Prototype to production. With you all the way.
Whether you’re exploring a new product idea for a cloud-connected device or looking to transform an existing product line to enable intelligence at the edge, Windows 10 IoT is a trusted, secure platform which gives you the power to bring a new solution to market. With each release, we continue to bring new functionality and innovation to Windows 10 IoT and we’re excited to share what’s new in the Fall Creators Update.
Bringing the solution together
One of the most challenging aspects of any IoT project is bringing together all the pieces and technologies needed to make a full solution. Windows 10 IoT simplifies this process by providing a more complete platform to start from. Today we’re announcing new Windows 10 IoT features with the Fall Creators Update that will enable developers to increase their productivity and bring IoT solutions to market faster.
- Richer .NET API surface for UWP apps. The set of managed types that can be used to build Universal Windows Platform apps using C# or Visual Basic has been augmented with thousands of additional APIs to make it compliant with .NET Standard 2.0. These additional APIs and tooling in the Fall Creators Update make it much easier to port existing .NET code and libraries to UWP.
- The Universal Windows Platform (UWP) is ideally suited for building apps with natural user interfaces. We’ve improved ink support on Windows 10 IoT Core so that you can now utilize DirectInk APIs for highlighter, pencil, and vector-based ink. We’ve also added XAML ink controls for UWP, including InkCanvas and InkToolbar, which enable stencils like rulers and protractors. Multi-modal interactions such as simultaneous pen and touch are also now supported on compatible hardware.
- Assigned Access is a feature in Windows 10 IoT Enterprise that enables single-purpose devices like kiosks to provide users with a specific experience by restricting a user account to using a single Universal Windows app. With the Fall Creators Update, we’ve expanded Assigned Access support to allow running multiple UWP and Win32 apps in a locked-down experience that can be configured from the cloud.
- We’ve updated language capabilities on Windows 10 IoT Core to support the following languages: Chinese (Simplified, China), English (United Kingdom), English (United States), French (France), French (Canada), Spanish (Spain, International Sort), Spanish (Mexico).
- Rather than having to build custom out-of-band management solutions to handle device-specific troubleshooting, we’ve enabled Emergency Management Services on Windows 10 IoT Core. This provides an alternate communication channel to a device for performing low level hardware checks and basic troubleshooting tasks without relying on the operating system.
- Many IoT devices interact with other hardware devices or the physical world via standard buses like GPIO, I2C, SPI, and UART. We’ve enabled user mode bus access on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise through the Windows.Devices APIs, just like on Windows 10 IoT Core.
- On certain types of IoT devices such as point-of-sale solutions, low-power line displays are important for communicating essential information to customers. We’ve extended support for controlling customer facing 2×20 line displays by enabling customization of the cursor style, brightness, blink rate, and character sets. We’ve also added support for custom glyphs, transaction descriptors, and marquee mode for scrolling text.
- To monitor and manage Windows 10 IoT devices, we have released our Device Management (DM) client which connects to Azure IoT Hub to provide a cloud-based device management solution. The DM client leverages the Configuration Service Provider (CSP) infrastructure in Windows used by other device management solutions, so now you can manage that same rich set of policies from the cloud. Visit the Windows IoT DM Client site on GitHub for more details.
See what’s coming with preview scenarios
In the Fall Creators Update we’re also providing a preview of new Windows 10 IoT functionality that you can evaluate in development.
We will continue to invest in building robust security directly into the platform, as well as augmenting those built-in security features with intelligent security services in the cloud.
- We’ve enabled support for hosting Nano Server containers [Preview] at the edge on 64-bit editions of Windows 10 IoT Core and Enterprise. Using containers, applications and their data can be isolated from each other and quickly moved from development to production, or from the cloud to the edge. This can improve application security and reliability as well as accelerate deployment by integrating with popular DevOps toolchains.
- Windows 10 IoT Core now offers support for Windows Device Health Attestation [Preview]. This feature allows management systems to leverage a trusted service to verify the device’s health state for reporting or even for protecting access to remote resources.
Continuing with the direction we
announced at Build earlier this year to make Windows 10 IoT the best platform for connecting to Azure IoT, we’re simplifying the integration between Windows 10 IoT and Azure IoT.
- Azure IoT Edge on Windows 10 IoT [Preview] allows IoT solutions to orchestrate intelligence between the cloud and edge devices to ensure applications and services can act on IoT data wherever it makes the most sense. This program is currently in preview – sign up to receive the latest information on the preview program and visit the Azure IoT Edge page on GitHub for technical information.
- Using the Azure IoT Hub Device Provisioning Service [Preview], Windows 10 IoT devices can be manufactured with a common image and configured to connect automatically at first boot to Azure IoT Hub to retrieve device-specific provisioning information. The Device Provisioning Service is designed to support millions of devices, enabling the provisioning of large scale deployments in a secure and consistent manner and automating what historically has been a complex and time-consuming process.
We’d love to hear how these preview features are working in your IoT solutions. Based on feedback and additional refinements, we’ll make these features production-ready in a future release.
Next Steps
Windows 10 IoT is committed to providing the best platform for building cloud-connected devices that bring intelligence to the edge. We will continue to enhance our platform with each Windows 10 update. To learn more about how to build IoT solutions using Windows 10 IoT and get more details about the Windows 10 IoT Fall Creators Update, please visit us at
http://www.windowsondevices.com.
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