About this blog and your comments
Thank you very much for the warm reception. It is humbling to see the amount of interest and enthusiasm for the blog and for Windows. We've been digesting all the comments (lots of mail is going around internally about specifics) and I've been going through my overflowing inbox (I can't reply to every message, but I have been replying)! Thank you. The most popular question/comment is about "signing up for the beta". We will be up front and very visible with any pre-release software programs that you can opt into. Promise.
As we begin our discussion of building Windows 8 on this blog, two housekeeping topics are worth a post before we start talking about building Windows 8 and the product. We want to be up front about the writing on this blog and provide a view on comments.
This blog is 100% authentic “engineer written” and not a marketing or communications effort. We do not have ghost-writers, editors, or any process that attempts to sanitize the words of folks on the team other than some basic copy editing.
This has the benefit of giving you truly authentic posts that directly reflect the passion of those developing the product. It also means that this blog is not written by professional writers. Some posts will go into a lot of detail. Posts by different writers will all have different “voices.” We ask that folks not be critical of the writing, keeping in mind the direct approach we are taking—I promise you that every writer will take personal comments, well, personally.
We had a long discussion about how to handle comments for Building Windows 8 (“B8”). Our experience with the Engineering Windows 7 blog ("E7") comments was mostly positive, but a non-zero number of folks abused their direct access to both email and comments. Let's keep the comments in the spirit of the community and avoid using comments for unrelated topics.
Of course, the primary goal of this blog is to have a two-way dialog, so comments are an important part of what we’re looking for with our blogging efforts. So we opted for the commenting mechanism already used by thousands of MSDN blogs—anonymous comments are permitted, and they appear without moderation. This blog platform employs some minor security measures and a spam filter that we do not control.
That means we are seeking out comments. Everyone on the Windows team will be watching for comments and is looking forward to the dialog. When participating, we will work to make sure Microsoft employees represent themselves as such, especially indicating if they work on the area Windows being discussed. We ask that press (those that write, blog, tweet professionally) identify themselves accordingly as well.
Things we hope to see in comments:
- Lots of on-topic, good, interesting thoughts on Windows and the posts on B8
- Focus on the content of the post and not just the topic in general—seek out the details
- Dialog that is respectful and fun
We reserve the right to delete comments or otherwise edit what has been said. Things that will get comments edited or deleted:
- Offensive or abusive language or behavior as determined by a community standard
- Misrepresentation (i.e., claiming to be somebody you're not) — if you don't want to use your real name, that's fine, as long as your profile name isn't offensive, abusive, or misrepresentative
- Repeatedly posting the same comments or agenda, or attempting to fit a specific topic into every post, no matter what we blog about
- Blog-spam or link-abuse of any kind
We hope these rules will keep the discussion lively and on-topic.
--Steven
Comments
Anonymous
August 17, 2011
It's nice to hear that you are going the community way like with Win7 again!It was kinda silent about Win8 so that's great.I'm looking forward to your posts and of course keep up the work!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
There's rumors floating around that Media Center is being killed. I don't necessarily care if there's a "media center" but PLEASE include the "10 ft" TV screen view and the ability to record and watch Live TV. I have a CableCARD tuner and LOVE Media Center as a DVR. It really is the best DVR on the planet and if it was further integrated into the platform (like with Zune playback right from the TV UI a-la Xbox 360) it would be even better. If you do plan on killing this feature, at least make it available in it's Windows 7 form.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Hi Guys,I think that the rules of our "game" are very clear. Let´s play together and enjoy the Windows 8 building.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Please, guys make more videos about Windows 8 itself or even some technical talks with W8 devs and designers. Let us peek under the cover a bit ;) ThanksAnonymous
August 17, 2011
So glad that you guys are now officially blogging about Windows 8. Looking forward for BUILD developer conference. Go Microsoft!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I like the part where you tell us again (just like yesterday) that this is a technical blog and has nothing to do with marketing while at the same time providing exactly zero technical information and doing nothing but talking about how great something that doesn't exist yet really is...Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Will we have greater reach into the OS with .net? Platform Invoke can be so tedious. What's happening with Win32?Anonymous
August 17, 2011
One thing I would like discussed is any speech recognition improvements. Like more commands, etc. "Windows, Update" would be pretty cool to say to that nagging "Updates are now available." Just sayin'...Anonymous
