Introducing the team

Thanks for the comments and the flood of email we received (and to the number of folks now following us on Twitter, too). It is definitely humbling to see all the enthusiasm and interest. There are clearly already few important threads in the initial comments, some of which are based on the previews of the Windows 8 user experience. We’re definitely gearing up to discuss these issues, the design, and tradeoffs. Windows 8 has new features across the full breadth of the product. It takes quite a team to build Windows 8, and so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the team structure—sometimes the “how” can help folks to understand the “what” and the “why.”  This will give you an outline of the places we added features to Windows 8.  It will also serve as a bit of a guide as we talk about the product.

It is tempting for some to think of Windows as one entity or group, or for some to think of Windows as just a set of specific people. Sometimes someone speaks at a conference or has a blog, and that comes to represent the product for you. In reality, Windows is always a product of the whole team and much of Microsoft.  Nearly every development group contributes to building Windows 8 in some form or another.  And Windows contributes efforts to most other groups as well.

Windows is a fairly broad project made up of a set of coordinated smaller projects. When we started building Windows 8 we had a clear sense of the direction we were heading and so we built a team structure to support that direction.  Many of the teams work together while at the same time we try to break the work down into fairly independent groups—obviously as a customer you want things to work together, but as an engineer, you also want to be able to work independently. That’s a fine balance we work to maintain.

A lot goes into building a team structure to get all the work of Windows done. The most important first step is deciding “what” we plan to get done, so that we can make sure we have the best teams in place and the best structure to do that work. At the same time we have to make sure all the engineering processes—like daily builds, integration, quality, security, and all the fundamentals—are integral from the start (lots to talk about on these topics!).

We have several engineering roles, or disciplines, that make up our team. The implementation work on Windows happens when developers write code. This code implements features that come from specifications written by program management along with interaction designs from our product designers.  Testers are responsible for making sure the spec is complete and the code does what the spec says it should do. This is a simplified view of the relationship between roles, since we routinely walk a bit in each other’s shoes. There are several other equally important roles on the team, but we tend to think of our engineering effort as development, test, and program management working together in lockstep throughout the entire release—each role has an equal voice in the outcome and choices we make.

We organize the work of Windows into “feature teams,” groups of developers who own a combination of architectural elements and scenarios across Windows.  We have about 35 feature teams in the Windows 8 organization.  Each feature team has anywhere from 25-40 developers, plus test and program management, all working together. Our teams are all focused on building a global product, and so some of our teams are located outside the US and are also delivering globally.

In general a feature team owns and builds what that most folks would identify as an area or component of Windows. “Feature” is always a tricky word—some folks think a feature is a broad architectural component like the "user interface” or networking, and other folks might think a feature is something more specific, like the “start menu” or IPv6.  So the term is a bit overloaded. When we set up different feature teams, we pair the architecture (code, subsystems, components) with the scenarios (user experience) in which users will encounter it, while also working to make sure we keep teams small and manageable.  We long ago stopped trying to count new features because of the difficulty in defining a feature.  We do count work items, which do map to the work and specs that we build (but that is a pretty long list).

When folks do the math and come up with the number of developers on the team, we usually hear one of two reactions: “wow, that is a lot, and there is no way that can work,” or “wow, you build a product for a billion people with a pretty small number folks.” It is to our benefit to have the smallest number of people on the team possible, but it is to your benefit to have the largest number of people adding all the things that folks might want. So, we find a place in the middle. We want the team to be manageable and able to produce high quality, full-featured code.

I mentioned earlier that Windows contributes code to lots of other products and vice versa, so when you look at this list, keep in mind there are features from other groups (for example, our browser language runtime comes from the development tools group) and some of the work here goes into other products, too.  For example, all of our kernel, networking, storage, virtualization, and other fundamental OS work is also part of Windows Server—that’s right, one team delivers the full Windows Client OS and much of the foundation for the Windows Server OS. And some features are built in the core OS but are ultimately only part of the Server product.

Many of the teams listed below describe features or areas that you are familiar with or that you can probably figure out based on the name.  As we post more, team members will identify themselves as part of these teams.  We also have organized these teams in seven larger groups that pull related teams together—fundamentals, devices and networking, core OS, developer experience, user experience, web services, and our engineering system. The Windows Live group (Hotmail, Messenger, Skydrive,  Photos, LiveID, and more) also has a similar structure. Internet Explorer group is also a couple of teams on its own, but obviously contributes across Windows 8.

