Installing Windows Platform on XP and Vista

[drhowarddrfine]

The last time I installed Microsoft's development platform was the Platform SDK before .NET came out. Back then it would wreak havoc on XP and, if you wanted to uninstall it, it was best just to reinstall the OS because it would leave so many files and settings around that you never knew what worked still and what didn't and it would bring some programs to a crawl.

Is this still true today for either XP or Vista? One of my developers is willing to learn to write some simple apps that will interface to one of our web apps but he doesn't want to hose his laptop.

[Frinavale]

Microsoft's development platform?
Are you talking about the .NET Framework?
It should already be installed in XP, Vista and Windows7....

I have managed to uninstall all .NET frameworks and reinstall them without completely trashing my OS before.

-Frinny

[drhowarddrfine]

This. The SDK, et al.

[Frinavale]

Sorry I haven't used these SDKs before.
Hopefully someone else here has and can be more helpful.

Are you trying to develop for the .NET framework?
I'm not entirely sure why most developers would be interested in this SDK. Usually developers use the framework, as apposed to creating it. Sounds like you have an interesting project...

The more I read about this SDK the more I'm lead to believe that it is going to do as you suggest: leave a mess behind if you uninstall it. I think I would probably install this on a VM machine designated for development purposes so that I wouldn't care about wiping the OS when I'm done.

-Frinny

[Frinavale]

One of my developers is willing to learn to write some simple apps that will interface to one of our web apps but he doesn't want to hose his laptop.

It doesn't sound to me like you need to use that SDK...
Are you trying to interface between *nix and .NET?

If it's a web application then could you just implement a .NET client that uses the web application hosted on a *nix server?

-Frinny

[drhowarddrfine]

I want thim to develop a simple .NET app that will fetch data from a Unix web app and print it on a local printer where the Windows computer is. Apparently, Windows scripting can't do that (but implemented in less than 20 lines in bash on *nix ::tweak::).

In any case, that is what I used to download when I developed on Windows years ago and assumed that's the way things were still done. Now that I think of it, since we won't be using Visual Studio or buying compilers or anything from Microsoft, we'll still need to install it cause that includes all the compilers and tools VS has anyway.

Then again, I think you are telling me I can develop for .NET without the SDK so how is that done? I thought the development framework, tools, or whatever would be in the SDK. We'll be using C#.

[Frinavale]

You're right about that Doc, the compilers etc are included in that package...but this SDK isn't typically used to develop in .NET

As you know the compilers etc that you are looking to use are found in Visual Studio. You can download free versions of Visual Studio.
There's a line out there called Visual Studio Express.They don't include all of the features available in Visual Studio Professional (or team suits etc) but they should be able to give you the tools you need to do what you want.

-Frinny

[Frinavale]

Ok this is really cool. I'm glad I looked into this for you Doc!
Apparently there is an SDK that lets you develop web services using C++ now! This is really new. It's not available to the general public at this time and you'd have to contact Microsoft to be able to use it but it's an option now!

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduce the new framework for building web services in C++ code.

That's great :)

I remember reading a post some time ago where the OP was asking how to do this. Someone responded "You can't do this. Use a different language"...I just discovered that you can...but you need permission first.

-Frinny

[drhowarddrfine]

I was originally going to get the Express tool since it would get our feet wet and probably do everything we would ever do with Windows so maybe that's what we'll do since you say we don't need the SDK.

[drhowarddrfine]

Apparently there is an SDK that lets you develop web services using C++ now!

It's called Unix/LInux/BSD and has been around for decades.

[Frinavale]

It's called Unix/LInux/BSD and has been around for decades.

Touche ;)