Is Your Application Ready for Windows 7 RTM?

Yesterday Windows 7 completed a major milestone--release to manufacturing (RTM)! And in three months time on October 22nd Windows 7 will be available for everyone to enjoy. Excitement about the upcoming public release of Windows 7 has been growing for months and expectations are for a much quicker adoption rate than what we saw with the previous Windows version. As we approach October 22nd you need to ask yourself: Is your application ready for Windows 7? What will happen when end users install your application on Windows 7? Will your application run? Will your application behave like a Windows 7 first class citizen? Will users see any difference when running applications on Windows 7 versus Windows Vista or XP? October 22nd is just around the corner and we are here to help you answer, YES! to these questions and be able to state with confidence that, Absolutely, my application rocks on Windows 7. We want to help your users get the best possible Windows 7 experience from your application starting on Day 1. All this sounds great, but what steps do you need to take in order to be able to say: Yes my application is a first-class Windows citizen? Is there a check list? You bet! You need to do three things to ensure a smooth transition: Make sure your application is Windows 7 compatible Optimize your application experience and performance for Windows 7 Provide new and exciting user experiences with Windows 7 Make sure your application is Windows 7 compatible Before considering using any new Windows 7 features, make sure your application is compatible with Windows 7. There is no escape from this; it is essential that you make sure that your application runs well on Windows 7. There is nothing worse for an end user than to be excited about the new Windows 7 operating system just to discover that a favorite application doesnt perform properly. A bad user experience hurts everyone--which is why you have to make sure your application installs and runs on all Windows 7 versions (including E - Windows 7 E Best Practices for ISVs) and supports both 32- and 64-bit versions. If your application is compatible with Windows Vista you are in a good shape! We expect most applications that run on Windows Vista to run on Windows 7. Obviously, you cant take this for granted and must check (and double check) that your application truly is compatible with Windows 7. There are a few differences between Windows Vista and Windows 7 that can affect specific application functions, so if you havent checked the Windows 7 Quality Cookbook lately, we highly recommend that you do so. If your application was designed for Windows XP (or earlier Windows versions), and you haven't confirmed its compatibility with Windows Vista, there are a few areas (for example, UAC), that you should especially note. It is important to keep in mind that there is no one silver bullet for application compatibility issues. Each application comes with its own set of issues that are dependent on specific implementation details. The Windows Vista Application Compatibility Cookbook is still very relevant for Windows 7, as 99% of its topics apply to Windows 7. With that said, a few topics rise above the others. The following seven areas represent about a large number of the reported application compatibility problems. Version Checking by far the top application compatibility problem. Ever get a message from an application saying, Requires Windows XP or higher when you are running on Windows 7? If so, you hit a version checking issue. You can read more about this topic - Application Compatibility: Operating System Versioning Data Redirection beginning with Windows Vista, standard users have restricted access to certain files, folders, and registry keys. When an application is trying to write to these locations, it gets redirected to somewhere else. Most of the time this is transparent to both users and application developers, but sometimes it is not and that lead to some very interesting results. You can read about this topic - Common file and registry virtualization issues in Windows Vista IE Protected Mode starting with Windows Vista, by default IE runs with lower privileges. This usually means that some ActiveX controls that work on Windows XP dont work on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Need more information, you can read Protected Mode in Vista IE7 (and yes this is still applicable for IE8.) Session 0 Isolation - in Windows Vista, services run in their own session (session 0) and not in the user session(s) (session 1 and above). This security boundary protects the system from many vicious attack vectors and is absolutely necessary. However, it also introduces communication problems between services and application like blocking your messages! You can read more about this topic - Modifying the Mandatory Integrity Level for a Securable Object in Windows Vista Installer Detection starting with Windows Vista, the OS automatically tries to detect if a given application is an installer application, which usually means that the application requires elevation to administrator privileges. However, sometimes these heuristics can cause problems. Interested in additional information, read about The Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Developer Story User Interface Privilege Isolation this prevents an application (process) from sending messages to another process with higher privileges even if running under the same user's account. While this protects from shatter attacks, it can also break some applications. High DPI during install, Windows 7 automatically detects whether your screen supports High DPI. If it does, Windows 7 automatically sets the screen resolution to High DPI. If your application is not High DPI aware, this may cause some display issues (like text clipping). Read more about Ensuring your application displays properly on High-DPI Displays In the following weeks, we will address in detail each of the above topics to help you get ready for Windows 7. Optimize your application experience and performance for Windows 7 After verifying that your application can install and run on Windows 7 without any problems, it is time to step up and optimize your applications user experiences and performance while running on Windows 7. Do this by taking advantage of the great new features offered with Windows 7. These include new user interface innovations like the Taskbar and Libraries, to more fundamental features like Trigger Start Services or the new Troubleshooting platform. By optimizing your application for Windows 7, you can make sure that your end user's experiences when running your application on Windows 7 surpasses their expectations. Users will expect applications to work properly with the Taskbar (just one example); but if your application is not optimized for the new Windows 7 Taskbar experience, end users might just notice that. When you're ready to optimize your application for Windows 7, you might consider using one or more of the following features: Taskbar The new Taskbar in Windows 7 provides more information to the user in more intuitive ways, with features like Jump Lists that helps users quickly jump into where they want to go. You can read more Developing for the Windows 7 Taskbar Application ID. Libraries