• App Compatibility and Device Compatibility
• App Store
• Applications and Media Experience
• App Experience
• Core Experience Evolved
• Device Connectivity
• Devices & Networking Experience
• Ecosystem Fundamentals
• Engineer Desktop
• Engineering System
• Enterprise Networking
• Global Experience
• Graphics Platform
• Hardware Developer Experience
• Human Interaction Platform
• Hyper-V
• In Control of Your PC
• Kernel Platform
• Licensing and Deployment
• Media Platform
• Networking Core
• Performance
• Presentation and Composition
• Reliability, Security, and Privacy
• Runtime Experience
• Search, View, and Command
• Security & Identity
• Storage & Files Systems
• Sustained Engineering
• Telemetry
• User-Centered Experience
• Windows Online
• Windows Update
• Wireless and Networking services
• XAML

In addition to these teams made up of development, test, and program management, there are many others that are part of the product development team. Our content development team writes and edits our online assistance, website, deployment documents, and SDKs, to name a few things. Product planning leads customer and market research and also pays very close attention to feedback and telemetry around the pre-release software. Product design develops the overall interaction model, graphical language, and design language for Windows 8. Our research and usability team creates field and lab studies that show how existing products and proposed features perform with all types of customers. Localization brings Windows to over 100 languages (and localizes this blog).  Our operations team runs services that are used by hundreds of millions of people and almost a billion PCs.  Just to name a few..

When we started Windows 7 some people told us that the Windows team was too big and had reached a size that caused more engineering problems than it solved. At the same time, you can look at all the comments and see the incredible demand for new features across a very wide range of scenarios.

Folks want new things, and changes to existing things; they want features to be available globally, to be accessible, and to be super high quality; they want things to work on existing hardware, and to take advantage of the latest new hardware. Our job is to get as much done in as short a time as possible, at a very significant scale. That's all a pretty significant engineering effort.

For folks who are counting my words, I am still under 1,500 words, so I think I will call this an introduction to the team. Keep the comments coming, as they are helping us get ideas for posts and shape the dialog. I hope this post helps to develop some shared context in terms of talking about Windows 8.

--Steven

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Hello:In Windows explorer, when you click to expand a folder in the tree, the selected folder moves to the bottom of the pane, which is extremely annoying since you have to constantly scroll to see the newly-expanded subdirectories.  Please expand subfolders in the tree in-place.Also, when will there be an FTP-over-SSL client?  Maybe map a drive letter over FTPS?     Thanks!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  App Store team? Is this the 1st time Microsoft has hinted that there is going to be an app store in Windows 8? I know everyone has been reporting on it already but a lot of that was from leaked screenshots... Or does this mean something else entirely?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  yay, confirmation of an app store, will be nice for bringing  everything together in 1 place.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I've always been curious- are you able to talk about whether the teams follow a global SDLC, or are separate teams free to experiment with different methodologies (so long as they externally integrate / communicate on time etc)? I've always wondered how (or if, even) agile could work in across such a large project, and I'd love to hear a bit about your experiences with it.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please, tell me that Win8 will bring a new optimized Internet Explorer - this is killing Microsoft web image

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Looks like "Building Windows 8" official blog is quite active. Already new and interesting things in the list above:  •App Store  •Core Experience Evolved •Device Connectivity •Hyper-V •In Control of Your PC •Presentation and Composition  •Search, View, and Command •Security & Identity  •Storage & Files Systems •User-Centered Experience •Windows Online •Windows Update •Wireless and Networking services •XAML

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Awesome post.Mr Steven , No Media center team in Windows 8 ?Zune Desktop or Media player in Windows 8 ?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  XAML Team ... Media Team... And lot's of "Experience" Teams ....  I Like :DCan't wait to BUILD..

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  PS.Français Deutsch Português (Brasil) 한국어   日本語   简体中文  Русский etc. etc.Where is Italian ? :-)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  As a WP7 App developer I am interested in the App store:How much work will be required to migrate code from WP7 to Win8?Will the existing App Hub (XBOX/WP7) be shared in Win8? As a user If I have a WP7 App do I have to pay again to use it on Win8? (My interest in the latter question is in terms of the renumeration model for the developer).

