Microsoft Releases Final Platform Update For Vista

It's unlikely to appease frustrated Vista users, but Microsoft Tuesday released a finalized set of runtime libraries to help developers create apps for Windows 7 and Vista "without impacting their users."

The free automatic download platform update will be available through Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services and the Microsoft Download Center sites, the company said in a blog post.

The updates include Windows Ribbon and Animation Manager Library, which contains the Windows Ribbon API.

Help is also available in the Windows Graphics, Imaging and XPS Library, which will include updates to DirectX to support hardware acceleration for 2-D, 3-D and text-based scenarios; DirectCompute for hardware accelerated parallel computing scenarios; and XPS Library for document printing scenarios.

In addition, Windows Automation API offers accessibility tools and test automations to access the Windows user interface in a "consistent" way across operating system versions, Microsoft said.

Finally, Windows Portable Devices Platform will provide the infrastructure to standardize data transfers between an application and a portable device, such as a mobile phone, digital camera or portable media player.

Microsoft also said that the Windows Automation API will be made available as a separate download for PCs running Windows XP.

"By making these libraries broadly available through the Platform Update for Windows Vista, we expect customers will find an increasing number of applications using new features in Windows 7," the company said in a statement.

Some developers are so far underwhelmed by the news as evidenced by various comments on the blog.

One developer said Microsoft is leaving out several important updates. "Please make at least RDP 7 and Powershell 2.0 for XP and server 2003," pleaded the poster.