The right tool for Vista development in .Net 3.0

[Guest]

I have searched high and low and I cannot find any blogs or posts to explain
this. I am kind of surprosed; I had guessed it would have been one of the
most asked questions here or in the Vista forums on MSDN.

I know where to download the Orcas CTP and the Visual Studio 2005 extensions
for .Net 3.0 CTP. What I don't know is which is the appropriate tool for
Vista specific development using .Net 3.0.

What is the difference between the Vista specific features that can be used
between the two tools? Do both tools actually support Vista specific
features? Does either tool actually support Vista specific features? When I
say support, I don't mean for the developer in the IDE but support as
available to be called upon in the application being developed.

What is the recommended way for developing production Vista-specific
applications and not CTP applications? What tools did Microsoft use for
developing the .Net 3.0 apps that are included with Vista?

In other words, I am really confused on this issue. Are there any blog
articles, newsgroup or forum posts, other articles on the web, KB articles
that cover this? I have spent hours searching and if they're there, I am
missing them in my searches.

Any help or links would be greatly appreciated.

Dale

 

[RobinS]

I have searched high and low and I cannot find any blogs or posts to
explain
this. I am kind of surprosed; I had guessed it would have been one of
the
most asked questions here or in the Vista forums on MSDN.

I know where to download the Orcas CTP and the Visual Studio 2005
extensions
for .Net 3.0 CTP. What I don't know is which is the appropriate tool for
Vista specific development using .Net 3.0.

What is the difference between the Vista specific features that can be
used
between the two tools? Do both tools actually support Vista specific
features? Does either tool actually support Vista specific features?
When I
say support, I don't mean for the developer in the IDE but support as
available to be called upon in the application being developed.

What is the recommended way for developing production Vista-specific
applications and not CTP applications? What tools did Microsoft use for
developing the .Net 3.0 apps that are included with Vista?

In other words, I am really confused on this issue. Are there any blog
articles, newsgroup or forum posts, other articles on the web, KB
articles
that cover this? I have spent hours searching and if they're there, I am
missing them in my searches.

Any help or links would be greatly appreciated.

Dale

----------------------------------------------------------

Just FYI, I have attached the information for installing the .Net 3.0 stuff
on your computer. You need to be running Vista or XP/SP-2, and Visual
Studio 2005 with SP-1 installed. There is a specific order to the
installation, and as far as I could tell, it's not documented on MSDN. The
instructions install both WPF and WCF extensions.

As for what to use to develop .Net 3.0 applications, you use Visual Studio
2005 (any version, I believe). For WPF, you can also check out the
"Expression Blend" product. If you have an MSDN subscription, last I heard,
this was not included. They are trying to sell the idea that it is a
product for designers, not developers. I'm learning WPF using VS2005, and
it seems to be going okay. It's not perfect, but I don't think the Blend
product is much better. The tools are pretty crude.

I think a lot of the stuff in Vista and Office2007 was written in WPF, or
at least WPF is what Microsoft is providing for developers to write
Vista-like and Office2007-like applications.

For WPF, check out this website: http://wpf.netfx3.com/

Robin S.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Installing the Software Required to Work With WPF Applications

To configure your computer so that you can work with WPF you should follow
these steps:

1. Windows Presentation Foundation requires Version 3.0 of the .NET
Framework. While this automatically comes with Windows Vista, if you are
using Windows XP you will have to download the installable from the
Microsoft Website.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...0B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

Once this has been installed you should see an entry at
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework which reads "v3.0".


2. Download and install the Windows SDK. This is required in order to
provide the help files for WPF. You should do this before installing the
extensions to Visual Studio (Step 3 below) because the help files must be
present on your computer in order for them to be linked to Visual Studio.
Of course you will find it much more convenient for help to be available
just by pressing F1 with a particular term highlighted rather than being
forced to manually open the help file and to search for a particular term
via the search box.

The Windows SDK for can be downloaded from the following location.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...00-F358-4523-B479-F53D234CDCCF&displaylang=en

Even though this SDK is labeled "Windows SDK for Windows Vista", when you
begin to install it, one of the screens indicates that it is also the
correct version for Windows XP, provided that you already have Service Pack
2 installed.