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  So App Store, Hyper-V and XAML teams... This confirms many of the rumors floating around :)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  What's the fuss about XAML?? It's been know for quite some time that the XAML team moved over to Windows. And silverlight is in WP.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Hey, the app store has been hinted by microsoft way before. If you see the Windows 8 screenshot, there is a tile for that.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Are Live Mesh, Live Essentials going to live on in Windows 8 and will Mesh in particular see greater integration with Windows Phone? How does Windows Home Server fit in as well?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I don't see an Accessibility team, so I'll assume that the accessibility responsibility is spread across all of the teams. I'll be interested in seeing how you will enable the new UX paradigms.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  It's interesting to hear more about the background of developing windows. Windows is such a big product and different teams for different tasks for the Windows development is comprehensible. I think it's not easy to manage all the teams that are working for Windows. My respect. Windows is on the right way. The work that WinVista and Win7 introduced shown the hard work of the Windows team, even if the work wasn't assumed to be positive (Vista).Now we are at a point, where we want sth. new and modern. So we (community) and MS should take the chance to make Win8 unthinkable good.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Many people have probably already asked this, but can someone from one of your teams (maybe the Applications Team or Graphics Platform team) comment on whether .NET programming techniques (XNA/WPF/Silverlight etc) can be used to program new Windows 8 applications alongside the new HTML5/Javascript programming techniques, as well as whether the DirectX and Win32/64 APIs will still be there for use?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  By any chance, is the Storage & File Systems Team the developers of Paragon?  & I still wanaa know what kinda FS Paragon is exactly, if for some reason you'll tell me.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  This is a pretty awesome set of teams. I bet there isn't a more impressive set of software engineering teams in the world. We're really exited for what you are producing and we're rooting for you!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  ISO Mounting PLEASE!!!  TechNet and MSDN downloads are all ISO files, I can mount VHD files, let us mount ISO files without 3rd party apps!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  May I suggest site pinning for this blog and a dynamic article title jumplist ? Thank you very much !

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Tagged MP4 support in Windows Media Center was number one on my wishlist for 7 and unfortunately still is for 8 having to create a folder for every single movie when theres a perfectly good tag system similar to that in MP3 is the main thing keeping me from using Media Center.Yet we have Tagged MP4 support in windows explorer, its desperately needed for Media Center.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  How many lines of code windows 7  have ?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @Rodney It's already been confirmed you can ISO mount.  (People who illegally downloaded it noticed the feature, & thus, it's confirmed.)  There's also a successor to the VHD in there called VHDX &, yes, you can mount it.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Ever thought about making a photo of the entire Windows Team? Maybe with red, green, blue and yellow t-shirts, arranged in a well known shape and photographed from above? :-)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  BTW, I can't believe I called Protogon, "Paragon," b4...

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  With enterprises wanting control of what is installed in the OS, what features will there be for managing and maintaining applications?  Or will users be locked out of the App Store and applications handled by SCCM?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  My guess is that you are leaving out the bulkier apps from Windows 8 (Media Center, etc.) to live up to the promise of a slimmer. more lightweight OS. I am also hoping you will make such apps available optionally from the Windows Store. My concern is the lack of information on the business aspect of the OS and how all these new features effect it. I also know it is extremely early to be concerned about it, but thats my job :)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @aldie_lab  -- Accesssibility is both a team (within one of the teams above) and also the responsibility across our entire organization.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @Mr Green  -- click on the link for "developer" in the post and you can read an old blog post on being a developer at Microsoft I did.  Also Larry's post from Windows 7 might be interesting (we'll look to update that maybe) blogs.msdn.com/.../engineering-7-a-view-from-the-bottom.aspx.  --Steven

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  What plan is for win8 to run off SSD like OSX does on Air?   THe cost is down and the requirements for TRIM to reduce write cycles to the registry must be a concern.  WHich department manages the overall OS and 3rd party tendancy to update registry values constantly.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @Mohit -- .mkv is a container, that can have nearly any format stream in it. It is not a format by itself ;)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Man, I can't wait for a thin, ARM-based, 8+ battery life Win8 tablet! I wanna connect a bluetooth keyboard and mouse when I am feeling more productive. Beats the heck out of a limited giant iPod touch like the iPad.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Two words: XAML Team.I want to hear ALL about the XAML team.1) What are they doing?2) What is the future of XAML technologies in the Windows (Desktop/Xbox/Tablet/Phone/etc) ecosystem?3) What kind of tooling support will be available for XAML technologies in the future? Blend v.Next? VS?4) Expression Blend needs to support both HTML web apps and XAML native apps.5) What technologies were used to make the new Start screen? Is it a XAML application? Please say yes.I would love to see XAML based apps as the premier and preferred way to write native apps across the Windows ecosystem (Desktop/Xbox/Tablet/Phone/etc). I would also love to see HTML5 based apps as the premier and preferred way to write non-native cross platform web applications. I want to see Blend+Visual Studio support for XAML and HTML5 apps. I want to see Super Preview built into Blend.This is my dream:1) Open up Blend and select: "Create new Touch application".2) Write my data and logic layers using the MVVM architecture.3) Blend has a "switch" to toggle the artboard between "Tablet" and "Phone" modes. You know how the artboard in Blend shows fake Windows Phone chrome under the LayoutRoot? This switch should toggle that fake chrome between a tablet and a phone.4) I design both a tablet and a phone version of the UI, using this toggle switch to flip between the two.5) I hook up both interfaces to my view models. Effectively, I write my app once, but design for multiple form factors. All in Blend+Visual Studio.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  One of my hobbies is writing custom shells for fun. (I know, I'm strange!)Can you still set a custom shell in Windows 8? In other words, could i replace explorer.exe with my_full_screen_kiosk_app.exe?Is the new start screen a part of explorer.exe, or is it a separate process? How, exactly, do the two interop?Is the start screen a WPF app? DirectX? XAML v.Next? C#? C++? Tell me its not HTML5+JS.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Wow! My favorite thing about this blog, so far, is the -frequency- of updates. Please aim to provide at least one update a week!A video blog entry would be awesome also. I would love to hear Mr. Sinofsky post a weekly video where he reads some of the comments in this blog and answers them. That would be pretty epic.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Steve, it is great to read about the great work you and the team do. Keep it up. Windows 8 is already looking fantastic. Can't wait to test it when the beta is released. Also, if you have time, would you check out my tablet blog at http://www.tabletslatepad.com

