Games for Windows and the DirectX SDK blog

Technical tips, tricks, and news about game development for Microsoft platforms including desktop, Xbox, and UWP

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Windows 10 Technical Preview

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Originally posted to Chuck Walbourn's Blog on MSDN,

The next version of Windows is now available as a Technical Preview for developers via the Windows Insiders program and for MSDN Subscribers. For more details, see Announcing Windows 10.

DirectX SDK Debug Layer: For Windows 10 Technical Preview (9926 or later), you need to enable the debug layer as a Windows optional feature to successfully use D3D11_CREATE_DEBUG_DEVICE or the Visual Studio 2013 Graphics Diagnostics tools: Start -> Settings -> System -> Optional features -> Add a feature; select “Graphics Tools”. See this post for details.

Win32 desktop games: The existing guidance for quality Win32 desktop games running on Windows 7, Windows 8.0, and Windows 8.1 all applies to Windows 10 as well (see Desktop Games on Windows 8.x). Note that there is a new <compatibility> manifest section GUID for Windows 10 (see Manifest Madness), and VerifyVersionInfo is now subject to the same manifest-based behavior as GetVersion(Ex).

DirectX 12: If you are looking to try out DirectX 12, you should read the DirectX Developer Blog post and sign up for the DirectX 12 Early Access program.

Enterprise: If you are curious about the business version of Windows 10, see this post.

Web developers: The Technical Preview includes IE11, but there are a few improvements for Windows 10.

Windows Store and Windows phone developers: See this post.

Command Prompt: There’s some fun features added for Windows 10’s command prompt. See this post.