Windows 7 for .NET development

Question

Are there any special features or advantages that make it worthwhile switching from Windows XP to Windows 7 for .NET Web/Windows/Office development?

I'm currently using Visual Studio 2008 on XP box. Should I upgrade to Windows 7?

Answer 1

Sorry for stating the obvious here but XP is "old", very "old". Even the jump from XP to vista brought many new features which could be accessed by .NET developers.

The development experience in VS2008 won't change much switching from XP to Vista/Win7. (Although the overal user experience might improve, depending on what you like. For example I love Windows 7 so it just makes me feel better not having to work with ugly XP)

I think the real question is... can the application that you create benefit from running on top of Windows Vista and Windows 7. (And how can your customers benefit from this).

Are you willing to break compatibility with Windows XP or will you write enough code so that it uses the features of Windows version X if available and downgrades itself when running on older versions.

On a side note:

Personally I'd prefer it if none of our customers were still running on Windows XP. While .NET apps that don't hook into Windows version X specific features run perfectly on XP, Vista and Win7 alike... they sometimes look hidious on XP. (And the lack of WPF GPU acceleration is a problem for us)

Conclusion:

• Improved development experience -> only slightly if you're not a Vista/Win7 hater
• Can you improve the experience for the end user? -> yes if they use Windows 7

Answer 2

There are lots of new features available to Windows 7 developers. Check out Windows 7 API Code Pack for .NET.