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I'm excited

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Quick question: Does WindOS8 imply WindOS x WindCE marriage?Feature Request for Windows 8 (File Management):Please provide us with the slight advance features, like batch rename and find duplicates natively. Please let us group the files with color coding, in addition to group the files with the list of attributes. Handy if the user is looking for custom grouping criteria. Upon File/Folder Right-Click, please provide:  Sync with SkyDrive & send to > SkyDrive Integrate Zune, Windows Media Player & Windows Media Center. Optimize Media Player and Windows Indexer (coz sometimes they are considered CPU resource hungry memory hog) and enable the indexer for all drives by default. Easy way to share files with people on network or internet rather going through implicit ways to share files. [FOR NETWORK SHARE] show the network map with Groups and Individual Devices and the user can select among them to share the file with ease. [FOR INTERNET USERS] File can be shared with friends having live IDs. WLM can be used as a P2P client (avoiding the SkyDrive overhead).

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Yo Steve you're killing me. Its been forever since the last vid, when the next one out ?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @Ravi,  IE 9 is almost on par with chrome. Well if it is slow, it depends on the add-ons you have.  A fresh install of Windows does not load as many processes as the one pre-installed with lots of software ( crapware I should say. ).

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  "Windows 8 has new features across the full breadth of the product." Wow that sounds so exciting. Can't wait.Broadly speaking, I would like to give one piece of advice to the Windows teams (although I am sure they know better than me): just let Windows 8 do everything did Windows 7 did and more. Take special care to not cause major feature regresssions and existing features breaking or done away with. That will keep everyone upgrading happy. As an example, Windows 7 made improvements to the taskbar but certain abilities were lost such as group actions on applications (group close, minimize or maximise) or multiple columns of icons when the taskbar is vertical.P.S. How do I contact the Windows shell and search team? I have many bugs and feature regressions to report, new feature ideas building on Windows 7 shell features and plenty to discuss about usability and customizability in the shell. Back in the days of Windows Vista, there used to be a shell::revealed website. I can be contacted at the same username on Hotmail or Live.com.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Would like to see better peer to peer connectivity and user experience for transferring content, like how apples lion os has.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Why is it possible to see system files? Why does windows still ship with a registry where one app can bleed into the namespace of another? If an application has to access anything outside its own very specific, isolated, sandboxed, encrypted, firewalled, (you get the point) space, it should need to do so via specific APIs that are restricted to applications digitally signed by Microsoft. And any "special access" APIs should be visible on install.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I think Microsoft should implement a new file system, Make windows 8 a OS that doesen't fragment overtime!,always like fresh!.The main focus on this new release should be this one,and maybe perhaps start the process to eliminate the registry system,and implemnent something much better.Wich will help avoid installation problems and usability problems.THis is what windows 8 should focus on!Good Luck!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  It is pretty obvious from your team structure and the already discussed features of v.8 that work has been underway for some time. Just for curiosity's sake, when did work properly begin on this new version?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  A file encryption or security system should be built-inso that files can open only on specified domain or computer and should be active even when file is emailed. So files on my home PC will open only on that PCAt present file security is only at folder level and file can be emailed from secure folder

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Is not simply saying "we're really humble". You're 3 from 3 on using the word in these posts. Being humble is not saying "I am humble".

