Microsoft has updated the Windows Media Center Software Development Kit, and now version 5.3 is available for download. The SDK is a collection of documentation, tools, and sample code put together and offered to developers building content for the Windows Media Center integrated into Windows Vista. Out of the Vista SKUs, only the Home Premium and Ultimate versions come with Windows Media Center integrated.

"A refreshed version of the Windows Vista Media Center SDK (version 5.3) has been released for download. The download location is the same as the previous versions of the Windows Vista Media Center SDK - here. If you have any previous version of the Windows Vista Media Center SDK installed, you can run the MSI for version 5.3 and it will automatically upgrade the older versions for you," advised Aaron Stebner, Microsoft Program Manager.

With Windows Media Center SDK 5.3, Microsoft has incorporated the data in the supplemental project template MSI into the kit. This means that all project templates now support Visual Studio 2008 in addition to Visual Studio 2005. As a matter of fact, Microsoft is focused heavily on the development front, having made available the RTM version of Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. In this context, the Windows Media Center SDK installer will tailor the kit on the version of VS that it comes across on the machine.

Stebner also provided a summary of a few new features that version 5.3 of the Windows Vista Media Center SDK brings to the table:

"- New automation model for the MCML Preview Tool (McmlPad) - this allows some programmatic interactions with McmlPad to do things like loading MCML files, refreshing the current view when the underlying MCML files are changed, locating the position of an existing instance of McmlPad in order to drive the UI using automation, etc;
- New standalone tool named MCML Animation Explorer - it provides a more graphical environment for experimenting with many of the types of animations supported in MCML;
- Additional documentation about building animations."