Kinect for Windows SDK v1 is released!

This may sound a little “…hang on, that’s old news!” but nope. February 1st signalled the release of the first official Kinect for Windows SDK sans its ‘beta’ tag. It’s the first official release of the SDK which is released alongside a Kinect designed for use with Windows itself.

Now, a little word of warning. Anything made with the beta versions of the SDK will not work. It’s simply just completely different. For the better in many ways, if I’m honest. But as long as you’re showing off your project anywhere important in the near future don’t upgrade just yet.

But if you’re up for a bit of tidying up, then go ahead and download the official SDK over at Kinect for Windows. Your existing Xbox Kinect will still work with the SDK, but think in the future about getting one designed for Windows. It opens up a few new features in the SDK – namely Near Mode which I’m sure you can guess what it does – but for now don’t worry.

Coding4Fun got an update, too. So if you’re using that, then go grab the new one. Don’t forget to update your references!

Upgrading from Beta 2

I’ll do a new blog post probably tomorrow about doing this in more detail, but the basics are as follows – download the new, shiny installer and… well… run it. Simple.

If you used any of the Speech APIs within Kinect make sure you uninstall those first before trying to install v1 as it will just fail on you. Sad times.

But all in all upgrading from Beta 2 should be something fairly high on your to-do list. And I’ll show you how tomorrow, but before then Channel 9 have updated their Quickstart Videos for your viewing pleasure.

Best of luck and I’ll help you out tomorrow with any luck!