Is Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 a dependency for Visual C++ and C#?

Question

When I installed Microsoft Visual C++ and C# 2008 Express, I got "Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008" added in.

I want to know if I can remove it and still have all the functionality of Visual C++/C#.

Answer 1

Strange, I remember it was shipped with Vista RTM headers (The Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit Update for Windows Vista version). Looks like Microsoft updated the SDK bundled with Express.

Anyway, the SDK is responsible for a lot of features in Visual Studio. For example, Visual Studio invokes sgen.exe to generate XML serializer assemblies, and call rc.exe to compile a resource script. Chances are you can't get away without it if you are not writing hello-world apps.