A little over a week after the release of Windows 10 Insider Preview build 17040 to consumers, Microsoft has released SDK Preview Build 17040 to developers. This SDK Preview build is meant to be used with the consumer-facing preview build and can be downloaded via the developer portion of the Windows Insider website.
SDK Preview Build 17040 includes one known issue where all tests run with Windows App Certification Kit will fail. Microsoft recommends for developers to uncheck Windows App Certification Kit during installation. Installation of an operating system that is now a Windows 10 Insider Preview build is also not supported and may fail.
Here’s what’s new in SDK Preview Build 17040, though it is very similar to Windows 10 SDK Preview build 17035 from last week.
The C++/WinRT headers and cppwinrt compiler (cppwinrt.exe) are now included in the Windows SDK. The compiler comes in handy if you need to consume a third-party WinRT component or if you need to author your own WinRT components with C++/WinRT. The easiest way to get working with it after installing the Windows Insider Preview SDK is to start the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt and run the compiler in that environment. Authoring support is currently experimental and subject to change. Stay tuned as we will publish more detailed instructions on how to use the compiler in the coming week. The ModernCPP blog has a deeper dive into the CppWinRT compiler.
As usual, there are also Breaking Changes to take note of. Microsoft is saying that as a part of the “modernizing IDL” effort, several new keywords are added to the midlrt tool. Here’s what you need to know.
- These new keywords will cause build breaks if they are encountered in IDL files.
- The new keywords are:
event
set
get
partial
unsealed
overridable
protected
importwinmd- If any of these keywords is used as an identifier, it will generate a build failure indicating a syntax error.
In addition to the Breaking Changes, What’s new, and Known Issues, developers should keep a list of API Updates and Additions in mind. These are very technical, so we invite you to check out the full details at Microsoft.
Again this is all some great news for developers, but we’re still hoping that consumers may see a new Windows Insider build just before the holiday weekend here in the US. In the meantime, eager Windows Insiders might as well want to check out the new look to Cortana, and the hints of Windows Timeline features.
