Windows 7 comes to the table with extensions to the Windows services location protocol. In this regard, Microsoft is offering for download documentation designed to reveal to developers the WS-Discovery remote extensions it has introduced in the next iteration of the Windows client. The WS-Dev Remote Extensions for Windows 7 Beta Documentation are set up to detail those for WSDAPI in the next development milestone for the successor of Windows Vista.

“Microsoft’s implementation of WS-Discovery and Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) in Windows, WSDAPI, will support an extension of the WS-Discovery protocol to allow discovery clients to search for devices and services spanning different physical subnets by sending requests to centralized proxies instead of to the services themselves. This support includes a mechanism for sending proxy locations to clients and services, extensions to WS-Discovery messages, and behavioral rules for clients and services,” Microsoft revealed.

The Redmond company emphasized that the traditional ad-hoc multicast WS-Discovery would not be scrapped from Windows. The WS-Discovery Remote Extensions are set up only to take the multicast discovery protocol for services location to the next level. Via WS-Discovery, Windows 7 is capable of searching and identifying specific services on a subnet, but also of announcing their availability.

“In managed networks (those with managed infrastructure) many subnets may be connected in a single administrative domain. One or more proxies may be centrally located, or one proxy may be deployed on each subnet. Clients and services may be located on any subnet. Clients on one subnet may use a proxy to locate a service on another subnet. Two provisioning mechanisms are defined that allow an administrator to advertise a proxy’s address to clients and services: ad-hoc WS-Discovery, and manual configuration,” Microsoft added.