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please talk about Xaml and DirectUi rumors!!! I agree with Jason, I want to know everything about native Xaml support. Whats going to happen with Wpf?Please please please write about it! :))

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please add a kinnect sensor and sdk in every windows 8 tablet

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I loved following the Windows 7 blog and was excited to see this one now going. I'm personally very excited to see that  Windows 8 will be a significant change from the past. We've outgrown the ever out of control start menu program lists and have needed something new here for a while now and the live tiles looks like they may be just the thing, I just hope they are customizable enough. Despite hoping for big changes, I lam also looking forward to seeing how Microsoft's progress with visualization will help compatibility.I loved the videos on Windows 8 I've seen so far. The only thing I did not see what a way to choose a running program without having to 'flip' through all of them. I have to assume something along the lines of ALT-TAB will be there, but it would be nice to know for sure. Hopefully we'll know after Build.What made Windows 7 so great was a focus on ease and simplicity. Advanced features are great, but only when implemented in a way that makes them simple to use. I can't imagine going back to Vista or XP and giving up Snap, or how it takes only two clicks to join a wireless network (what took this one so long?). The ease of dealing with projectors is another example of great thinking. These are the types of things that make an OS a joy to use and I hope the trend started in Windows 7 will continue into Windows 8. There's still room for usability improvements with home networking, backups, sharing media and other areas. I look forward to see what strides Windows 8 makes to build on what Windows 7 began.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Mr. SinofskyHTML5/JScript is not a panacea. I really hope the body of dedicated Managed (C#, .NET FX, Silverlight) and C++ native developers will be able to write immersive applications using Visual Studio.HTML5/JScript are not appropriate for real, industrial strength, bread and butter software despite what the world would like you to believe.I really don't understand why the hype over HTML5/JScript, and I don't think I am the only person that feels that way.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  don't forget about font smoothing!!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  +1 vote forScott Barnes:"... why are they using XAML still, whats it going to be in the future and lastly what does it mean for my current career and projects today.When you go to market in Sept, keep this one thought in mind. "Why should we all change over to the new? when you've not sustained the old"  "

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @TrooperKal -- we finished Windows 7 in July of 2009 and had started our long lead work on Windows 8 a little before that.  That's similar to how we worked on Windows 7 relative to the previous release.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Team workshop sounds a bit non agile!?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  •Presentation and Composition•XAMLI understand, those two names are only names, but keeps my WPF hopes alive :-). Can't wait to watch BUILD presentations.Exciting times for the whole Windows ecosystem.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Since folks are already throwing out random feature requests, I'll add mine. =)Let me snap windows vertically as well as horizontally. Sometimes I rotate my monitor to a portrait mode, and it'd be nice to snap one window to the top half and another to the bottom.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Btw, I'm planning to buy a Win8 tablet, when it will be available. It seems, it worths to wait :-)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Hi guys,Your work is great. I like the new user interface but I think it should be made the default interface for only multi-touch enabled screens, so if you install Windows vNext on a PC with regular monitor Desktop should be the default interface.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Really looking forward of a total computing solution that is not limited by the form factors / hardware. Love to see a consistent UX throughout all the Windows devices / systems.  :)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  XAML and App Store-I do hope to see XAML to be the main way of producing user interface. Integration with DirectX and XNA.-For the App store, it will be awesome if the developpers and the consumers can communicate direcly together in order to improve the applications (blog,review,comment,etc..). In fact its one feature i think that could make Windows App store different and much better than the other app stores.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Isn't 'App Store' a trademarked term (currently under dispute, true) ?I also find it interesting teams have names like 'App Compatibility and Device Compatibility', 'Applications and Media Experience', 'App Experience' and yet the folder for storing these 'apps' is called 'Program Files'? Microsoft has always called these 'apps' 'Programs' and Apple has consistently called them 'Applications'.... Perhaps the folder 'Program FIles' will change to 'Applications', much like 'Documents and Settings' did to 'Users' did when they copied Apple there before.Anyways, this is a minor point. I guess I'm hoping for more originality and so see less copying of the Apple vocabulary. I hope Windows 8 builds on the success of Windows 7 (which was a great relief after the debacle that was Vista)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  App Store? Microsoft, I salute you. Congratulations.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I hope that Windows 8 includes Hyper-V instead of Windows Virtual PC.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Great post - Steve...been so tired at hearing how amazing Apple are..when they develop they talk millions of users..when Microsoft talk..they are trying to take billions of users into account..take a bow!!!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  dineshkaushal.blogspot.com

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Intersting article. In fact it give a quick view of what effective management should be. It's intersting that Windows dev is organized into small target-oriented groups of people working together for a target technology or direction rather than a specific feature. And, what's more interesting is that all these groups of people collaborate!By the way, it is interesting who is in charge for storage platform development? I mean what team is focusing on file system technologies, particularly on a new era of NTFS. With each new version of Windows you realize how big are the changes in every piece of OS, consider the TCP/IP stack alone. I think what we had in Windows 7 was a huge leap forward. Everything changes but the file management. It is still very complicated for the end-user. The user still has to manipulate files and volumes and not entities like you do in SQL database. Does MSFT plan to work on creating storage operations more abstract and more real-world, much like it is done on Windows Phone 7 where you mostly don't think of a file or a partition but rather concentrate on content or or the document itself?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Looking forward to learn more about Windows 8.Please - could you add a +1 button for Google Plus to the social connections buttons at the end of each article?Here is how: www.google.com/.../button

