The Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial is designed specifically for IT Professionals, so that you can test your software and hardware on a final version of the product. In addition, it provides the opportunity for you to become more familiar with the key improvements over previous versions of the Windows operating system, and experience firsthand how Windows 7 can make your PC environment more productive, secure, and manageable. »

Looking for guidance specific to Windows 7 deployment? Check out what the industry's leading experts have to say in this free Microsoft Press eBook. Sample topics include: deployment platform, planning deployment, testing application compatibility, and eight common issues in Windows 7 migrations. »

The most comprehensive Windows 7 training kit to date includes 14 different modules with a total of 32 different labs, links to videos, and additional resources. »

Discover how Windows 7 helps developers create engaging, user-friendly applications by providing familiar tools and rich development features. In this webcast, we explore the new Taskbar, Jump Lists, file management with libraries, and many other enhancements to the new operating system. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Windows Ribbon product team members Ryan Demopoulos, and Sebastian Poulose as we take a deep dive into the Windows 7 Ribbon API and programming module, focusing on advanced topics such as dynamic galleries. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Taskbar product team developers Robert Jarrett and Ben Betz as we take a deep dive into the Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists. Think of a Jump List as your own mini Start Menu for your application, giving you some control over its appearance and functionality. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Windows Ribbon Scenic Animation product team members Paul Kwiatkowski and Paul Gildea as we explain Windows Scenic Animation, why we need it, and which components of Windows use this amazing technology. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Taskbar product team developers Robert Jarrett and Ben Betz as we talk about the three parts of the Taskbar. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Windows Ribbon product team members Shawn Van Ness, and Sebastian Poulose as we present the new Windows 7 Ribbon XML Markup syntax. The Windows 7 Ribbon layout is defined by XML that is very similar to WPF XAML; it is a major piece of the Windows Ribbon architect. »

Yochay Kiraity has been working with the team to create Managed Code APIs making it even easier for .NET developers to take advantage of new features in Windows 7. In this video, Yochay demonstrates the Multi-touch functionality built into Windows 7 and shows how to handle gestures. »

Watch Yochay Kiriaty, Windows 7 Technical Evangelist, and Windows Ribbon product team members Ryan Demopoulos, and Sebastian Poulose as we take a deep dive into the Windows 7 Ribbon API and programming module, focusing on advanced topics such as dynamic galleries. »

If you are looking to get started developing with the Live Framework, this is the place to start! In this screencast you'll learn how to get a Live Services token and what you need to download in order to start writing Live Framework applications. »

The Live Framework Resource Model is a simple, straightforward information model based on entities, collections and relationships. In this brief screencast you'll learn how to navigate the relationships between entities by using the Live Framework Resource Browser, which is a tool that ships with the Live Framework SDK. »

In this screencast, learn how to add create and store custom types in Live Mesh using the Live Framework SDK. »

Kelley Blue Book, the leading source of vehicle-pricing information, recently implemented a development environment consisting of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008, Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation, and ASP.NET Model-View-Controller. With these technologies, Kelley Blue Book is automating user-interface testing, deploying a single code set for business logic across multiple user interfaces, implementing powerful zoom capabilities, and customizing solutions for a variety of mobile devices. »

Join Dan Polivy, Gavin Gear, product team PMs, and Yochay Kiriaty, Technical Evangelist, as they explain what the Windows 7 Sensor and Location platform is, what underlying architecture supports its functionality, and how developers can take advantage of this new and exciting platform. »

Learn how, in just a few days of development, the TakeComics team were able to build a solution that could render comics and lets you interact with them using Windows 7 touch capabilities. »

In this video, Yochay Kiraity demonstrates the available Taskbar and Libraries functionality you can use to easily integrate your application with Windows. »

Join Alec Berntson and Yochay Kiriaty as they explain why location gets a special set of APIs and what makes the Location Platform such an amazing platform for developers. »

Join Reed Townsend and Yochay Kiriaty as they explorer multi-touch in Windows 7. They will cover basic out of the box support for legacy applications, as well as for applications optimized for multi-touch, and explain the Good, Better, and Best programming model. »

