Here’s your Windows Developer Day recap

3 min. read

Published on February 9, 2017

published on February 9, 2017

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As the Windows 10 Creators Update is likely to be released before Microsoft’s Build developer conference in May, yesterday the company held a Windows Developer Day event to unveil the most important developer features that will ship with the new OS. If you miss our coverage of the event yesterday, the company has since published an extensive recap and we’ll share some details about the most important highlights below.

First of all, the most important announcement was probably the fact that the Windows 10 Creators Update SDK is now feature complete. This means that developers can now access the latest tools to build their Windows 10 apps, but it also suggests that the Creators Update has now been feature locked. The latest Windows Insider build 15031 brought several new features yesterday including support for compact overlay windows for UWP apps, but upcoming builds should be mostly bug fixes and improvements.

The Redmond giant also introduced various improvements for the Universal Windows Platform, which is becoming increasingly capable compared to what legacy Win32 apps can do:

On Windows 10, the Creators Update will enable new capabilities for apps that use pen, ink and the new Surface Dial.
Microsoft also promised that it would be easy for UWP developers to leverage the Windows Holographic platform to create “amazing 3D experiences” for the HoloLens and other mixed reality headsets.
With Project Rome, Microsoft is inviting developers to create cross-device experiences between UWP apps and Android devices.
The Cortana Skills kit, which will enter Developer Preview later this month will allow developers to extend Cortana’s capabilities and integrate the digital assistant with bots and services.
For game developers, UWP games will soon be available on the Windows Store while the UWP packaging format will improve the downloading process on the Xbox Store
Developers can also download the Windows SDK for Google Analytics and the Windows SDK for Facebook to get access to the powerful real-time analytics suite and acquire new users for their apps and games.

Last but not least, Microsoft is willing to improve its platform by working more closely with its developer community going forward. “We believe we can work faster and smarter to deliver the best platform for developers if we work with the community,” explained Corporate Vice President of Windows Developer Kevin Gallo. That’s why the company introduced the Windows Platform Bug tracker yesterday, while also releasing all its developer docs in one place, on docs.microsoft.com. Gallo added that the company will “go deeper into the Creators Update capabilities for developers, and take a look at what’s coming next” during Build 2017.

You can check out the keynote featuring Kevin Gallo, Windows President Terry Myerson and more on the Windows Developer Day website, and watch each of the nine sessions from yesterday’s festivities on Channel 9.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.