Libraries are the primary entry points to user data in Windows 7. A Windows 7 Library is a user-defined collection of content that represents the users data independently from the folder hierarchy. Users can unify and flatten the folder hierarchy by aggregating any number of physical locations (on their local machine or on remote machines) into a single view which is the library. You can read more - Windows 7 Programming Guide Libraries. Trigger Start Services The Windows 7 Service Control Manager has been extended so that a service can be automatically started and stopped when a specific system event, or trigger, occurs on the system. Trigger-start capabilities remove the need for services to start up automatically at computer startup and then poll or wait for an event to occur, such as a device arrival. More about this topic Service Trigger Events. Power Optimization Windows 7 provides the infrastructure and tools that make it easy for developers to determine the energy impact of their applications. A set of event callbacks enable applications to reduce their activity when the system is on battery power and automatically scale up when the system is on AC power. Troubleshooting Platform Windows 7 delivers a comprehensive and extensible Troubleshooting Platform that uses a PowerShell-based mechanism to troubleshoot and resolve problems. The Troubleshooting Platform seamlessly integrates with the Windows 7 PC Solution Center, enabling other applications to execute diagnostics in a similar manner as part of their PC management regimen. Read more about Windows Troubleshooting Platform. Windows Error Reporting - Windows Error Reporting (WER) is a set of Windows technologies that capture software crash data and support end-user reporting of crash information. Through Winqual services, software and hardware vendors can access reports in order to analyze and respond to these problems. This set of tools provides amazing real-time information about the quality of your software and can help facilitate software updates and patches. Get Started with Windows Error Reporting. I/O Optimization I/O prioritization improves the responsiveness of the system without significantly decreasing the throughput of the system. If you have any I/O-bound long services that you can run in the background, the user will be thankful. Non-I/O optimized applications tend to hug the I/O and put an extra burden on the system. If your application optimizes the I/O for non critical application services, it can dramatically improve the overall system behavior. Restart Manager This technology allows automatic post-crash restarts as well as application and operating system updates without rebooting the entire machine. When you implement this functionality, you get a second chance to save critical information if your application crashes. Windows will automatically restart your application and try to reload the information the user just used. This same technology facilitates updating most applications and the operating system without the need to reboot. If a reboot is needed, then Windows will make sure your application restarts and returns to its latest state Provide new and exciting user experiences with Windows 7 Once your application has passed the first two steps, you can really differentiate your it by creating new and exciting user experiences. Windows 7 enables developers to create distinctive and intuitive applications that significantly enhance discoverability, usability, and sheer enjoyment. New methods of desktop integration put application functionality right at the users fingertips. New Touch APIs enable natural interactions through multitouch and finger-panning gestures. Rapid advances in hardware and software technology are also driving higher-fidelity user experiences. Windows 7 brings these advances under developer control with new and flexible APIs that take full advantage of the technology, while making it even easier to develop compelling applications. Windows 7 includes many new features that can make your application shine, raising it above the competition. When you think about creating new and exciting user experiences, consider using one or more of the following features: Ribbon Windows 7 features the Ribbon interface from Office 2007 throughout the operating system, enabling improved user interface development on the platform. This means that developers can eliminate much of the drudgery of Win32 UI development and deliver a rich, graphical, animated, and highly familiar user interface by using the markup-based UI and a small, high-performance, native code runtime. Multitouch & Ink Windows 7 features improved touch and gesture support, empowering developers to quickly and easily create unique application experiences that go beyond simple mouse pointing, clicking, and dragging. The new multi-touch APIs support rich gestures, such as pan, zoom, and rotate. All gestures provide direct visual feedback, and interact with underlying content in a natural and intuitive manner. Sensor and Location Platform - Windows 7 has changed how developers use sensors. It includes native support for sensors, expanded by a new development platform for working with sensors, including location sensors (such as GPS devices) and sensors (such as an ambient light sensor or a temperature gauge), to create environmental awareness in Windows applications. Location sensors can unlock new opportunities for location-based services. New Graphics Stack Windows 7 puts new graphics capability into the hands of application developers through a new set of DirectX APIs. Win32 developers can take advantage of the latest innovations in GPUs to add fast, scalable, high-quality, 2D and 3D graphics, text, and images to their applications. Media Platform Media Foundation and DirectShow provide the basis for media support in Windows. Media Foundation was introduced in Windows Vista as the replacement for DirectShow. In Windows 7, Media Foundation has been enhanced to provide better format support, including: MPEG-4, Support for video capture devices and hardware codecs, including H.264 video, MJPEG, and MP3 New sources for MP4, 3GP, MPEG2-TS, and AVI New file sinks for MP4, 3GP, and MP3 And for developers Windows 7 adds new high-level APIs that make it much simpler to write media applications. Federated Search Windows 7 supports searching for documents beyond the users own PC. Developers and IT professionals can enable their search engines, document repositories, Web applications, and proprietary data stores to be searched from Windows 7 without needing to write and deploy client code. This enables end users to search their corporate intranet or the Web as easily as they can search their local filesall from within the same familiar Windows interface. Device Stage Integration Windows 7 combines software and services to create exciting new experiences for mobile phones, portable media players, cameras, and printers. Windows 7 makes it easier to use these devices directly from the Windows desktop. It also provides device makers with prominent placement on the Windows desktop, with branding opportunities and a simple interface for presenting the functionality and services that the device supports. I hope this post give you enough to start work with, making sure your application rocks on Windows 7!