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  In the IE 10 would do well to spell correction function :)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I hope that Windows 8 provides better accessibility features than Windows 7 does. I am a blind developer for assistive technology products for Windows and Windows Mobile, and I lost my job because Windows Mobile was replaced with Windows Phone. If my job loss was due to the better accessibility features in WP7, I could be happy. But the job loss was due to the fact that Windows Phone 7 does not have any accessibility support and nor does it even allow third party developers to develop accessibility products.Even though Windows Phone has silverlite, it does not have UIAutomation which is part of silverlite on Windows 7. If Silverlite on WP7 could have UIAutomation, accessibility support could be added in WP7.I was surprised when I went to purchase Apple Macbook pro because mac has built-in screen reader that allowed me to use it right in the store. The accessibility on all the Apple products is very good. Although Windows also has basic Screen Reader called Narator, it is almost useless. The voice is not good, and it does not work at many places.I hope that Microsoft does not repeat the mistake that it did in Windows Phone accessibility while working on Windows 8, but the signs are ominous, because there is no team that is working on accessibility.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  How do you see the app store working with respect to publishing applications via it ... controlled (e.g. Apple) or more open (e.g. Android)?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Drawing on experience from Windows 7 how much does the vision change from the start to the final release?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  You talk about Windows being the product of the whole team and much of Microsoft. How closely do you work with other product teams? It seemed that Windows 7 support in SCCM came some time after the Windows 7 release ... will this be the case with Windows 8?

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  When you start you have a vision for Windows 8 ... I wouldn't mind hearing in a post about how the vision is derived and agreed.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please change the Restart, Sleep, Switch User, Lock, Logoff, Hibernate, etc., options and move it some other place, so that people may avoid clicking Shutdown button accidentally.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  @Lars Fosdal I highly doubt that a microsoft blog is going to put a +1 button for google on their site.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Great that you finally add an app store so you have ONE place to search for programs.One problem today is that you have lot of software on the computer and it's hard to keep everyone updated. There is a security risk. Some programs have solved it by checking for updates on program startup, others have their own processes that check for updates; and for some programs, you need to check yourself if there had been an update. This could be resolved with the App Store which can then alert the user when there is a newer version of a program you have installed.The problem then is that it does not work for programs not available in the App Store. It could be solved if the program installation telling the App Store where on the internet it can find the latest version. Then the App Store can notify the user about updates even for programs that are not available in the App Store.I also hope that the hardware drivers were in the App Store. Then you can choose to use the drivers from Microsoft or drivers from the vendor when you install the hardware. And then you can get update information.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Здравствуйте, Стивен. Искренне желаю удачи вам и всей команде разработчиков. Windows 7 как для сотен миллионов людей, так и для меня лично стала по-настоящему приятным сюрпризом. Я надеюсь, что вам и на этот раз удастся создать не менее впечатляющую, удобную и мощную систему.Отдельное спасибо за этот блог, за вашу открытость и расположенность к диалогу.P.S. Прошу прощения, что пишу на родном для себя языке. Знания английского у меня слабоваты, поэтому я решил ими никого не расстраивать :)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please, add a feature in W8 that permit to edit the context menu order and return to "factory settings", something such as a default "Control Set" (regedit) that can be restored in every moment ;)RegardsWinHack

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Hi there,First thanks for share the development of windows 8 with the community. And i want to make a suggestion. From the videos i saw the user management of the windows 8 multitasking are somewhat poor. To switch apps, and if i had a lot of apps open i have to go through a long list until i find the desire app. I would be much nicer to have some kind of shortcut(button or gesture, but preference to button because of traditional pc's) to a complete visual list of all apps open. These would make the multitasking experience much more effective.Thank you and keep up the good work.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  .Net?  What team is responsible for that?Same question with the WCF stack, where is it?Enterprise Networking vs Networking Core?  Why two groups?  Would love to see a "Mission statement" as to what you believe is driving your decisions on Windows 8.What are the research and market studies telling you that gives direction to what you are building?Enterprise?  Consumer?  Web?  Thick Client vs Thin Client?  Embedded?  

