Windows 10, A Pre-Release Guide For Developers

Introduction

Windows 10 is about to arrive, July 29 is not so far away now (at the time of writing the article). I wanted to take some time to talk about Windows 10 for beginners. I will share a few keynotes about Windows 10, what the requirements are for developing for Windows 10, why develop for Windows 10 and how to develop for Windows 10. So these are our keynotes that are to be explained in this article.

Remember, Windows 10 is still in preview. The API sets provided are subject to change by Microsoft in the future.

Windows 10 intro

Windows 10 is the next installment of the operating system Windows that has been developed, owned and distributed by Microsoft. Some say it would be the last installment of Windows ever, you will receive only updates for the system and Windows Update will include increasingly more features that will make your Windows experience even better and more secure by adding software patches to your system.

Along with the new OS, there are many more fixes and patches to the system. The interesting thing for me was Edge (currently named Project Spartan) as the new version of Internet Explorer. You can consider using Edge for many uses, first of all, if you are a PDF reader and love reading books then you will feel at ease using the "Reading view" of Edge. Edge also can convert your web sites into images that you can draw upon, thus be able to share your web page.

Intro for developers

Getting to the main point of this article of what Windows 10 is from a developer's perspective. With every previous version of Microsoft Windows, there came another framework version. Specifically speaking, every Windows version was known to have another version of .NET Framework shipped with it. New tools, a new framework, and new updates and features were added to the Windows so that developers can consume them.

Windows 10 is not about a framework or OS. It is about a platform that developers can use to develop their applications. Windows 10 has introduced a new way of developing applications, Universal Application Platform. You should not confuse yourself with the Universal Applications for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. They were a separate concept. They targeted operating systems, such as Windows or Windows Phone.

Universal Applications (Windows 8, 8.1)	Universal Application Platform (Windows 10)
Targets the operating system; Windows 8, 8,1 or Windows Phone 8, 8.1	Targets the device family, depending on which device family you have targeted.
Same shared code-base, different UI for Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows Phone 8.1	Shared code-base, same features. The device family ensures the UI features.
Code is not compiled to native code as is done in other .NET applications, byte code is created for every assembly.	The code is compiled down to the metal using .NET native compilers.

Let us talk about the common differences (no pun intended) between the two versions. In the Universal applications, you have had the same code-base (application logic) but you would have two projects in your Visual Studio solution. That concept of universal did not include Unity (Continuum). The Universal Application Platform removes that problem and you now need not need to manage a separate project for each operating system you need to target. Instead, you target the types of devices that you need and Windows provides the contracts for you to use for the devices. Think of a contract as the API.

There are device families that you target, not operating systems. This removes the ambiguity of multiple UI features, various components from a designer's perspective. You just need to ensure that the devices that you target have a certain underlying contract.

Image reference: Guide to Universal Windows Platform.

Microsoft is working to bring more and more device families to Windows 10 to enable you to reference them in your work. A device family is a set of APIs or a framework that ensures certain features on a device. If you have a desktop that runs on Windows 10, then if someone targets your device, the UAP ensures that a feature is provided regardless of whether that runs or not. For example, your camera. Windows would have APIs to run an application that uses your camera on the Desktop but you might not have it at that time. Similarly, if you have a mobile device, Windows would provide the tools to develop an application that uses GSM or other mobile network types such as HSDPA (internet, simply) but you might not have activated the feature for the application to use. In other words, the API would be available even if you have not attached the hardware or have disabled it.