Microsoft Windows SDK

To get started with developing Windows software, it’s good to have the latest technologies available to you. Microsoft Windows SDK is an effort to provide developers with the latest APIs, metadata, libraries, and other such tools to streamline the development of software built on the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

In order to access this solution, the Windows SDK setup will guide you through the installation process. All of the features will be installed by default, but you can opt to omit anything you’re not looking to use for your projects.

Prior to beginning the installation process, the wizard will prompt you to select the features you want to install. You’ll notice a variety of tools that can be used for your app development: the Windows SDK for UWP and Desktop C++ are the most important ones, providing you the means to develop and also adapt your software for various architectures.

MSI Tools will help you create and manage .MSI installer packages, the Performance Toolkit will enable you to analyze and optimize app performance, and there’s also a debug tool to assist you with further code optimizations and deal with any bugs that may crop up in the source code.

If you’re looking to upload your software on the Microsoft Store, you’ll need to use the WIndows App Certification Kit to validate and pre-certify your app through the user interface. SignTool, a CLI tool for digital software signatures, is also offered as a download by checking the Windows SDK Signing Tools for Desktop Apps.

Developers can choose to install the Application Verifier to further help them streamline their code. It seeks to find certain programming errors by analyzing various interaction patterns between the application and the operating system, its kernel object activity, and so on.

The Microsoft Windows SDK provides developers with the necessary tools to successfully develop, test, and ship out UWP software. While these tools can be found individually on the web, having them all bundled together in this wizard is very much appreciated.