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Its taken an incredible amount of time and effort to learn C#, .Net, WPF or Silverlight, which are a great part of the windows experience. I agree that Microsoft has to be careful with what they disclose and promise for the next version.But it really would not take much effort just to point developer in the right direction..For the first time, Microsoft is actually shooting itself in the foot and actually getting developer to considerother platform and technologies which aren't MS.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  One things for sure from this post - you just revealed some of the "secrets" that are coming in Windows 8 (and it's very exciting!).To name a few (and I have a few questions for each one):XAML: This just shows that you are adding core support to developing windows applications through the XAML framework, which means you are planning a very different way of developing apps for Windows 8 (unlike the traditional Win32 / COM). Is this true?Hyper-V: Does this mean you are going to integrate Virtualization into Windows 8? (until now it was just rumors)? Windows Onlne: What does this mean? App Store: Does this confirm that you are going to supply an app store that will integrate with windows? how will this work (in general)? Thanks!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Plz, further better IE and Bing and integrate them so tightly into Win8 that it kills google once and for all. as an added advantage you wouldn't have to worry abt android ...

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Will Windows 8 be the one Microsoft OS to rule them all? To put it another way, will Windows Phone 8 use the same kernel and UI APIs that the desktop version will (just with a device specific HAL)?  Also, will the Win CE and the Xbox 360 [720?] you the same kernel base?I ask, because it looks like to me that in order to push Windows forward onto multiple devices and form factors faster, that the Windows team(s) will need to simplify the code bases and development toolkits.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Great news, we were waiting for an Windows app store for long.Another feature we want in Windows is a full screen Linux style Command Prompt. Please do something about it.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please let us know what the future of Media Center will be.  I've invested a lot of many in the Media Center eco system and want to know that it will survive in some fashion.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Integration with existing Microsoft online services + general fit and finish + attention to detailThese are things I'd like to see.Windows Phone has shown  that when Microsoft focuses on the above, it can compete with and surpass its competitors eyes closed.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Hi Steven! Thank you for the important work that you do. Please make a console and notepad Unicode by default. Thank you.Windows the best!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I would like to stress that a tight integration with Windows Live end-to-end would be really, really nice. Things like profile pictures syncing with desktop log-on photo, Windows Address Book syncing with Live Messenger address book, etc. Preferences and other AppData attributes syncing via Live Mesh, similar to how Google Chrome syncs plugins/themes/saved passwords via the cloud. Perhaps even things like Windows Explorer/Start Menu defaults syncing across the cloud on sign-in/association of a Live ID to a Windows local account.Looking forward to reading more!Wes Kroesbergenhttp://www.kroesbergens.com

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  yeah...Please let us know what the future of Media Center will be

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  May I suggest a 3D XAML integrated editor like Zam3D? It is annoying buying a third party editor which also often crashes while modeling.. zam3d isn't definitely a quality product but it's almost the only choice to have complex 3D models imported into XAMLOh and what about implementing a better rendering/parsing engine in Visual Studio? Every time you try to load a XAML file with a complex model you get the IDE stuck

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I hope that .NET framework will be a main development platform for windows!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Would be nice if you could elaborate the reasoning between the assumed short beta period of this product (seems like there's going to be less than a year, like W7 which came with less changes, and the closed beta didn't apparently start yet). This isn't meant in a negative way, I'm just curious what's being done to ensure that all works out in this "short" time. After all, there's a completely new UI, not just a new theme, but UI, that by rumors replaces practically everything down to all sorts of obscure settings dialogs. I'd figure you'd want really broad feedback early on and time to make changes and test again.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  TO EVERYONE POSTING IN THIS BLOG: PLEASE BE MORE HUMBLE, THIS BLOG WAS CREATED TO GET IDEAS, NOT EVERYONE IS BEHAVING THE RIGHT WAYThank you

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Love this post.  Hearing about the team structure and the approach to work is not only interesting, but encouraging.  I love that you guys are engaging via a blog and not just in something like Twitter because it's popular... this is a great forum for rich presentation and discussion.  Looking forward to more!

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I second the idea of a "managed" app store where companies can control what apps are made available but the employees have that consumer experience they love in the personal tech world.  I would imagine most of the "behind the scenes" work could be done by SCCM.  Adding an App Store interface on the top would make it very compelling.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Heart warms at mention of 'XAML Team'.Keep it real.

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  I hope this team (or group of teams) will work much more together then the teams that worked on Sharepoint 2010.. ;-)

• Anonymous
  August 17, 2011
  Please, please put some more work into pen support!  This is the main reason why I am waiting for a windows 8 tablet.  Right now handwriting recognition works very well, but it is far from immersive.  We should be able to write just where we want in a document, not in a cumbersome input panel.  Make it like the Courier.If you want an edge over the iPad and other would-be tablets, pen will do it.  Don't underestimate how important it is for productivity.  A windows 8 version of Onenote with better Math support would make a killing in the education market.Oh, and please work with n-trig to fix the terrible problems with their digitizers.  It can't hold a candle to Wacom.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I sure hope Media Center is lumped in under Media Platforms.  I would think with Windows 8 ability to run SoC that we could finally get some dedicated, small, fanless (maybe) Windows Media Center based DVRs.  Which would take us back a full decade+ to the Microsoft Ultimate TV (still a very nice DVR - well, at least until cable card came along).

