14 DAY TRIAL // Having confirmed the RTM of Windows 7 for the second half of July 2009, Microsoft has brought some clarification to the deadline, although not a specific deadline, saying that it will release the next iteration of the Windows client to manufacturing by the end of this month. The Windows 7 RTM milestone will coincide with that of the development resources associated with the operating system. Microsoft has in fact been hard at work adding Win32 samples to the Windows SDK for Windows 7, the latest items detailed being Open Packaging Conventions (OPC) and Tablet PC and MultiTouch.
In all fairness, the Redmond company has not discussed the public availability of the Windows 7 software development kit; however, past releases have always been synchronized with the major milestones of the platform, namely Beta 7000 and Release Candidate Build 7100. It's bound that Microsoft will do the same, with the next stage in the evolution of the operating system and have the RTM build of the SDK accompany the gold release of Windows 7.
In all, the software giant has added or changed over 1,200 samples to the Windows SDK for Windows 7 as the operating system evolved from RC to RTM. New and updated Win32 samples are associated with Networking and Related Services, Multimedia, Security, Systems Management. The latest two additions detailed by Karin Meier-Magruder, program manager for Samples Windows SDK Team, are Open Packaging Conventions and Tablet PC and MultiTouch.
Meier-Magruder offers an exhaustive list of all the Win32 samples that have suffered transformations or that are freshly added to the software development kit for Windows 7 on the Windows SDK blog. Developers planning to leverage the resources should get familiar with the changes introduced ahead of RTM. Software publishers will have until October 22, 2009, the GA of Windows 7, to adapt their programs to the successor of Windows Vista.
Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: RC and Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: RC (ISO) are available for download here.