Getting Ready for Windows Vista ® Chuck Walbourn SDE, Game Technology Group

Windows Vista Highlights Desktop uses Direct3D 9 New display and audio driver models User Account Control (aka LUA/UAP)

Windows Vista for Gamers Direct3D 10 Game Explorer Parental Controls

Agenda Game Explorer Account Privilege Application Compatibility Installation & Patching Games for Windows logo

Games Explorer Linked directly off the Start menu Displays games installed on the system Shows meta-data such as developer, publisher, various ratings, links, etc. Parental controls system will lock out some games based on rating if enabled Basic information including rating is already provided for many legacy titles (~2500)

Games Definition File A title provides meta-data through a piece of XML called a Game Definition File (GDF) The GDF is embedded as a resource into a binary ( exe or dll ) Thumbnail image must be also embedded in the same binary Game Definition File Editor tool in the DirectX SDK

Aside: Code signing GDF containing binary must have a valid Authenticode signing to provide a rating Great security measure to ensure bits you ship are the bits a user has on their machine Works on exe, dll, msi / msp, cab files Windows XP presents this data in many places Windows Vista relies on this even more Verisign ID required to access WinQual data See DirectX Documentation topic Authenticode Signing for Game Developers

Game Explorer Integration Use IGameExplorer COM object to register the GDF- containing binary during install/patch Use the COM object to double-check ratings access in your game’s startup ( VerifyAccess ) GE can show saved games with thumbnails Prepending a structure at the beginning of your save game files Support command-line launch with a save game file Depends on the existing extension/shell launch system Use a unique extension for your save game files! See the DirectX Documentation topic Windows Game Explorer Integration and GE documentation for more details

Agenda Game Explorer Account Privilege Application Compatibility Installation & Patching Games for Windows logo

Account Privilege User Account Control (UAC) Key security feature in Windows Vista “Standard User” New name for Restricted User (LUA) on Windows XP Does not have full access to the system Read only to most of the hard drive and registry Can only write to per-user and specific common areas Cannot install drivers, start/stop services, change Firewall settings Changes in the OS make heavy use of this Every account on the system runs most processes as “Standard User”!

Account Privilege Elevation “Administrator” A user with administrator privileges can elevate a process to run at ‘admin’ level Must happen when the process is created! The system prompts every time you launch the app Child processes do inherit the elevation UAC detects common exe names that require admin rights ( SETUP.EXE, etc.) Executables can be marked in a manifest to require ‘admin’ privileges Can explicitly use “Run As…”

Supporting UAC Follow all the guidance for Limited User Accounts on Windows XP! Parental Controls only works on “Standard User” accounts i.e. a controlled account cannot have any admin rights If your game requires admin privileges to run, it cannot be played by accounts with Parental Controls active See the article Gaming with Least-Privileged User Accounts in the DirectX SDK

Agenda Game Explorer Account Privilege Application Compatibility Installation & Patching Xbox 360 Controller for Windows Games for Windows logo

Application Compatibility Windows Vista is compatible with most existing Windows applications Common compatibility concerns for games x64 Edition Media Center Edition Multicore Legacy APIs Current and upcoming technical articles in the DirectX SDK address these in detail

Improving Application Compatibility Use the Application Verifier tool Integrated version in VS 2005 Team System Make sure any drivers you install have both 32- bit and 64-bit versions Investigate deprecation warnings from VS2005 Be sure to revisit your game timing code! See the DirectX SDK topic Game Timing and Multicore Processors

App Compat Testing Include testing on Windows XP Pro x64 Edition, Windows XP MCE, Windows Vista consumer SKUs (Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate) Test using single and multicore CPUs from all major vendors Be sure to try 4 GB RAM configurations Exposes 32-bit overflows in configuration code Do not force your game to run with or require ‘admin’ privileges enabled! Test on Windows XP under a Limited User Account Test on Windows Vista with UAC active

Agenda Game Explorer Account Privilege Application Compatibility Installation & Patching Xbox 360 Controller for Windows Games for Windows logo

Installation Typically install and uninstall require ‘admin’ privileges Needs to write to C:\Program Files and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Setup Windows Firewall, install any drivers, etc. If using a non-standard setup, you might need to add a manifest to your setup program For causal games, might be able to do a fully per-user installation instead

Installation Traditional installers are way too complicated! Simplify the setup Q & A Create an Express install option that bypasses most prompting Consider play from media, background copy, or install on demand approaches See the installation articles in the DirectX SDK

Direct Setup DirectX runtime install is usually not optional! DirectSetup needs to install components like D3DX, XINPUT, XACT, etc. not part of “DirectX 9.0c” Combine the DirectX EULA into your own, always run Direct Setup in silent mode Don’t prompt user about installing DirectX or try to guard it with a version check!

Aside: Direct Setup size Don’t assume you have to ship every cab in the REDIST folder for your game You can save a lot of space on media and in your self-extracting download packages See Installing DirectX with Direct Setup in the DirectX SDK for details

Installation Issues Watch out for 16-bit code in older installers Will fail to run on x64 Editions Drivers have to be code signed by default to install on Windows Vista Uninstall will likely need to walk per-user registry and directories to fully clean up Neat shell functions can help SHFileOperation, SHDeleteKey Badly written OS version checks are a bane! Don’t do them If you must do them, do them right and test thoroughly!

Patching Need to plan how patching will work under “Standard User” scenarios Windows Installer MSP technology Require elevation to patch (only if rarely!) Use of per-user and common data areas See upcoming article in the DirectX SDK (April 2006) for details

Agenda Game Explorer Account Privilege Application Compatibility Installation & Patching Games for Windows logo

Task Switching Most developers are doing this well Fast User Switching alive and well in Windows Vista! See the DirectX Documentation topic Games for Microsoft Windows Logo for Applications for scenarios to test If the Windows key or the accessibly features conflict with your game’s keyboard layout, see the DirectX Documentation topic Disabling Shortcut Keys in Games

Games for Windows logo Windows Error Reporting Rethrow or call ReportFault API in any custom UEH Avoid using catch(…) in your code Make sure all your binaries ( exe, dll ) have a VERSIONINFO resource with real information! See the DirectX Documentation topic Crash Dump Analysis

Call to Action Check out the various DirectX SDK articles Make sure your testers and installer developers review this deck! Try your back catalogue and games in development on Windows Vista Beta 2 in May Games this year should support the Game Explorer and “Standard User”

Questions?

Resources GDC 2006 Presentations DirectX Developer Center XNA Developer Center XNA, DirectX, XACT Forums addresses (DirectX & Windows development) (XNA Feedback)

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, DirectX, Xbox 360, the Xbox logo, and XNA are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United Sates and / or other countries. This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.