Report on “.NET Architecture Day: Windows 7” 2009, Ekaterinburg

    imageYesterday, May 13, 2009, in Yekaterinburg, the Ural State University (Ural State University) hosted a .NET Architecture Day seminar entirely dedicated to Windows 7. The seminar program included the following reports:
    • key changes in the interface;
    • graphics, multimedia and documents;
    • platform level changes;
    • application compatibility issues;
    • application certification.

    According to the seminar program, two speakers should have read the reports, but for some reason, there was only one speaker - George Barkan, who took over all the reports and did the job perfectly.

    Reports


    Interface


    The first part of the seminar described the key differences in the Windows 7 interface and how developers can use these interfaces to get the most out of the new features. So, the ITaskbarList3 interface was presented using examples of use. In addition, the description of the Ribbon interface element, which debuted in Office 2007, turned out to be interesting. At the moment, the old “office” implementation of this control is outdated and must be replaced with the functionality built into Windows 7. Implementing such an interface will be possible in several ways:
    • WPF
    • MFC native (since Windows 2000);
    • Native (only with Vista and above). MVC approach.

    The latter option has been considered in more detail. Its implementation in Windows is done by writing a special XML file that contains the description and behavior of the visual representation of the Ribbon element. The code is completely separate from the presentation, which resembles the MVC pattern, which developers were apparently inspired by. The seminar examined in detail the example of creating such an XML file with various behaviors.

    For more convenient application development using the new Windows 7 chips on managed code, the Microsoft development team released the Windows Bridge library (formerly called Vista Bridge). This library implements a set of wrappers over WinAPI for working in managed code. During the workshop, examples of the use of this library were demonstrated.

    Platform


    In the second part of the seminar, system changes in Windows 7 were affected. Such as delayed loading of services, launching services on demand, and services responding to events. This interesting innovation in Windows 7 is designed to free the system boot process from starting unnecessary services at the moment. Suspended services in the future can respond to some system events and automatically start, perform the necessary actions and also automatically end. This will save resources and makes the system boot process faster. At the seminar, such an option of its own service was considered: a boot-on-demand service responds to the appearance of a USB device in the system, after which it “wakes up” and copies some files from the device. After copying, the service stops.

    Next, a new API was described, which will appear with the release of Windows 7. This is the Web Services API Native designed to provide functionality for native Win-applications for working with web-services. Previously, such functionality was proposed only for managed code, now it is in WinAPI. Versions for systems from XP and above will be available.
    Most of the talk was about the new built-in mechanism of Windows 7 Sensors and Locations, which aims to provide a single interface for determining the user's location using all possible options and sensors installed in the system. For example, when GPS is operating, data will be taken from it, if GPS is not available (in buildings), it is possible to approximate the user's location using GSM triangulation. In addition, the new mechanism implements support for many other sensors, such as lighting.

    The report concluded with a description of the XPS format and the mechanisms where it is used. The format is not standardized, it is not supported anywhere other than Windows, but in the Windows environment itself it is designed to increase print speed and quality.

    Multi-touch, graphics, sound


    The final part of the seminar was the most extensive. First, it talked about Multi-Touch-functions in Windows 7, probably the most anticipated innovation of the interface of the new operating system. They talked about the API for multitouch, about the fact that it will be possible to write support for their gestures, in addition to the existing set of standard ones. They talked about supporting the effect of inertia.

    DirectDraw 2D seemed to me a very interesting mechanism that will be introduced in Windows 7. This mechanism is intended to replace the existing GDI / GDI + to achieve several goals:
    • acceleration of vector graphics using a video card;
    • hardware acceleration of ClearType and font blending;
    • DirectWrite - font rendering will take into account subpixel anti-aliasing to correct the distance between characters;
    • YDirection + ClearType - the ability to vertically smooth for complex fonts.

    In addition, support is announced for closer OpenType.
    They didn’t talk much about sound in Windows 7, but they pleased that Windows 7 will have full support for BlueTooth headsets. In addition, a sound muting mechanism was introduced when applications for working with speech are launched, for example, they launched Skype and automatically the rest of the system sounds become quieter.

    Certification


    Most of the workshop was dedicated to describing the product certification process. The options for certificates and obtaining logos “works with” and “compatible with” have been described. As was shown, getting the first logo is trivial and cost-effective. Whereas to get the second logo you need to try and invest a little money. In general, the certification process does not interest me very much, so I didn’t remember anything special here, except that Microsoft will soon refuse third-party services in code testing and will release a special package for automatic testing.

    Compatibility


    The seminar ended with a description of the compatibility problem in Windows 7. Much has been said about the historical moments and what has been done in Windows 7 in this regard. But most of all I remember the demonstration that in Windows 7 with running UAC, processes with higher rights are isolated from messages from code with lower rights. Personally, this translates to the fact that Punto Switcher does not work in applications running as administrator.

    Also from this part of the seminar I remembered the story about Restart Manager, which allows you to mute the interfering programs at the time of installing the programs and restart them after installation. To do this, your application must implement RM support.

    At the very end there was a session of questions in which George told a lot of interesting things about technology, about himself and work at Microsoft.

    References


    Seminar materials will be available at this address http://www.microsoft.com/eng/isv/archive.aspx . But already now you can download materials on similar seminars held in other cities (it is best to watch materials from Novosibirsk).

    Personal impressions


    The event was held at the height. Speaker Georgy Barkan showed himself from the best side almost single-handedly having told all the reports. It was interesting, communication took place in a relaxed atmosphere. There were few participants, about 20-25 people, many did not come, although they were registered. To the credit of the organizers, I must say that the meals at the seminar were completely in order, they were fed three times, which is important, since the seminar was held all day from 10-00 to 18-00.

    I learned a lot of new things, although I would like to try to keep track of all the innovations in Windows 7. I recommend everyone not to miss such events and try to attend them. Great experience and a lot of interesting things.

    PS: read the same thing, but with pictures you can here

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