard was a bit shaky but it has been stable for a long time now although your mileage may vary.
scoobyclub
on Sep 30, 2008
Is Mike Galos on holiday?
whiplash55
on Sep 30, 2008
shark47 Well said, I laugh when people were giving so many passes to Chrome. Between zdnet's many articles and Steve Gibsons panning, it's clearly not ready for prime time. As for Leopard I installed it at the .2 release and it was horrible. I used to never update a Mac OS until .4 and I should have waited.
Lindy
on Sep 30, 2008
Snow Leopard: Another 4% taken away from Microsoft client OS market share.
gorath
on Sep 30, 2008
Actually, whiplash55, Macs are much more functional than Vista. On a mac, you can actually do some work, edit photos and so on. Vista, well, it makes a good coaster under your coffe mug I suppose. Kind of expensive and a bit of a waste. Combine Vista with some choice computer hardware, however, well..... now you've got something worth taking a look at. :-p
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
Snow Leopard: iField R2
shark47
on Sep 30, 2008
OS X Leopard, MobileMe, iTunes 8: Betas for Dummies.
DarkSages
on Sep 30, 2008
@ who ever things 10.5 is stable I run a school with over 900 macs. 10.4 many problems with user accounts and permissions fixed until 10.10 10.4 server printer service broken worked fine in10.3 10.5 - 10.5 server not compatible with 10.4 servers 10.5 server print quotas fixes form 10.4 server but NOT they still count wrong amounts form 10.5-10.4 wireless sucked and 400 client macs could not connect to servers because the wireless keep messing up saw many and I mean many "blue screen" of death but they are not blue like windows gray with a big power icon on the screen 10.5.5 wireless is better but still have wireless problem when computers goes to sleep Over all apple still owes us some chunk of money for promising and under delivering. 10.5 was the worst release I have ever seen and I used Windows ME
Master3
on Sep 30, 2008
@ gorath "Actually, whiplash55, Macs are much more functional than Vista. On a mac, you can actually do some work, edit photos and so on. Vista, well, it makes a good coaster under your coffe mug I suppose. Kind of expensive and a bit of a waste. Combine Vista with some choice computer hardware, however, well..... now you've got something worth taking a look at." A 2ghz machine with a gig of ram? Wow, really "choice computer hardware" im running Vista with here. The rest of your post is so moronic, it speaks for itself.
Waethorn
on Sep 30, 2008
"10.5 was the worst release I have ever seen and I used Windows ME" I had a worse time with Windows 95 and 98SE myself. 98 the 1st was more stable than 98SE, but ME actually made my WDM drivers for my sound card WORK. Cakewalk actually ran properly on my machine with ME. That, and combined with OHCI 1394 support out of the box, and it was just a better OS. Of course, I had WDM-compatible hardware and that made all the difference in the world. 95 made me long for DOS when Gravis decided not to develop proper DirectSound drivers for my Ultrasound card even though it had the best audio processor of any consumer sound card at the time.
DRWAM
on Sep 30, 2008
They are all betas, but at least they are all getting closer. Anything before XP SP2 was 'plug and don't play', while the Apple OS played in seconds. I use basic stuff, but so currently, I never have problems with Leopard [or Vista], but DarkSages experiences looks as if Apple took a step backward.
bettieblu
on Sep 30, 2008
I have two Macs, a black Macbook and a new (July 2008) iMac. Both run Leopard, both I did clean installs on, dumping extra languages and such I did not need. In fact the iMac I installed a 1 TB Green WD HD in it. I have had Zero problems with Leopard on either Mac. The iMac has bee rebooted once since it came online in July, to install 10.5.5 and some other updates. Both are use Wireless N, to an Airport Extreme base station all day long and never have wireless problems. It is set to 5ghz N only. The Macbook started with 10.5 back in Nov of 2007 when I bought it. I had a wireless N Linksys router until June when it died. The Macbook with 10.5 - 10.5.5 on both the Linsys and AirPort Extreme has never had a wireless problem. I have a Vista notebook for work, and XP desktop for work in my home. I have two other XP systems that kids use. All of my XP systems work fine. Vista is a clean install on a HP notebook It has had two problems. The wireless connection stopped working after an update from MS. It said "connected with limited connection" it would work using a LAN cable just fine. Rolling back the driver fixed the problem. Going to Intel and getting the latest 3945B/G driver also worked. Vista still to this day with all of the updates, including SP1 is slower than OS X, and XP when copying files over my network. It was horribly slow before SP1, even after several "Performance" updates from MS. After SP1 its much better, but still not as fast as XP or Leopard, when copying files over my network or my office network. Vista always hammers the drive for no reason at all IMHO.
gorath
on Sep 30, 2008
@master3, you do realise my post was somewhat taking the p*ss, right? sigh. Macs are better than vista? well sure, vista is just an OS, whereas a mac is a computer, with an OS installed. see what I was getting at now?
gorath
on Sep 30, 2008
On a serious note, I am quite curious about what changes will be present in 7's taskbar. They've mentioned the subject on the engineering windows 7 blog, and it seems that there will surely be some changes, if there's a presentation at the PDC about working with it. Unless I'm mistaken, and this is a standarp topic at PDCs of course.

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