3. Even if you are running Windows Vista you will need to install the
Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WCF and WPF.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...37-CC86-4BF5-AE44-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en

4. To verify that you have correctly followed these instructions, open
Visual Studio and select Create a new Project. Look for an entry below the
C# or VB node in the treeview of project types which reads "NET Framework
3.0". When you select this entry you should see in the details pane to the
right an entry under "Visual Studio installed templates" called Windows
Application (WPF). Create a new application and select a term which is WPF
related (eg. Application or Window). Press the F1 key and if the correct
context sensitive help comes up, you can be confident that you have
succeeded. Congratulations!

 

[Guest]

----------------------------------------------------------

Just FYI, I have attached the information for installing the .Net 3.0 stuff
on your computer. You need to be running Vista or XP/SP-2, and Visual
Studio 2005 with SP-1 installed. There is a specific order to the
installation, and as far as I could tell, it's not documented on MSDN. The
instructions install both WPF and WCF extensions.

As for what to use to develop .Net 3.0 applications, you use Visual Studio
2005 (any version, I believe). For WPF, you can also check out the
"Expression Blend" product. If you have an MSDN subscription, last I heard,
this was not included. They are trying to sell the idea that it is a
product for designers, not developers. I'm learning WPF using VS2005, and
it seems to be going okay. It's not perfect, but I don't think the Blend
product is much better. The tools are pretty crude.

I think a lot of the stuff in Vista and Office2007 was written in WPF, or
at least WPF is what Microsoft is providing for developers to write
Vista-like and Office2007-like applications.

For WPF, check out this website: http://wpf.netfx3.com/

Robin S.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Installing the Software Required to Work With WPF Applications

To configure your computer so that you can work with WPF you should follow
these steps:

1. Windows Presentation Foundation requires Version 3.0 of the .NET
Framework. While this automatically comes with Windows Vista, if you are
using Windows XP you will have to download the installable from the
Microsoft Website.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...0B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en

Once this has been installed you should see an entry at
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework which reads "v3.0".


2. Download and install the Windows SDK. This is required in order to
provide the help files for WPF. You should do this before installing the
extensions to Visual Studio (Step 3 below) because the help files must be
present on your computer in order for them to be linked to Visual Studio.
Of course you will find it much more convenient for help to be available
just by pressing F1 with a particular term highlighted rather than being
forced to manually open the help file and to search for a particular term
via the search box.

The Windows SDK for can be downloaded from the following location.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...00-F358-4523-B479-F53D234CDCCF&displaylang=en

Even though this SDK is labeled "Windows SDK for Windows Vista", when you
begin to install it, one of the screens indicates that it is also the
correct version for Windows XP, provided that you already have Service Pack
2 installed.

3. Even if you are running Windows Vista you will need to install the
Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WCF and WPF.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...37-CC86-4BF5-AE44-F5A1E805680D&displaylang=en

4. To verify that you have correctly followed these instructions, open
Visual Studio and select Create a new Project. Look for an entry below the
C# or VB node in the treeview of project types which reads "NET Framework
3.0". When you select this entry you should see in the details pane to the
right an entry under "Visual Studio installed templates" called Windows
Application (WPF). Create a new application and select a term which is WPF
related (eg. Application or Window). Press the F1 key and if the correct
context sensitive help comes up, you can be confident that you have
succeeded. Congratulations!

Thanks, Robin. That is great information. Do you have that posted on a
blog or anything? It would sure be handy for other folks.

I really appreciate the help.

Dale

 

[Guest]

And let me add, I agree about Expression series products. It amazes me that
Microsoft says it is not a developer product but then continues to advertise
it in MSDN magazine and on MSDN sites. Pretty strange marketint tact for a
non-developer product.

Dale

 

[RobinS]

Thanks, Robin. That is great information. Do you have that posted on a
blog or anything? It would sure be handy for other folks.

I really appreciate the help.

Dale

You're welcome. You're probably right, I *should* post it somewhere.

Good luck.
Robin

 

[RobinS]

And let me add, I agree about Expression series products. It amazes me
that
Microsoft says it is not a developer product but then continues to
advertise
it in MSDN magazine and on MSDN sites. Pretty strange marketint tact for
a
non-developer product.

Dale

A *LOT* of people agree, there is quite an uproar about it. Some people are
willing to roll over and pay extra for it, but a lot of people are not. And
you're right, that *is* a strange marketing tactic for a product supposedly
used by Graphic Designers. I wonder if they are advertising it in any
Graphic Design magazines...

Robin S.

 

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Thanks for Robin's input.

