PDA

Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Windows Platform SDK Qs

Supertribe
September 7th, 2008, 07:08 PM
Is the Windows Platform SDK worth the lengthy download? What exactly is it, I've read up on the Wikipedia article but I still don't really get a full understanding of it. From what I can tell it's for learning but is it a program? Just documentation with sample code?

Is it actually useful for beginners? And how does it integrate itself with Visual Studio? I'm hoping it's not a very error prone task to use it/integrate it.

Thanks a ton.
S_M_A
September 8th, 2008, 04:20 AM
You can think of the SDK as an extension of the standard libraries that allows you to write a windowed application (it contains other stuff as well).

It's a quite steep learning curve to go from console programming to windowed programming so if you decide to go for it buy a book, for instance Programming Windows by Charles Petzold.

The installation can go wrong but there is an installation guide on MS homepage. Make sure to follow it and everything will work just fine.
Supertribe
September 8th, 2008, 06:47 PM
Thanks for the info.

Any chance someone could link me to this installation guide? I've searched around but can't find such a thing.
S_M_A
September 9th, 2008, 02:27 AM
I agree, sometimes they can be hard to find :) Don't know what version you use, I guess 2005 since in 2008 SDK now seems to be included (see links), but here are the best starting point links I've found for both:
2005 SDK
http://msdn.microsoft.com/sv-se/express/aa700755(en-us).aspx
2008 & SDK update
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2888051&SiteID=1
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2448260&SiteID=1
Supertribe
September 9th, 2008, 03:50 PM
Ah, the forums are down for maintenance. I've got suck timing :(

Thanks for those links, I'll check them out when the forums come back up. Running VS 2008 Express for C++ btw.
S_M_A
September 9th, 2008, 03:55 PM
Then you already should have the SDK installed according to one of the MDSN forum links. :)

Can't remember what was written but check if you have a \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\VC\PlatformSDK folder (I guess the structure is same as in 2005)

Edit: Sorry was a bit too quick there. Previous path was wrong.