Installing Windows SDK


 * This tutorial describes the process of the installation of the latest version of the Windows SDK

The Microsoft Windows SDK can be installed by downloading the selected version of the SDK from the Microsoft website online.

Choosing a Proper Version
Two versions of Windows SDK currently exist. The first is the latest version of Windows SDK, simply known as the Microsoft Windows SDK, and the older version known as Microsoft Platform SDK. The Windows SDK has been released for Windows Vista but works on both 2003 and XP. The Platform SDK was released for Windows Server 2003 R2, but is compatible with XP and 2000. This information is presented in the following table:

Requirements
For operating system requirements, each version of the SDK has different requirements as shown in the table above. The Windows/Platform SDK also requires a version of Microsoft Visual Studio's Visual C++ to be installed on your machine. So, before installing the Windows SDK, make sure that you have installed Microsoft Visual Studio on your machine.

Downloading the SDK
1- There seems to be an error with the Web Installer that causes it to stop responding after the selection of which components to download. If the issue occurs on your computer, you must download the .ISO version.
 * Windows SDK
 * Web Install1
 * ISO Install
 * Platform SDK
 * Web Install
 * ISO Install

Installing the SDK

 * Only the installation process of the Windows SDK will be described

If the (apparently flawed) web install setup executable does work, then it might potentially save you a lot of downloading time. Though ultimately it depends on the reason you're downloading the Windows SDK, you can potentially save up to 1 GB of downloading if you choose not to download and install Documentation and Samples. These are necessary if you wish to learn more about the Windows software developments locally, but can be replaced by other online sources easily.

Alternatively, you could download the entire .ISO file from the internet and burn it with appropriate burning software onto a DVD disc, and install the Windows SDK fully.

After choosing the directory, components, and all other necessary settings, you can now proceed to the installation (and, in the web install, downloading) process. This will install the SDK in the installation destination directories. This is however not enough! This will not configure header files to run with your copy of Microsoft Visual Studio.


 * For more instructions on how to burn an ISO file onto a DVD disc, see Burning ISO Files

Configuring the Windows SDK with Visual Studio
After making sure you have installed both Microsoft Visual C++ and the Windows SDK, you need to update the Visual C++ directories in the Projects and Solutions section in the Options dialog box. After the Options dialog box has been open, we navigate to (A) VC++ Directories, found under Projects and Solutions. The then add three entries (B) using the new line button. The three entries added (C) are:
 * 1) Executable Files: %path_to_windows_sdk%\Bin
 * 2) Include Files: %path_to_windows_sdk%\Include
 * 3) Library Files: %path_to_windows_sdk%\Lib

If you are using Microsoft Visual C++ 2005, you must, navigate to the '''Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 directory, usually found here (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC) Next, navigate to VCProjectDefaults found in the Visual C++ directory. All in all, this means that you should navigate to: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\VCProjectDefaults Then, edit corewin_express.vsprops by changing: AdditionalDependencies="kernel32.lib" to AdditionalDependencies="kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool.lib comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib uuid.lib" In Visual C++ 2008, the change is already made.

Now, you can create Win32 application software that takes advantage of the Windows SDK header files, libraries, and other tools.