Microsoft to arm developers with Vista toolkits

Microsoft is to hand out three developer toolsets, in the hopes of spurring programmers to create applications for Windows Vista, Office 2007 and the web.

The software giant is hosting two developer conferences - Microsoft TechEd Europe in Barcelona and VSConnections in Las Vegas - where it plans to announce the release of the tools.

One announcement will be for .NET Framework 3.0, the software "plumbing" needed to run and build Windows Vista applications. The software, available as a plug-in to Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005, lets developers write applications that use Vista's new user interface, security features and communications system.

Microsoft is expected to make Windows Vista available to business customers at the end of this month and to consumers in January of next year.

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The second launch is for a plug-in to Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office, for building applications that use Excel, Word and other programs in Office 2007. The update is expected to be in broad release early next year.

This add-on will enable developers to write applications that take advantage of the new "ribbon" user interface and other features with Office 2007, said Brian Goldfarb, a group product manager at Microsoft.

Microsoft is also scheduled to release the second beta to its web development tool kit, called ASP.NET Ajax and code-named Atlas.

This test version is expected to be generally available around the end of this year, when it will be offered as a free download under one of Microsoft's Shared Source licences, Goldfarb said.

The Atlas Ajax tool is designed to speed up development of web applications that run in a browser or on a server, he said. Goldfarb added that the software complies with standards and will work with other server-based scripting systems, such as PHP.

Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com