Join Dan Polivy, Gavin Gear, product team PMs, and Yochay Kiriaty, Technical Evangelist, as they explain what the Windows 7 Sensor and Location platform is, what underlying architecture supports its functionality, and how developers can take advantage of this new and exciting platform. »

Join Reed Townsend and Ian Mendiola as they cover how to configure and work with multi-touch gestures, how to work with raw multi-touch messages, and what the manipulation and inertia processes are and how to work with them. »

Windows 7 includes many new updates and improvements to the Graphics stack, including a new set of APIs for 2D graphics and writing text. Watch this video series to learn more. »

This screencast series starts with how to implement the progress and status information for the Windows7 taskbar, and then tells you everything you need to know about how to get started with the Windows 7 taskbar. »

The Windows 7 Taskbar is a new application-launching and window-switching mechanism that consolidates the functionalities from previous Windows OS Desktop mechanisms such as Quick Launch, Recent Documents, Notification area icons, desktop shortcuts, and running application windows. You can think of a Jump List as your own mini Start Menu for your application, giving you some control over its appearance and functionality. »

In this screencast, see how you can connect to and interact with the Live Framework from a PHP application built using Eclipse. »

The .NET Service Bus makes it easy to access your Web services no matter where they are. In this brief screencast, you'll see how to take a basic Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service and expose it to the Internet with the .NET Service Bus. »

Windows Workflow Foundation provides a platform for using managed code to defined work as composable, reusable parts. With .NET Services, you can host your workflow in the cloud and access it from anywhere. In this screencast, you'll see the basics of taking a simple workflow and deploying it to the cloud. »

The Microsoft .NET Service Bus supports a range of connectivity options. In this screencast, see how multicast is supported through a series of code examples and sample applications. »

InterKnowlogy uses the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 browser plug-in, Microsoft Surface software and touch-computing platform, and other established and emerging technologies from Microsoft to deliver inventive solutions for its customers. »

With the help of Microsoft technologies for rich-media development, EPS Software not only produced a more innovative and creative version of CODE Magazine, but also released Xiine, a highly scalable and extensible platform for digital reading and publishing. »

Trying out the Azure services is free--however, a token is required to gain access to some of the services. »

The Windows Azure SDK provides developers with the APIs, tools, documentation, and samples needed to develop Internet-scale applications that run on Windows Azure. Using the Windows Azure SDK, developers can create applications and run it in a local development fabric even without a registered account. »

Get an early look into the Azure Services Platform in this whitepaper by David Chappell. Learn why using computers in the cloud can make lots of sense for your organization. Rather than buying and maintaining your own machines, why not exploit the acres of Internet-accessible servers available today? »

.NET Services are a set of highly scalable building blocks for programming in the cloud. In this brief screencast, you'll learn about the registration process, the SDK and the built-in samples everything you need to know in order to get started. »

Extending your SQL development into the cloud may seem a daunting challenge. But with Microsoft's SQL Data Services (SDS) it's easy to build new applications and take advantage of the benefits that cloud-based SQL services offer your enterprise. This paper shows you how to quickly get started programming your own applications for SDS. »

Not sure you can handle Windows Azure programming? In this short five minute screencast Bill Lodin, Vice President of IT Mentors, a training and curriculum development company, shows you what you need to get started with Azure programming as well as develop your first Azure application. »

Not sure how to get your Azure application in the cloud? In this seven minute screencast from IT Mentors' Bill Lodin, you'll learn about the Azure Services Developer Portal, how to create a project in the portal and how to deploy your Azure application into the cloud. »

David Gristwood sits down with SQL guru Keith Burns and has a chat with him about data in the cloud, this newest version of SQL Server, what it means for developers and systems designers, and how to get started. »

The Azure Services Training Kit now includes 11 hands-on labs, including new hands-on labs for PHP and native code on Windows Azure; 18 demo scripts provide detailed walkthroughs of key features so that someone can easily give a demo of a service nine presentations; and the presentations used for Microsoft's three-day training workshops, including speaker notes. »

The Windows Azure SDK provides a development fabric that provides a "cloud on your desktop." In this screencast, learn how to debug your Windows Azure applications in this environment. »

