As you’re probably aware, Microsoft today released the new Windows 8 Consumer Preview and the new Visual Studio 11 beta. While we of course don’t yet support JNBridgePro on Windows 8 and VS11, we do encourage you to try it and let us know about any problems you run into.

In our initial tests, JNBridgePro 6.0.1 (our current release) installs and runs fine on the Windows 8 desktop environment. Nothing new or special needs to be done to get that working.  (We do concede that the tiles on the Start screen could be prettier.)

In addition, the JNBridgePro plugin for Visual Studio also works with the new Visual Studio 11 beta, with a little bit of help. If you want to use the plugin with VS11, please contact us, and we’ll let you know what needs to be done. Note that the plugin will not work with the Express version of VS11; it’ll only work with the Standard, Professional, Premium, and Ultimate versions.

Also note that JNBridgePro is not a Metro app, and the generated proxies are not targeted toward the .NET Metro profile, so it currently won’t run in the Windows 8 Metro environment. Are you planning to use JNBridgePro in Metro apps? If so, please contact us.

We were at Microsoft’s Build conference in Anaheim a few weeks ago, where they unveiled their upcoming Windows 8 operating system.  In case you hadn’t caught the news, Windows 8 contains two distinct user experiences: a traditional “Desktop” experience which resembles Windows 7, and a new, touch-centric “Metro” experience.  The Desktop experience allows you to access the full .NET Framework as before; Metro applications run in a much more restricted runtime environment.

We’ve spent some time with Windows 8, and we’re happy to report that JNBridgePro, as it’s currently released, already works just fine with Windows 8 in desktop mode. So, if you’re already using JNBridgePro and want to move your application to Windows 8, or to create a new application for the Windows 8 desktop, JNBridgePro is as easy to use as always.

We’re also happy to report that the JNBridgePro plug-in for Visual Studio will work with the upcoming Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview with only minor changes, which will be incorporated in an upcoming JNBridgePro release.  This means that JNBridgePro will be ready for the new Visual Studio by the time VS 11 is released, and likely sooner.  In the meantime, if you want to use JNBridgePro in conjunction with VS 11 development, we recommend using the standalone proxy generation tool.  If you’d like to be a tester for the JNBridgePro plug-in for VS 11, please contact us.

As might be expected, Metro-style development, along with the more restrictive WinRT and new .NET Metro profile, offer a few challenges.  During the run-up to the Windows 8 release, we will be addressing those challenges.

We’d be interested to know whether any customers or prospective customers are planning to produce Metro apps, and whether they anticipate building .NET/Java interoperability into those applications.  If you are planning to produce such applications, we’d like to hear from you, and work with you, at this early stage in the Windows 8 product cycle — please contact us.

Over the coming months, we’ll periodically post new blog entries discussing interesting technical aspects of Metro and WinRT, as they affect interoperability.  We expect to learn a lot during this process, and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Something cool from the JNBridge labs. What you’re seeing below is the JNBridgePro plug-in running inside Visual Studio 2010. When VS2010 is released, we’ll be ready for it.