Hello Dale,

In case you haven't ever read it, here is a very good blog article
introduce setting up the environment (and available development tools) for
developing .NET 3.0(mainly WPF) on a windows vista machine:

#Building a Perfect WPF Developer Workstation
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2006/12/20/building-a-perfect-wpf-develop
er-workstation.aspx

And some additional FAQ about .net framework 3.0 version and deployment:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa663314.aspx


Hope this also helps some.

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead



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[Joerg Jooss]

Thus wrote Dale,

I have searched high and low and I cannot find any blogs or posts to
explain this. I am kind of surprosed; I had guessed it would have
been one of the most asked questions here or in the Vista forums on
MSDN.

I know where to download the Orcas CTP and the Visual Studio 2005
extensions for .Net 3.0 CTP. What I don't know is which is the
appropriate tool for Vista specific development using .Net 3.0.

What is Vista specific development? Save for some Vista specific goodies
in WPF, and IIS 7, Vista specific development means pretty much Win32 development
to me. All of .NET 3.0 works on XP and 2003.

Also note that the Orcas extensions CTP only applies to WCF and WPF. The
WF extension is final.

Cheers,

 

[Guest]

Thus wrote Dale,


What is Vista specific development? Save for some Vista specific goodies
in WPF, and IIS 7, Vista specific development means pretty much Win32 development
to me. All of .NET 3.0 works on XP and 2003.

Vista specific means just what it said. So you hit on exactly what I am
looking for. What are those specific goodies in WPF? And what do I need to
target them in development? Are there any articles or postings that
highlight those differences?


Thanks,

Dale

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Steven. Both links are very useful. Tim's article has a lot of good
add-in links for VS2005 and WPF on Vista. The FAQ link is pretty interesting
but dated - apparently having been written last summer.

Thanks,

Dale

 

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Thanks for the reply Dale,

Yes, the FAQ is previously written at BETA period, but it does explain the
role of the .NET framework 3.0 components and the relationship between .NET
framework 2.0.

Also for IDE integration, Visual Studio 2005 is still mainly targeting .net
framework 2.0 standard programming. The dedicated IDE for .net framework
3.0 and some other add-on features (like ajax) should be Visual Studio
Orcas(currently CTP available). So far, you can simply use VS 2005 .NET 3.0
extensions for developing .NET 3.0 application.

Sincerely,

Steven Cheng

Microsoft MSDN Online Support Lead


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[RobinS]

Vista specific means just what it said. So you hit on exactly what I
am
looking for. What are those specific goodies in WPF? And what do I need
to
target them in development? Are there any articles or postings that
highlight those differences?


Thanks,

Dale

I don't guess there's any chance in heck that you live around Silicon
Valley, is there? They're having a Vista event for developers at Foothill
College. They're going to show new Vista apps, Office, and have
presentations on how to write Gadgets, use the new Search feature,
Powershell, etc.

Robin S.

 

[Guest]

Well, there was a chance - I used to live close to there. 30 years ago.

Thanks for all your help.

Dale

 

[RobinS]

Bummer. I went to the event, and it was fairly entertaining, but it was a
lot of marketing and not enough code. One of the Microsoft programmers told
me there would be other opportunities over the next few months to attend
more technical presentations. He may have been talking about VSLive in San
Francisco at the end of March.

Robin S.
-------------------------------------

 

[Joerg Jooss]

Thus wrote Dale,

Vista specific means just what it said.
OK...

So you hit on exactly what
I am looking for. What are those specific goodies in WPF?

See http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/01/05/comparing-wpf-on-windows-vista-v-windows-xp.aspx.

There's a quite some Win32 stuff that may make your WPF app even spiffier,
such as TaskDialog, full glass windows, etc. Kenny Kerr wrote an article
for MSDN Magazine some months ago that showed some Vista specific Win32 features.

Cheers,

 

[RobinS]

Thus wrote Dale,


See
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/01/05/comparing-wpf-on-windows-vista-v-windows-xp.aspx.

There's a quite some Win32 stuff that may make your WPF app even
spiffier, such as TaskDialog, full glass windows, etc. Kenny Kerr wrote
an article for MSDN Magazine some months ago that showed some Vista
specific Win32 features.

Cheers,

That was a great article.

Gadgets are Vista-specific. They're pretty cool, too, but they suck up
battery life on a laptop like there's no tomorrow.

Robin S.