We Got Served

With Windows Home Server Power Pack 2 heading your way today (for English language users) via Windows Update, there’s lots to get excited about in the way of new features and fixes for the end user. But check back on the team announcement and you’ll see that there’s a whole heap of new goodies for developers too, which will result in better add-ins and home server software in the future.

Development support for Windows Home Server often gets overlooked by user-oriented websites such as WGS, but I know for a fact in the past year that Microsoft have spent time getting a better understanding of developer needs and evangelising Windows Home Server to the developer community – the first fruits of that work is starting today with new SDK features in Power Pack 2 along with the release of Windows Home Server on MSDN and Technet.

So, as you know, I’m no developer but I know a few guys that are and one of them, Nick Asseloos from Asoft (developers of the popular add-in AutoExit for Windows Home Server) has pulled together a detailed tutorial on the SDK changes and improvements in Power Pack 2.

The tutorial includes an overview of the various new functions, properties and interfaces that have been made available along with some very quick and dirty code samples to show how you can work with them as a developer.

Version 1.0 of the tutorial is now available for download, and I know a thread has started over in the WGS Development forums which will result in additions and amends to that first release. Jump in and contribute to the thread if there’s more you want to know.

Great work, Nick!

Download: New Candy for WHS Developers in WHS PowerPack-2 | Forum Thread