August 17, 2011
@Rod Davis i think that would be possible. Check that link: www.microsoft.com/.../tellmeIt's a new Speech recognition technologie.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
LOL. I am going to give them a chance to get the wheel spinning before criticizing the postings. There were some awesomely technical posts on the E7 blog. Some of the most fascinating posts weren't strictly technical but provided insight into the engineering process for such a large project.BUILD cannot come quickly enough but for now BUILDing Windows will have to do.Steven, can you give us any idea about how frequently you hope to post?Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Yesssss....I loved the E7 blog and was hoping Windows 8 would have a similar one.Here we go!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Hey @Paul relax! This is how they kicked off the E7 bloe (Engineering Windows 7) a few years ago: A couple posts to setup the conversation, then they later started saying interesting technical thingsAnonymous
August 17, 2011
I would like to know more about the placement of .Net Silverlight and WPF in WIndows 8for example:can i write full W8 touch apps with WPF / Silverlight for W8 ?the first news about W8 only spoke about HTML.PLEASE CLARIFY!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
As a minor side note, I find the E7 blog much easier to read. It's easier on the eyes and the wide margins on this one seem rather pointless.for comparison:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/Looking forward to this anyways!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
As a minor side note, I find the E7 blog much easier to read. It's easier on the eyes and the wide margins on this one seem rather pointless.for comparison:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/Looking forward to this anyways!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
This is great - thanks guys - have packed in my Ipad 2 and Iphone 4 in huge anticipation for Win8.Cannot wait!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
Great work guys. This blog is the right way to go. Looking forward to read more from you!!And so a little wishes...Media Center must stay! Its a killer feature that all my freinds gets so impressed with, not to metion when I tell them "It´s just Windows...". The one new feature that I would really like added would be support for soft subs in videos. You support it for DVD content but not for MP4 files which is a real shame. Looking forward to what you will reveal about Media Center ...Kep up the good work guys!!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I understand that we are moving to the era where the web is playing increasingly critical role in the personal computing as well as our lives as a whole. However, I certainly hope Microsoft will not forget the very reasons why Windows PC is unique in the first place. I certainly welcome the explosion of information and the tearing down of boundaries brought by the Broadband Internet. What I do not want to see is at some point Microsoft actually makes locally installed applications second-class citizens in Windows environments. As much as I appreciate the simplicity brought by the web applications, I also realize that locally installed applications can handle much more complex tasks more efficient and better. How good must it be if we no longer need to manage locally installed applications? Well, if that means that I must live in with PC with less control, it could be nightmares for us. Let’s not forget the PC is more than just a web browser. I simply do not buy the idea that at some points we no longer need locally installed applications. I rather believe that ‘hybrid’ is the way to go.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
@PhilipYou must not have read the E7 blog. It was most certainly a two-way dialog. Have a little patience, this blog has been up for ONE day.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Can't wait! Keep up the great work. What is the current version number of W8 atm?Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
I'll be very interested to hear of progress with Cleartype, already it can't cope with rotating my desktop monitor so is it being upgraded to deal with rotating the display all the way (vital on a tablet of course) around and RGBW pixel configurations etc.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I am really looking forward to being able to download the preview build.Hassan Voyeauhttp://techtt.hassantt.comAnonymous
August 17, 2011
Good morning Mr. Sinofsky, Dominic Green and I would like to help to improve the new Windows will. Could be improved by adding a few more MHz to support speech recognition, multi-touch operation of the PC with LCD screen (thank you if you can). For example, you could insert new icons and the new layout of files on the DVD as a Mac Thanks for your attention. Good job Mr. Sinofsky and Mr. Ballmer.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
While the idea of posting comments without moderation is great in theory, I don't think that will work here. There are too many fanboys and haters who will make the comments section useless.So, please consider moderating comments so that only on-topic and civilised discussions come up in the comments section.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Maybe a venue for putting forward and discussing our ideas would be nice. In the mean time, don't let the old keyboard shortcuts die! I rely on Windows key + R everyday for just about everything.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
