What's the difference between a Windows Game Library and a Class Library?

What's the difference between a Windows Game Library and a Class Library? Is it just that one starts off by including the XNA Framework?

Also, where are the differences between the Windows / Xbox360 / Zune Game Libraries? They all seem to start off with the same Re开发者_如何学Cferences (Microsoft.Xna.Framework, Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game).

There is no real difference. It is just a project template, it helps you get all the project settings right. Yes, the assembly references are one of the biggies. I don't have it installed to check, but you can use, say, notepad to look at the .vcproj file to see what settings are overridden from their default.

I'm a bit late here with my answer, but the main difference between a Windows Game Library project and a simple Class Library project is that a Windows Game Library project can contain content references (they can build in content from referenced XNA "Content Project" projects).

Additionally, they can use XNA's project synchronisation (MSDN) to maintain copies of the project for different platforms, that keep their list of source files in sync.

Finally, these projects get an "XNA Game Studio" properties page, where you can select between the "Reach" and "HiDef" profile, and set a Game Thumbnail. Although these have no effect on libraries, as far as I know - they are only relevant for Game Projects.

XNA Game Projects have the same special features as Game Library Projects. They're just set to output an application instead of a library.

It's worth noting that you don't have to use these special "Game" versions of the project templates that XNA provides. You can still make an XNA game just by referencing the XNA assemblies. But obviously you won't have access to these nice project features, so you will need to come up with alternatives.