Microsoft Talks Up Developer Improvements Coming with the Windows 10 Creators Update

Microsoft Talks Up Developer Improvements Coming with the Windows 10 Creators Update

Today was Windows Developer Day, and Microsoft hosted a live online event to bring developers up to speed on the improvements it’s delivering with the Windows 10 Creators Update. But if you missed the event, here’s a quick rundown.

As you might expect, Microsoft is delivering a new version of the Windows SDK alongside the Creators Update. This SDK is actually feature-complete already, and is available to developers in preview form. You can use it with the current Visual Studio versions, or Visual Studio 2017 RC, which itself nearly complete as well.

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Here’s what’s new.

UWP improvements. Microsoft’s modern apps platform is being updated with new pen and ink capabilities, Surface Dial support, and various improvements that will help developers make more beautiful and sophisticated apps. Developers can write games that span both Windows 10 and Xbox One. And developers that want to bring forward desktop applications can take advantage of various Desktop Bridge improvements.

Windows Store improvements. New Store Services APIs will help developers understand how well their apps are performing, with analytics and telemetry, flighting, automated submissions and updates, and ad campaigns. Updated services will also help push better user engagement with A/B testing, targeted push notifications and more.

Developer middleware improvements. Two new libraries are available: The Windows SDK for Google Analytics and the Facebook App Install Ads.

Developer documentation improvements. Microsoft is moving its developer documentation to docs.com, alongside its product documentation. Microsoft is also opening its bug and feature backlog to the public and will take bug contributions and feature requests starting immediately.

New experiences. UWP apps can take advantage of the Windows Holographic platform, new Cortana skills, and Project Rome, a way to sync apps and services across devices.

Visual Studio 2017. The next version of Visual Studio will include various performance, stability and debugging improvements.

Microsoft promises a deeper dive into Creators Update features for developers at Build in May.

 

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Conversation 13 comments

  • 8834

    08 February, 2017 - 7:34 pm

    <p>Would be nice to get a summary of what’s coming with Windows Subsystem for Linux in the Creators Update. &nbsp;The WSL blog has been pretty quiet on this front. &nbsp;I know they’re supporting a newer version of Ubuntu, but that’s about it.</p>

  • 10088

    08 February, 2017 - 7:35 pm

    <p>Is there or is it going to be some website from where to watch the event that you know about? Thanks!</p>

  • 5664

    Premium Member
    08 February, 2017 - 10:26 pm

    <p>Some of these features are exciting. I’ve been learning C# for a while now, and intend to get into Windows 10 UWP development. These sorts of things really make the idea of building for Windows exciting to me, thrilling because I have a chance to put the same sorts of capabilities on the desktop that high-end mobile apps use. That’s fscking awesome!</p>
    <p>Also, for anyone who wants to jump into Windows development, don’t&nbsp;doubt Paul’s suggestion, I give the Bob Tabor series two thumbs up. I’ve been following Bob’s course and it’s great. He’s a personable teacher and the material is well-presented. I highly recommend it.</p>

  • 5530

    09 February, 2017 - 2:50 am

    <p>Nothing dramatic enough that I see could be enough to change course of the current trajectory of the UWP platform…</p>

  • 5486

    09 February, 2017 - 6:26 am

    <p>You get the feeling MS are desperate to make UWP a success. With mobile down the toilet, this is the only way they have to jettison Win32 and the ‘old’ monolithic Windows. But, Win32 is so entrenched and feature rich, UWP pales in comparison. Not one UWP app stands out, even Microsoft’s own. I also don’t believe these ‘new’ features will make any difference. Without mobile, UWP doesn’t really have a point.</p>

    • 5611

      09 February, 2017 - 10:04 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#41740">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/ghostrider">ghostrider</a><a href="#41740">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Even without mobile, UWP has&nbsp;many benefits which have been pointed out on numerous occasions.<br /><br />BTW, there ARE standout&nbsp;UWP apps available – I use one of them and yes it’s niche. You probably don’t use them or even know about them, which would explain your comment.</p>

  • 10088

    09 February, 2017 - 8:09 am

    <p>Did they say that all win32, .Net and&nbsp;UWP APIs will be available for both UWP apps AND win32 apps? Won’t this undermine one of the few advantages of UWP apps?</p>

    • 5611

      09 February, 2017 - 10:10 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#41744">In reply to </a><a href="../../../users/Salvador Romero">Salvador Romero</a><a href="#41744">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>No it won’t undermine it – if anything, it will make UWP much more appealing to certain types of devs, such as those who create utility applications.</p>

  • 2371

    09 February, 2017 - 8:30 am

    <p>Since you have full access to Win32 and .NET APIs in UWP, the only things holding back UWP are Windows 10 adoption (for businesses) and design guidelines that keep changing.&nbsp; A business cannot develop a UWP until all computers that may require it are on Windows 10, so that is holding up a lot of developers.&nbsp; Microsoft knows this and is pushing businesses to upgrade, this will take another year to get real traction.&nbsp; To me the design guidelines or for novice users that favor look over being feature rich; hopefully I am wrong there.</p>

  • 863

    13 February, 2017 - 3:51 pm

    <p>I just published my first UWP app on the Windows App Store. I’m not going to link to it or anything, but it’s a simple app – I built it to learn the platform more than anything else.&nbsp;</p>
    <p>Bob Tabor’s course was very helpful, and I also bought a few books. I’m not a programmer by trade, and I’ve only being programming in C# as a hobby for about 2 years now. It’s been a lot of fun learning how to build something of my very own, and it was awesome to see something I built show up in the App Store.</p>
    <p>Now I’m going to use Xamarin to build native iOS and Android versions of my app.</p>

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