Thx Steven for this blog.I have a question though. Will Windows8 natively support HTML5-web apps??Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Can't wait for up coming blogs.When will your writers publish the first blog?We gonna have something to read before the BUILD wont we?Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Great news... Really looking forward to seeing some interesting posts on here, it seems like hardly any time has passed since you started the E7 blog.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Please change the behavior of calc.exe so that the current value is not lost when switching between the modes. Programmer's mode could show the remainder of divisions when its not 0, likewise overflows should be indicated. Unsigned types should be supported too, preferably switchable (would present 0xFC either as -4 or 252 in decimal byte mode).Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Ok :DPS.Media Center is die ? Zune or Media Player in W8 ?Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I know It's completely superfluous, but please let us set the color of the tiles, and background on the start screen.More importantly, give us the option to make the tiles translucent, and use wallpaper.And if it's not too much trouble, ask the WP7 guys to do the same thing.Can't wait for W8.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Thanks, Steven. Love the new UI. We are wondering how it will behave on dual monitors.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
Oh...and let's not lose the stylus...many professionals use a stylus for signing contracts (not drawing), and it would be a terrible loss to part with this.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I loved the "Office User Interface Blog" by Jensen Harris. It was so interesting to see how much effort went into the new Office UI and how many prototypes were built. I would love to see a similar blog for the Windows 8 UI and the reasoning behind the decisions you make. Best wishes!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
May I suggest Taskbar Pinning for this blog, please, with a dynamic article list in the jumplist ? Thank you very much !Anonymous
August 17, 2011
> - while IE9 is cool and all, if I reboot my PC or if the main iexplore.exe process crashes, all my tabs are gone. Not the case with Firefox;You can click "Reopen last session" at the bottom of about:Tabs and the last session will be recovered ;)Anonymous
August 17, 2011
to the B8 team:Thanks for the blog. Can't wait to test Windows 8. By the way, I saw a video recently that says that in the new Xbox Dashboard it can be set "Discoverable" to allow it to be discovered by "companion devices". Does it mean that a Windows 8 PC can be connected to Xbox in a new way (since Windows Media Center is gone)? I have also both Kinect and Windows Phone 7 and can't wait to see if there are new features related to that in Windows 8.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Arseny > I wish that feature worked as well as I thought it would. :)The sad reality is it usually reopens the last correctly closed tab, which generally happens to be... an unwanted pop-up.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
@Tuwogaka - the blog platform is pretty aggresive with caching, and as such the comment may not appear until the cache expires and the page content is reloaded. It's normally just 1-2 minutes though before the comment appears. As to Opera support, while we don't get enough traffic from Opera users to justify spending much time testing it, there isn't anything that we are actively doing to stop is being supported. If you can reproduce your comment failing issue, go here blogs.msdn.com/.../contact.aspx and let me know the steps so that I can reproduce it here.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
@Bastian92 It's already confirmed they're using that: www.bgr.com/.../microsoft-adding-speech-recognition-tech-to-windows-8-next-generation-products-videoAnonymous
August 17, 2011
looking forward for BUILD conference, hopefully we can see some real progress there. Also, can't wait for beta releases. I have my computer ready for beta test anytime. For what i know, Windows 8 will be an awesome OS to use for both tablet and my laptop.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
Just based upon the comments on the few blog posts you have already penned, I feel pity upon your moderators. If you have the ability to designate moderators, and would like a hand, just let me know.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I grew up with Microsoft from DOS 2.1. Please make B8 reinstallable without having to reinstall all the programs. Also please get rid of OLD updates as they simply hog disk space and do little else. Make it run as fast as possible cross-platform without the need for brand new hardware. Would prefer no HCL, must be backwardly compatible to XP.Anonymous
August 17, 2011
Looking forward to joining the conversation and seeing where it leads!Anonymous
August 17, 2011
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August 17, 2011
Good luck to the team, however I'm not sure using a code (B8) that in many circles can also read as "Bait" is a great idea. But, the ship has sailed, might as well have fun with it! We're B8ing people into using a new UI! :)Anonymous
August 17, 2011
I have my laptop ready to beta W8, I would like to have it running Office 15 beta running in Windows 8. I would love to test W8 bet. The new UI should be great.Anonymous
August 18, 2011
