Jim Radigan and I recorded a session for Channel9 last week, as part of the “Going Native” series.  We describe the “auto-vectorizer” – a neat feature in the VS11 compiler backend that analyses loops, in regular, unmodified C++ code, and generates corresponding vector (SIMD) instructions: tight loops using float o...

Now that the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been released, I would like to show you how you can use the Windows 8 SDK with Visual Studio 10.     -          In “Executable Directories” replace $(WindowsSdkDir)bin with $(ProgramFiles...

Hello, I’m Pat Brenner, a developer on the Visual C++ Libraries team, and I am the primary developer working on MFC. I’ve realized over the course of the past several years that a number of developers (especially those using ATL and/or MFC) can be confused about the proper usage and setting of the WINVER #define (and/or the corresponding _WINNT_...

 The Code Analysis team has just posted an article on the latest improvements in Visual Studio 11. If you are a C++ developer (we guess you are as you are reading this blog), it’s worth taking a look. [Read the article here]

Hello, I’m Pat Brenner, a developer on the Visual C++ Libraries team. Through this blog post I wanted to share some information about the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library, since I am the primary developer working on MFC. As you know, MFC is an important technology component which has been extensively used over the years by C++ developers...

  Snippets of the Metro style version for the most popular 101 application.       Download this Beta today:       As Jason Zander –CVP of Visual Studio- just confirmed, a Visual Studio 11 Beta was released earlier today. What can C++ developers expect from this new version compared to Vis...

At both Tech Ed North America 2012 (June 11th-14th) and Tech Ed Europe 2012 (June 26th-29th) there will be a C++ all day preconference! The title is C++ in 2012: Modern, Readable, Safe, Fast. Our C++ MVP Kate Gregory will deliver it and here's the abstract: C++ is gaining momentum as a development language, so whether you’ve never used C++ ...

The Microsoft Visual Studio Design Research Team is looking for developers to give us direct feedback on our development tools, languages and libraries! Opportunities include usability studies of upcoming features, focus groups where we explore new ideas, as well as 1:1 interviews.Is this just about Visual Studio users?You do NOT need to be a Visua...

Thanks to everyone who came to Redmond and/or watched online to participate in Going Native 2012, last week’s global C++-fest. It was a lot of fun, and generated a lot of useful and important talks that we hope will help continue disseminate understanding of C++11 throughout the global C++ community. All the videos and decks are available onlin...

Hello, I’m Pat Brenner, a developer on the Visual C++ Libraries team, and I am the primary developer working on the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC). In Visual Studio 2010, the size of statically-linked MFC applications grew substantially. We’ve gotten a number of comments about this issue, so I wanted to post an article about the cause an...