Available on MSDN

Feb 6, 2009 11:05 GMT  ·  By

With Windows 7 client and Windows 7 Server (Windows Server 2008 R2) available in Beta as of early January 2009, Microsoft has now also started serving the Sensor Windows Driver Kit Beta resources. The Windows 7 Sensor Windows Driver Kit Beta documentation has been published on MSDN and can be accessed by developers that are looking to integrate sensor or location products with the next version of the Windows operating system.

“If you have been wondering about how to support your sensor or location device on Windows 7, wonder no longer! The Windows 7 Sensor WDK documentation is live on MSDN,” Microsoft's Gavin Gear stated. “We're experiencing some issues with rendering bulleted and numbered lists and working diligently to resolve this issue. Thanks for being patient,” added Jim Travis, senior content publishing lead, Microsoft.

Via the Windows 7 Sensor Windows Driver Kit Beta resources, Microsoft is offering developers access to the Design Guide, Windows Sensor Reference and Sensor Samples. Developers will be able to tap the documentation available in order to write device drivers that take advantage of the new sensor and location platform introduced in Windows 7. “The Windows Driver Kit provides a basic sample, called the skeleton sample, to guide you through the first steps to implement a device driver for sensor hardware,” the software giant stated.

The Windows Sensor Reference provides documents related to COM interfaces as well as additional items associated with the Windows 7 sensor user-mode drivers. Microsoft informed that the documentation is specific of sensor user-mode drivers for Windows 7 that are based on the Windows Driver Foundation (WDF) - User-Mode Driver Framework (UMDF) platform.

“The Sensor Driver Skeleton Sample demonstrates how to write a minimal sensor driver and shows best practices, including how to use the sensor class extension. You can use this driver as a template from which you can start your own sensor driver projects,” the software giant explained.

Windows 7 Beta is available for download here.

Product keys to activate Windows 7 Beta are available here.