Good to see yet another instance of openness from Microsoft Dev team (along with windowsteamblog, IE blog).I am only hoping we will have another repeat of Windows 7 blog, and we will have little grown-up discussions here than regular cry baby's. I want "a OS making donuts every day when I wake-up" kind of comments.I hope people realize that when they say "You have this stupid feature, which is not useful to me, instead you should have done this" they are under estimating the effort Microsoft takes to finalize the list of features included, telemetry data they have collected, moreover many more people who asked for the feature the exact way MS implemented it.I also hope that people who are not ready to progress beyond Windows-Xp stop reading this blog, and we need not to repeat again and again don't compare 10 year old OS with today's needs.Anonymous
August 18, 2011
Being "Bi-System" (using both Mac and Windows machines pretty equally) I really must commend you folks on this blog! I only wish Apple were as welcoming of it's users!Anonymous
August 18, 2011
Where from I can download windows 8 Beta?Anonymous
August 19, 2011
I as well would like to know if you guys are going to have a 32-bit version of Windows 8, or if you are going to drop that architecture all together. Thanks for the blog guys!Anonymous
August 19, 2011
Bring back the ANIMATED GIFS support for pic preview.This is ludicrousAnonymous
August 19, 2011
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August 20, 2011
Nice job so far. Admittedly, a lot of words without much yet in terms of detail. But a good start.It's been interesting to see the range of feedback and comments/requests. Lots of requests for stuff you'll never do, some stuff you won't or can't do yet plus the usual range of more way out there comments. I hope you don't censor too much - let the readers make up their own minds!And thanks Steven for actually responding to some of the comments - nice to see you really are reading and responding.I hope to see more of what's promised here - and in particular, I'm keen for the cone of silence to be lifted so MS staff can start really engaging in the details of Win8.Anonymous
August 20, 2011
Glad the conversation is starting and I look forward to everything you have to share.That being said I would like to see the comments system updated to a modern day comments system that allows users to like comments and/or to allows users to vote one anothers comments up or down. This will allow the users to help prioritize what we think is import suggestions and feedback. Also the ability to reply to individual comments would be helpful too.Anonymous
August 21, 2011
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August 22, 2011
@HTMLOnlyNonSenseNot sure why "All while retaining the ability to use your existing apps." is ignored while " Web-connected and web-powered apps built using HTML5 and JavaScript have access to the power of the PC." is thought as meaning "only HTML5 have access to the power of the PC, we dismissed everything else".I can't believe that some bloggers doesn't have enough common sense to understand that using HTML5 is just an additional option (but then we had in the past the "Managed Vista", "MS pretends IE9 is 100% HTML compatible" and "Silverlight, WPF is dead" misunderstandings among likely much others). Likely it attracts blog readers ?!Anonymous
August 22, 2011
Signing up for beta testing is a great, near free, method for educating the public on the new OS. Glad to see information will be "upfront". I Can’t wait to sign up.Anonymous
August 22, 2011
Thanks Steven for clearing thing up in regards to the pre- beta :) I excited to one again participate with testing an development of another Operating system. it's been fun since Windows 2000/ NT days. and appreciate the work and innovation that goes into each build.Anonymous
August 23, 2011
I am sorry if I have spoken harshly agiaist the president of Windows Live when commenting on the previous post. However, I am sorry again but I was telling the truth about the state of the Windows Live services and applications. It is bad wouldn't you agree. Even File Transfers in Windows Live Messenger are slow slow slow for 10 years now and every version is the same slowness remains.Anonymous
August 24, 2011
It's great to once again be able to sense the enthusiasm of the folks putting their time/energy into developing what will become our future desktop. I only wish I'd found a means to submit one singular idea for W7/W8: ability to turn a window into its own thumbnail-preview and pin that somewhere on the desktop (as oppose to only being able to see it from the taskbar), or at the very least, the option to "pin" any given taskbar thumbnail.Anonymous
August 25, 2011
On my Acer desktop PC, it no longer is able to recover from sleep mode after installation of Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Is improved ability to recover from sleep mode planned as a Windows 8 enhancement ?Anonymous
August 28, 2011
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August 28, 2011
I'm glad to see this kind of response. Very encouraging.Anonymous
August 31, 2011
Hello. I wish I could use a dictionary or at least spell-checker built into the system. This would be very handy especially in the internet. Help non-English speakers to respect the english language (this can be applied to other languages as well)Anonymous
August 31, 2011
Make sure your replies to comments are threaded in the comment display, otherwise we will never find them given the amount of comments.Anonymous
August 31, 2011
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August 31, 2011
