The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some new Windows 7 features (and some existing features of older versions of Windows operating system) from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework. The individual features supported in this version (v1.0) of the library are:
- Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars.
- Windows 7 Libraries, Known Folders, non-file system containers.
- Windows Shell Search API support, a hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities, and Drag and Drop functionality for Shell Objects.
- Explorer Browser Control.
- Shell property system.
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls.
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs.
- Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs. (DirectWrite and WIC have partial support)
- Sensor Platform APIs
- Extended Linguistic Services APIs
- Power Management APIs
- Application Restart and Recovery APIs
- Network List Manager APIs
- Command Link control and System defined Shell icons.
What’s New in this update (v1.0): The new features added in this update of code pack are:
- Shell Search API support.
- Drag and Drop functionality for Shell objects.
- Support for Direct3D and Direct2D interoperability.
- Support for Typography and Font enumeration DirectWrite APIs.
Other enhancements done in this update are:
- Bug fixes in all areas.
- Performance optimizations.
- Some improved and new samples (esp. for the new features in this release).
- Improved API reference documentation.
Requirements:
- Minimum .NET Framework version required to use this library is 3.5 SP1.
- This library targets the Windows 7 RTM version (now available to MSDN subscribers), though many of the features will work on the older versions of Windows operating system.
- DirectX features require Windows SDK for Windows 7 RTM. Additionally, some Direct3D samples require the March 2009 release of DirectX SDK.
Building and using the Library:
- To build the library (except the DirectX related features) in Visual Studio 2008, please extract the contents of the ‘WindowsAPICodePack.zip’ file in a new folder and build the included ‘WindowsAPICodePack.sln’ file.
- To build the DirectX features, build the 'DirectX.sln' file inside the DirectX directory. Additional information on using the DirectX features of the Code Pack can be found in the 'DirectXCodePack_Requirements.htm' document available as a separate download.
Samples: The Code Pack also contains sample applications built using this library. Each sample has a C# version and a VB.NET version and has its own solution file. Documentation: The Code Pack also includes API reference documentation. API documentation files can be found in two separate files WindowsAPICodePackHelp and DirectXCodePackHelp in the download section. Note: Some users may experience a security related issue when opening the help files or the Visual Studio solution. Contents of help files may not be visible or a security warning similar to “Unknown Publisher” or “This file came from another computer and might be blocked” may pop up. If that happens, the user won't be able to load the solution projects because Windows will block it. To remove that error, please unblock the help files and zip file before extracting it (right click the file | select properties | click Unblock button). Videos: Two minute videos demonstrating some of the features in this release are now available:
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