Microsoft: ‘Developers should be using Vista’

Microsoft has told developers at a GDC Canada session that, with Windows 7’s release nearing, they can no longer ignore issues with Windows Vista.

According to a session report by Gamasutra, the firm’s Chuck Walbourn told assembled engineers that, because of Vista parentage of Windows 7 and the increasing uptake of 64-bit systems, developers could no longer afford to not develop on Vista 64-bit or Windows 7.

"If you have any issues with Vista, fix them now," he said. "They’re not going to go away… if you don’t work on Vista and you’re still hoping XP comes back, that’s not going to happen. I’ve heard some crazy conspiratorial theories saying Windows 7 is just Windows XP with a facelift. It’s not. It’s the same technology as Windows Vista."

The rest of the session detailed the changes Windows 7 will bring, and how those will affect game developers – including another overview of the new features coming in DirectX 11, such as hardware tessellation, Shader Model 5, multithreaded rendering and compute shaders.