Recommendations on how to design and develop custom applications using the Microsoft platform.

About patterns & practices

Each patterns & practices offering contains a combination of written documentation and re-usable source code. Many also include a reference implementation. As the guidance is being developed it is reviewed and approved by internal Microsoft product teams and by external customers and partners. This produces a solid starting point for your application and a set of proven practices that you can follow with confidence.

Many patterns & practices offerings illustrate how to incorporate multiple Microsoft products and technologies into an overall solution.

By using patterns & practices offerings, you can accelerate the design and development of your custom applications, reduce project technical risk, and position yourself to take advantage of future Microsoft technologies.

Categories of patterns & practices offerings

patterns & practices offerings are organized in the MSDN Library into the following categories:

• Solution Development Fundamentals
• Cloud Development
• Desktop Development
• Phone Development
• Services Development
• Web Development

In addition, a collection of Retired Content is available. This content is no longer maintained but is provided as a courtesy.

To view the future release plan, see the patterns & practices Upcoming Releases page.

Obtaining Support

The patterns & practices group provides escalation support through Microsoft product support. If your organization has a Microsoft Premier Support Services contract, then you can obtain patterns & practices support under your existing services agreement. Informal support is also provided by patterns & practices team members and by participating community members in the online CodePlex communities.

Microsoft and the patterns & practices team make every effort to ensure that the recommendations are aligned with future Microsoft product releases, but cannot guarantee future compatibility.

Customer Connected Engineering

Every patterns & practices offering is developed in a public, CodePlex project community. Participation in these communities allows you to influence the projects, ask questions, and connect with other users.

Additional Resources

Explore the Microsoft patterns & practices Developer Center for additional information on getting started with patterns & practices, including videos. You may also want to explore the different views of the catalog available from the patterns & practices: Explore the Catalog page.