Windows Azure provides a built-in framework for writing log messages from your applications. In this screencast, you'll learn how to use the Windows Azure logging API and how to read log messages whether your application is running in the development fabric or in the cloud. »

Developers face a new set of challenges and opportunities managing data for cloud computing. This architectural overview of Microsoft's SQL Data Services (SDS) highlights the benefits for the enterprise and shows how you can use SDS to augment your existing on-premises data infrastructure. »

Managing Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) in Windows Azure can be easy using a few simple strategies. In this 20 minute screencast, Bill Lodin from IT Mentors will walk you through building a BLOB storage application including configuring BLOB storage access and managing BLOB containers and content. »

If you are looking to get started developing with the Live Framework, this is the place to start! In this screencast you'll learn how to get a Live Services token and what you need to download in order to start writing Live Framework applications. »

This migration guide provides a brief overview of various migration scenarios that Apache Administrators may encounter when migrating to IIS 7.0. »

This whitepaper examines Internet Information Server (IIS) from the perspective of an administrator familiar with the Apache HTTP Server. Apache administrators have many questions as to whether IIS can perform as well as Apache: Can it handle the same workloads and the same throughput? Can it provide the same reliability? Can it do all these things with high security? Get answers to these questions via providing examples from real users who have run these products in mission-critical operations. »

This whitepaper provides Apache administrators with detailed technical information about Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0. It describes the architecture, security model, management features, and other new enhancements included in this release. It also compares common IIS 7.0 and Apache management scenarios and tools. »

This paper illustrates two IIS 7.0 benchmarking scenarios and details the steps to monitor and fine-tune IIS 7.0 for improved performance and scalability. »

This demo illustrates FastCGI configuration on a Windows Server 2008 R2, Server Core deployment target. »

Learn how to leverage Windows Server 2008 R2 "Server Core" as an Application Server. ASP.NET is now an optional feature on Server Core. »

Silverlight has built-in support for communicating with Web services. This tutorial provides an introduction to using Web services in Silverlight. »

Learn to create a custom SharePoint Web Service that uses SharePoint API to submit data into a SharePoint list, create a Silverlight application that consumes the Web Service, and use Web Parts to display Silverlight applications. »

This webcast is targeted at programmers with Microsoft .NET and C# or Microsoft Visual Basic .NET experience. It provides an overview of creating forms-based applications in Microsoft Silverlight 2, the new rich Internet applications platform. »

While Silverlight as a client-side runtime environment is simple and compact in size, the Silverlight development platform integrates a number of features and complex technologies. To create effective Silverlight-based apps, you need a working knowledge of the platform. »

In this session, you'll see how to work with a MediaElement to animate its ambient properties. »

This 4-minute video shows how you can overlay content on top of a live video using the Canvas container and z-ordering. »

Silverlight supports seamless transition to a fullscreen mode which is ideal for media playback. This screencast shows you how. »

Watch Michael Palermo demonstrate a simple, minimalistic way to approach Silverlight. This video stresses just the necessary requirements and steps to get started with Silverlight. »

See how to provide rich interactive applications using your existing media assets and Microsoft Silverlight. Get the power to create amazing media experiences, while supporting the highest performance video codecs, Smooth Streaming, and more. »

This guide helps you to plan and carry out a corporate deployment of Silverlight. It describes the system requirements and deployment methods, as well as the techniques to maintain and support Silverlight after deployment. »

The Microsoft Silverlight Installation Experience White Paper and Sample Code cover the principals that will help developers and designers produce effective installation experiences on Web sites. »

In this video, Jesse Liberty demonstrates how to capture key down events and match them against specific keys and command-key combinations (such as control-C) and how to use these "keyboard shortcuts" to fill a form. »

This video demonstrates how PHP can be used to generate XAML, which is then delivered to a Silverlight front end. »

Tim Heuer shows how to consume Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and ASP.NET web services in Silverlight. »

Shawn Wildermuth teaches you how to add a Silverlight application to an ASP.NET application. The video begins with the simple exercise of adding the Silverlight application directly to an ASP.NET page. »

Efficient programming in Silverlight requires you to use the right tools. To get you up to speed on the latest Silverlight development tools, Cal Schrotenboer walks us through everything that comes with Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio. »