Hi, I wish you would change the way modal dialog boxes appead in windows. Actually I suppose it is more logical the way they are done in OS X in which they are attached to their parent window. Their parent window is still able to move, resize and hide. Besides the modal boxes do not jump into the center of the screen out of sudden and disturb the user and it will be obvious which window they are related to.Anonymous
August 31, 2011
Hi, I wish you would change the way modal dialog boxes appead in windows. Actually I suppose it is more logical the way they are done in OS X in which they are attached to their parent window. Their parent window is still able to move, resize and hide. Besides the modal boxes do not jump into the center of the screen out of sudden and disturb the user and it will be obvious which window they are related to.Anonymous
September 01, 2011
Hi, I wish you would include; window snapping; windows would magnetically snap together when one window moves towards the other very closely (by a tolerance)Anonymous
September 01, 2011
Hi, I wish you would include; window snapping; windows would magnetically snap together when one window moves towards the other very closely (by a tolerance)Anonymous
September 01, 2011
I wish windows 8 have support for ZFSAnonymous
September 01, 2011
Hi, I wish for multiple virtual desktops; a future for decades for the Unix and Linux systems. Even Microsoft Research had an old utility for that!Anonymous
September 01, 2011
Hi, I wish for more sophisticated Backup strategy like Timamachine, as well as Versioning and systemwide Autosave.Anonymous
September 01, 2011
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September 01, 2011
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September 01, 2011
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September 01, 2011
Hi, How many times have you had orphan context menus in the taskbar or the desktop? Will it be resolved someday?Anonymous
September 01, 2011
I hope that they improve the system tray so it does not lose the tray icons at windows boot. They to not show up on every boot.Anonymous
September 02, 2011
Would like to see in Windows 8 big improvements to the way programs are uninstalled. As it is right now it still leaves lots of stuff all over the place. It need to undo all the changes it did when you install it by removing all files and folders, setting it changed, and registry entries. Nothing needs to be left behind.Anonymous
September 04, 2011
hi, why don't you make the windows explorer more like the zune software instead of adding the ribbon?Anonymous
September 04, 2011
PLEASE add Microsoft expression suite into windows 8 to replace publisher this will allow users to get online easily and grow Microsoft’s cloud. Include a marketplace gadget into PC for higher end partner products to low end partners selling products for the Microsoft platform both phone and PC/laptop. Increase addcentre usage include the software application with the OS, actually include all Microsoft offers as trails or full into all devices, make open and easy to manipulate and customize. Google will soon have its own range product including OS for PC/laptop and apple will extend into business products.Anonymous
September 04, 2011
Looking forward to the blogs and hopefully news on a release buildAnonymous
September 09, 2011
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September 10, 2011
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October 07, 2011
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October 07, 2011
Oh Yeah, One more feature which I miss, is tabbed Windows Explorer... It's long overdue..Anonymous
October 15, 2011
windows 8 Dev Pre has doesn't satisfied me too much because Microsoft has only done few changes to WIN 7 do develop windows 8 . Meanwhile a large change in features improvement was seen at the time only when Microsoft windows moved from xp to vista . then Microsoft has done poor works just developed WIN 7 with few features improvement only because vista has failed gaining popularity on pcs . Now same things for windows 8 Microsoft should take a look at apple and their improvements for Mac OS X. take look at here is an application program made my Samsung www.samsung.com/.../pcsw which does same work as a macs airdrop does en.wikipedia.org/.../AirDrop_%28OS_X%29 So Microsoft should take the copyright`s or source code or logic behind the useful apps made by their partner O E M like HP ,DELL , Samsung, Acer , and much more and invent them to windows 8 . then windows may have great value and popularity over Mac or Linux bhilare_kaustubha@rediffmail.comAnonymous
October 15, 2011
windows 8 Dev Pre has doesn't satisfied me too much because Microsoft has only done few changes to WIN 7 do develop windows 8 . Meanwhile a large change in features improvement was seen at the time only when Microsoft windows moved from xp to vista . then Microsoft has done poor works just developed WIN 7 with few features improvement only because vista has failed gaining popularity on pcs . Now same things for windows 8 Microsoft should take a look at apple and their improvements for Mac OS X. take look at here is an application program made my Samsung www.samsung.com/.../pcsw which does same work as a macs airdrop does en.wikipedia.org/.../AirDrop_%28OS_X%29 So Microsoft should take the copyright`s or source code or logic behind the useful apps made by their partner O E M like HP ,DELL , Samsung, Acer , and much more and invent them to windows 8 . then windows may have great value and popularity over Mac or Linux bhilare_kaustubha@rediffmail.com