Update 11/20/09: The Surface SDK is now available to everyone at the new Surface website!  The instructions below should continue to work just fine…let me know if they don’t.

Update 10/29/09: It appears that the version of the SDK available from the Microsoft Partner site comes as a straight .exe file.  To extract this back into the MSI file to follow the instructions below, execute the following command:

"Microsoft Surface SDK 1.0 SP1, Workstation Edition.exe" /extract c:\surface

This should spit out a MSI file to the c:\surface directory and you can continue on with the instructions below.  Thanks to Tim Hurst for the info!

The Surface SDK SP1 Workstation Edition was released this week and while it will install (but is still unsupported) on Windows 7, it will not install on a 64-bit machine.  The installer has changed a bit, so my previous instructions will not work with this installer, but I have managed to get the new package to install …

Update: Running Surface SDK SP1?  See my other post on how to install it on a 64-bit machine...

The Microsoft Surface SDK was given out to some folks at PDC 2008.  I know the SDK is not out to the masses yet, however one of the questions/requests posted most frequently in the Surface forums is the ability to install the SDK on a 64-bit machine, and/or on Windows 7.  I’ve put together a quick guide that will show how to accomplish this.  But be warned…by doing this you are throwing away support from Microsoft.  This is an entirely unsupported setup and the Microsoft Surface folks won’t be able to help you.  So, if official support is important to you, this guide isn’t for you.  With that said, let’s continue…

Please note that you will still need to have Visual Studio 2008 Express or greater installed, and you will need to have the XNA 2.0 Framework runtime installed.

To perform the actions in this guide you will …

I did an episode of the .NET Rocks show last month which debuted today on the site.  Now, instead of only reading my idiotic ramblings, you can actually listen to my idiotic ramblings.  Lucky you!

Anyway, the show is a discussion on 64-bit development with .NET and all the fun that comes with it.  Have a listen...

Earlier this year I made the switch to a 64-bit operating system - Vista Ultimate x64 to be exact.  For the most part, this process has been relatively painless, but there have been a few hiccups along the way (x64 compatible drivers, mainly, but that's not the point of this discussion).

In the world of x64 development, there have been a few struggling points that I thought I'd outline here.  This list will likely grow, so expect future posts on the matter.

In the wonderful world of .NET development, applications and assemblies can be compiled to target various platforms.  By default, applications and assemblies are compiled as Any CPU in Visual Studio.  In this scenario, the CLR will load the assembly as whatever the default target is for the machine it is being executed on.  For example, when running an executable on an x64 machine, it will be run as a 64-bit process.

Visual Studio also provides for 3 specific platform targets:  x86, x64 and Itanium …