Charles Petzold

The Vista and WinFx Get the Beta page has a new release — the first public release of the WinFx runtime and SDK since the February CTP. See Tim Sneath's blog for some stuff that's changed.

If you'll be installing the SDK, you now have options. Before you go through the hassles of downloading the 1.2 gig SDK image file and then burning it to DVD or breaking out the files from the .ISO, you might want to try launching the web-install version (the Setup.exe file on the SDK download page). I did the big download on my desktop machine and I'm currently doing the web install on my tablet.

Today I'll be busy tracking down stuff that breaks programs in my book. I'm pretty sure the book will be based on this release, so I'm hoping there won't be too many changes after this. On the Applications = Code + Markup page of my web site I've already updated the two XAML browser apps (Jeu de Tacquin and Hybrid Clock) so they run under the new version, and I hope to get a May-compatible version of XAML Cruncher up later today.

So far, the biggest hit for me seems to be the removel of the PageSetupDialog, which admittedly pretty much duplicated the functionality of PrintDialog except to also allow configuring page margins. I'll need to write a small page margin dialog (no big deal), except that I'll need to do this in Chapter 17 in a project named PrintWithMargins. Then I'll need a link to that dialog in the NotepadClone program in Chapter 18 and changes to one of the files in that project. Most of XAML Cruncher is built on top of Notepad Clone, so only then can I revise XAML Cruncher.

Wish me luck.