VS2012, Windows 8, DirectX and their SDKs - windows-7

I've recently installed the Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop. Along with it, a part of Windows 8 SDK was installed as well.
Currently I want to develop programs only for Windows Vista/7 platform with DirectX 11. Up until now I just installed the Windows 7.1 SDK along with DirectX SDK from june 2010 and everything worked well. Currently, however, I'm a little confused, because the DirectX SDK was incorporated into the Windows 8 SDK. Also, VS2012 uses Windows 8 SDKs by default.
What should I do? Install the Windows 8 SDK and use it to write programs for Windows 7 with DirectX? Or maybe continue to use Windows 7.1 SDK and DirectX /june 2010 SDK? I want to be sure, that my programs (which do not use any 7-specific functions) will still work under Vista and 7.

I think you have two choices
install Win8 SDK and used the features compatible with Win7, since Win8 SDK include the DirectX SDK and there are some features only works under win8, your program will work on win7 as long as you didn't use such features
install Win7 SDK, this will make sure you program can works on Win7
only one thing, make sure the feature you are using are available on your platform, that's all.
Here is a page about the DirectX SDKs, just for your reference
Where is the DirectX SDK?

Related

WDK 10 - Can't target Windows 7 with SDK7 installed

I am developing a Windows Kernel-Mode driver.
I have installed WDK10, Windows SDK linked along with it, and Windows 7 SDK.
I'd like to target windows 7, so I need specific includes, etc., but Visual Studio only allows me to Retarget solution to Win10 or Win8.1, but I need Win7 SDK, for example, if I want to use ZwQuerySystemInformation.
I tried reinstalling everything, but nothing helped.
I'm on Windows 10, so I can't install WDK 7.
Windows 10 WDK allows you to develop drivers for down-level up to Windows 7. I don't think you need WDK 7. To build a driver targeting windows 7 using windows 10 WDK, create a driver project and then in the project properties->Driver->General, set the TargetVersion to Win7

Where do you usually have your DirectX SDK folder?

I'm new to graphic programming with DirectX-11 and many tutorials reference to the DirectX SDK and the samples included in it. But I can't find my DirectX SDK folder on my desktop even though I can run DirectX programs over Visual Studio.
So where is the DirectX SDK normally stored on my PC. I'm using Windows 8, so DirectX was already included without me having to install it.
Thank you in advance.
The "DirectX Runtime" is part of the OS, not the "DirectX SDK". For a very long time, the DirectX SDK was what you downloaded and installed so a developer could get the headers, libraries and tools to write DirectX apps. That all changed in late 2010 when the DirectX SDK was deprecated and the core headers, libraries, and tools were integrated into the Windows SDK version 8.
See Where is the DirectX SDK? and Not So DirectSetup.
Unfortunately, most of the DirectX 11 tutorials and books were written for the old DirectX SDK and never updated for the Windows SDK. They often make use of D3DX11 which is now deprecated (see Living without D3DX for a list of replacements) and either D3DXMath or XNAMath which have both been replaced by DirectXMath.
The best way to get started with DirectX 11 development today is to install Visual Studio 2015 Community, Professional, or a higher edition. For C++ development, you need to add C++ via the custom install which will also add the Windows 8.1 SDK. Then, go check out the DirectX Tool Kit and it's tutorials. Once you have the basics down, you can go revisit those older tutorials and should be able to follow along using newer tech.
Alternatively, you can install the legacy DirectX SDK and set VS 2012/2013/2015 to use it, but there are a few caveats. First, there's some known issues installing the legacy DirectX SDK. Second, the include & library path order is inverted. Really there's only a few cases where you actually need the old DirectX SDK and for Windows 8 you don't need it. See The Zombie DirectX SDK.
BTW, I hope you are using Windows 8.1 and not Windows 8.0 as Windows 8.0 is no longer supported. See this FAQ.
I've cleaned up a lot of the old DirectX SDK samples so they don't require the legacy DirectX SDK. You can find them on GitHub.
See also DirectX SDKs of a certain age and DirectX SDK Tools Catalog.
With all that said, the default install location for the legacy DirectX SDK is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010) on a 64-bit system or C:\Program Files\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010) on a 32-bit system.
UPDATE:: While it is still a good idea to avoid the legacy D3DX9, D3DX10, and/or D3DX11 utility libraries for new projects, there is now a simpler method for using them that avoids the need to install the legacy DirectX SDK or to rely on the legacy "DirectX End-User Runtime" packages to deploy them. Just use the Microsoft.DXSDK.D3DX NuGet package. See this blog post for more details.

