Getting Started with the Windows SDK

You’ve just downloaded your first Windows SDK and can’t wait to get started exploring the tools, samples and documents that you’ve heard about. But wait, how do you get to all those goodies? To access the different components in the SDK, click the Start button, then choose All Programs, Microsoft Windows SDK… then pick what you want to do first. Here’s a rundown of what each start menu shortcut leads to. (You may not see every shortcut on your computer if you de-selected some components during SDK setup.)

 

· CMD Shell – launches a command window with a build environment with all the environment variables pre-set for building to take advantage of the headers, libraries and compilers in the SDK. Here’s where you’ll be building samples and applications. (It looks a lot like a Windows CMD window except the text is bright yellow.)

 

· Release Notes – tell you how to use the SDK and what to watch out for. Read this even if you usually don’t. It’s really useful stuff that probably tells you how to do what you’re trying to figure out right now.

 

· Windows SDK Documentation –opens up the Document Explorer Browser that may look familiar; lots of Microsoft products use it. The browser lets you read SDK documents stored on your hard drive or MSDN online. You can bookmark favorites, search, filter, slice and dice. You’ll also find the .NET Framework code samples embedded in the documents, with links to download them to your desktop.  

 

· Tools – here you’ll find shortcuts to just a few of the useful tools in the SDK. There are many, many more. Read about them in the Tools Reference (see the Tools Reference shortcut, under the Tools shortcut?). Tools are installed by default to %user%\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\[version number]\Bin (or …\Bin\X64 on an X64 machine.)

 

· Visual Studio Registration – If you want to use the Windows SDK headers, libraries, and tools within Visual Studio 2005, run the tool under this shortcut. It only takes a few seconds but you’ll need Administrative permissions if you’re running Vista (right click the shortcut and select Run as Administrator). Once you run it, VS will magically know about all the things in the SDK, and the SDK CMD Shell will know about things in VS.

 

· Where are the samples? The .NET Framework (managed code) samples are integrated in the documents (see Windows SDK Documents, above). The unmanaged code (Win32) samples get installed to your hard drive and you’ll have to navigate there on your own. If you chose a standard install location during setup you’ll find them here: %user%\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\[version number]\Samples. 

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 01, 2007
  You’ve just downloaded your first Windows SDK and can’t wait to get started exploring the tools, samples