While RAD Studio offers a great multi-device mobile and desktop development experience, Embarcadero is focused on keeping its development tools at the top spot for Windows client development, with the best Windows client UI library, offering deep API integration. There are many technical areas VCL and FireMonkey are offering top features, and for example, VCL focus on High-DPI support is significantly more powerful than what Microsoft offers at the native platform level with C++ MFC or C# WinForms.
But that’s not the topic I really want to delve into in this introductory blog post. The RAD Studio team has decided to give a significant focus on Windows 10 support and Windows 10 migration (with a series of webinars and blog posts) based on some fairly important business drivers for everyone building Windows applications.
Windows 7 EOL
First and foremost, Microsoft has announced a long time ago the EOL (End of Life, or “end of support”) date for Windows 7, which is less than 5 months away, as their page states quite clearly:
After January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or support for PCs running Windows 7. Now is the time to upgrade to Windows 10.”
They leave no doubt about the consequences (although large companies will most likely receive exceptions):
Other Reasons to Move to Windows 10
Now, this is a fairly relevant reason to get in touch with any of your customers still on Windows 7 and offer them help in moving to Windows 10. While most of your applications built with RAD Studio will run seamlessly — we have no special runtime requirements or dependencies — it is a great occasion for you to also offer your customers new versions of your applications with an improved user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), better High-DPI monitor support, full integration of platforms features like notifications, and general app modernization. You can achieve some of these features by upgrading to the latest RAD Studio and putting a relatively limited effort into updating your code, adding some newer components, adopting styles, and so forth.
There is also another feature that is relevant in particular if you are selling or distributing applications to end-users, and that is the ability to leverage the Microsoft Store as a distribution channel for your Windows applications, also easy to achieve thanks to the support for Windows Desktop bridge and APPX format available in the RAD Studio IDE.
Windows 10 Webinar Series
If these are all great reasons to focus on Windows 10, how can you learn more? First, join our webinar series. Sarina DuPont starts with a session on “Windows 10 and New Key UX Principles (for RAD Studio Developers)“.
Jim McKeeth has published the complete list with more details, so I won’t repeat all the details, but I will link to individual replays for you. The sessions are provided by us and many MVPs, covering the UI, the APIs, comparing to alternative solutions, and discussing the migration of third party components.
- FireDAC for Windows 10 Database Access with Jens Fudge, Embarcadero MVP
- Move your Windows Apps Forward with Microsoft and Embarcadero with Matteo Pagani, Microsoft Windows AppConsult Engineer, and Marco Cantu, Embarcadero Product Manager
- Modern C++17 on Windows 10 with Dion Mai, Embarcadero MVP
- Moving Your Application to the Microsoft Store with Olaf Monien, Embarcadero MVP
- Windows 10 and New Key UX Principles for RAD Studio Developers with Sarina DuPont, Senior Embarcadero Product Manager
- Fast migration to Windows 10 HighDPI with FastReports with Den Zubov, Lead Developer, Fast Reports
- Building native apps for Windows: Why it Matters? with Serge Pilko, Embarcadero MVP
- A tale of 3 APIs: VCL integration with WinAPI, COM & ShellAPI, WinRT with Marco Cantu, Embarcadero Product Manager
- Top Windows 10 Features you can add to your VCL Applications with Ian Barker, Embarcadero MVP
- Working with Windows 10’s Windows Run Time with Miguel Angel Moreno, Embarcadero MVP
- Windows 10 – Modernization with RAD Studio and TMS Software with Holger Flick, Embarcadero MVP
If you are on an older version of RAD Studio and want to take advantage of all the great new Windows 10 features check out the latest using a Trial Version.
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