Install XNA 4.0 Visual Studio 2010 Windows 8

I installed windows 8 a month ago and now want to add xna game studio 4.0 to my visual studio 2010 ultimate. I downloaded the xna installer from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=23714 and ran the setup. First it said something about compatibility issues but the setup continued. after it finished I restarted the computer and wanted to make a xna project but its not showing in the c# drop-down menu. So i took a look at the %programm files(x86)%/Microsoft viual studio 10.0/Common 7/IDE/extensions/Microsoft, but there was no xna folder. Did I do something wrong or is windows 8 having some issues with vs2010 and xna 4.0?
XNA is not officially supported on Windows 8 and never will be because Microsoft simply gave up on it.
This solution explains how to install XNA on Windows 8 but clearly if you want a stable development environment you will have to develop on a Windows 7 machine but remember that even if you are skilled on XNA, the Framework itself is doomed and bound to disappear.
If you want to keep developing with C# on Windows 8 I can only recommend you move to MonoGame which is an open source implementation of the XNA 4 API for multiple platforms using the CLR or Mono so basically most of your XNA knowledge can be reused in MonoGame.
IF you realy want to keep on programming with XNA 4.0 there is a work around.
Just install the following program (official windows program):
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient
This is the windows marketplace client which seems to help a lot, after installing try installing xna again it should work, atleast it did fine on my PC which is running windows 8.
XNA Game Studio installs a version of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable behind the scenes. Some older versions of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable attempt to install and use a file that is being installed by Windows 8, and the older versions of the redistributable are not compatible with the newer version of the file that is installed by Windows 8. Newer versions of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable are compatible with Windows 8, and if you pre-install the new redistributable before installing XNA Game Studio, setup will recognize that it is already there and use the new version instead of trying to install the old version.
How to work around this issue
If you run into this issue, here are steps that you can use to work around it:
Download and install the latest version of the Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/LIVE/PC/DownloadClient
If you are installing the Windows Phone SDK 7.1, re-run setup and choose to repair it. This will re-run the previously failing XNA Game Studio installers and they should install correctly this time.
If you are install a standalone XNA Game Studio product, re-run setup and it should install correctly this time.
If you are planning to do Windows Phone development, you should also install the Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1 Update after installing the Windows Phone SDK 7.1. This update fixes an issue that prevents the emulator in the Windows Phone SDK 7.1 from working correctly on Windows 8.
Microsoft has NOT given up on XNA as far as I can tell. They just aren't updating the installer yet. Maybe they'll bring it around for 8.1. Who knows?
i have installed windows 8 developper preview
and i wanted to install xna frame work on visual studio 2012
but i had a compatibility issue
so here is what to do to fix this problem
go ahead and download Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate ISO from microsoft
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate ISO Microsoft Center Download
Then Burn it on a cd using Burning Tool (Nero Express for exp)
if you dont have cd to burn it you can use Daemon Tools to raise an ISO into a virtual CD/DVD drive
Here is the Download Link for Daemon tools
after installing Visual Studio 2010
install the XNA 4.0 FrameWork
restart your pc
and enjoy :)
This is the official solution, where Microsoft's help points you to, to solve this issue:
How to work around a possible XNA Game Studio or Windows Phone SDK
install failure on Windows 8
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2012/02/29/10274694.aspx
And, if you are just trying to get XNA 4.0 working, and have nothing to do with Windows Phone SDK 7.1, then you can just install "Games for Windows – LIVE Redistributable" and then the install of XNA 4.0 should work fine. It did for me.

Backward compatibility of WP7 development on Windows 7 and Windows 8

My apologies if this is a duplicate, but I've not been able to find an answer to this.
My laptop was just upgraded to Windows 8, but my desktop is running Windows 7. I have several Windows Phone 7 apps in various stages of development. When the laptop ran Windows 7 I was able to open WP7 solutions on either machine without problem.
I know the Windows Phone 7.1 SDK has compatibility issues with Windows 8, and that the Windows Phone 8 SDK also supports Windows Phone 7.5, but will I still be able to open solutions on both machines, or will Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 8 save a newer solution format that Visual Studio 2010 won't be able to open? Or can I install the 7.1.1 SDK update on Windows 8 and still develop in VS 2010? (I understand I also need to install Games for Windows Live first.)
The Windows Phone 8 SDK supports both WP8 & WP7.1[/5].
You can open the same solution files with both VS2010 & VS2012.
If, for some reason you cannot open the same solution file it's easy to make versions for each version of VS. (Just take a copy and upgrade one of them.) Unless you're changing the projects within each solution this shouldn't be an issue.

Develop for Windows 8 using Windows 7?

Is it possible to develop Windows 8 apps using Windows 7?
According to the page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/hh852363.aspx#Requirements
Windows 7 is supported, by the SDK. I downloaded it.
Now I want to download visual studio (free, that's express, right?), but found only this:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#vs
According to this:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/products/compatibility
It should run on Windows 7. The only free download I found is Express "for Windows 8" -
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/11/en-us/downloads#express-win8
And yeah, it runs only on Windows 8.
What do I have to download to develop for Windows 8 on Windows 7?
Thanks in advance.
The Windows 8 SDK by itself is not an IDE like Visual Studio. Nor does it come with a compiler. So yes, you can install it on Windows 7, but you won't be able to do much with it unless you are willing to do a lot of work. You won't have any templates or things like that. The simplest way to build Windows Store apps (formerly referred to as Metro style) is to use Visual Studio and/or Blend running on a Windows 8 machine - running directly on a machine (recommended) or in a virual environment.
You are confused between Visual Studio for Windows 8 and Windows 8 SDK. Windows 8 SDK does not require Visual Studio for Windows 8.
See its System Requirements.
Here's a link to VS2010 C# Express
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-csharp-express
Download and install that
Download and install .net 4.5 (mentioned in the requirements you linked in your question)
Download and install Win8 SDK
From there hopefully in VS2010 C# Express you'll be able to target .NET 4.5 and include references to the Win8 SDK stuff in your project
You cannot develop Windows 8 (as in WinRT apps) apps on Windows 7. You need to install Windows 8 whether it's natively or virtually.
There are very few resources out there that are up to date. Check you this from Microsoft Dev Center

Resources