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  WIpe the slate clean:New file systemDitch the Registry go with something else like XMLGet rid of Application dependency's installing allover the hard drive and contain them within the Application Package.Handle Backwards compatibility with VMs.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Is Windows 8 going to have to separate OS's for touch and desktop, or a 2-in-1 interface that allows us to choose and/or detects which interface is required based on the hardware?Also, when are the Pre-releases coming?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I'm excited for Windows 8, loved the demo video.My number one request is that you make touch interaction smooth as butter. If you can do it as well (or even better) than Apple can, then you have my vote...and my money.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  So what happens to the Windows Marketplace?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Excited to see things coming together and how this team will fit into 10 inch tablet experience.Based on this post, I ended-up in a dream last night... A super sleek 6mm 10 inch tablet with no hardware buttons that can see me, talk to me, and understand me on which I can scribble, write, play, watch seamlessly I mean seamlessly that I carry with pride. Steve Jobs walk with me, stunned with performance, design and asks if he can get it on his ipad?So, good luck!

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I just like to know if there's is some website or blog to post or place features request for Windows 8.I'm very interested in that.Please let me know.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Interesting the division of the features. There are some that are clearly broader than others.For example. Perforfmance would expect to be an aspect of every team. Is this team working in any specific aspect of just helping out other teams in improving their code?Also, looking forward to meet team: "In Control Of Your PC"!And a quick word to "App Experience" team: 1 click installs. but don't forget options

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I would like to show a concept of a possible ribbon UI.I've seen screenshots of the new ribbon in Windows Explorer, but I consider it not well designed.Please, take a look at this concept:ludomatico.deviantart.com/galleryI'll work in a future concepts very soon.Thank you.My email: ludomatico@live.com

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Startup and Shutdown in 5 secs, being able to display photos on a TV, or any display very easily

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The Recicle Bin is something that should be re-thinked for future releases of Windows.I've designed a couple of icons, and I've collaborated with Mike Edward Moras, in the developing of his recent version of MiniBin, an app that runs of the tray, in a cool and handy way.Please take a look here: ludomatico.deviantart.com/.../Cool-Windows-7-Recycle-Bin-184349357 (6500 people have seen this post in a very short time!)Thank you.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  If you want to beat Apple and Google in the business tablet space, then please allow developers to code and implement .Net applications directly to the tablet, without having to purchase or sign up for a developer account.  I should be able to develop a WinForm .Net app, and deploy it to a Windows 8 tablet the same as I do a desktop or laptop computer.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Internet Explorer is one of the most hated products of Microsoft. Internet Explorer 9 improved quite much but that still did not change much. Maybe Internet Explorer 10 will be a good browser but don't let it influence Windows 8 too much, don't make it into the main engine on which all apps will run. .NET can work on multiple platforms just like HTML5, it can work on ARM too. Don't make this mistake. HTML5 & .NET should be used as equal technologies to develop new kind of apps for Windows 8 including ARM devices.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Espero que valga la pena Windows 8 con su nueva interface y ya se habian tard con la tienda de Aplicaciones.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Please make it compatible with a PC that a common man can afford. Means a normal PC today wil run on Core2Duo/i3/i5 not the latest i7 one and is expected to have a 2GB RAM rather than a whopping 6 GB!!!

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  It's there a way to contact the "Media Platform" and "Search, View, and Command" teams?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Please put a real Shell in it. Like BASH or ZSH with all the UNIX Goodies. For a company as big as your's, it should be possible to make the to the right /. As a poweruser, i regulary need, ssh, grep, ncurses, curl, etc...

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  improve over the prompt, integrating it more into the system.Give more attention to portuguese blog ;-)

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I just wanted to say it sure is awesome to have an actual look at your process for building the next version of Windows, I really wasn't paying attention too much when 7 was on its way..."Windows Online" wouldn't happen to refer to the Bing and Windows Live products, would it? I gotta admit, I really do like the promise of the integrated and across-the-board look and feel of all your product offerings! Keep up the good work...

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  So there is a little snippit that says "our browser language runtime comes from the development tools group" Exactly what is a browser language runtime? Is this sort of like the CLR but provides javascript libraries for accessing the windows api's?  Whatever it is, sounds interesting!

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  What is difference between app compatibility team and app experience teams

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  There sure are quite a few "experiences" in Win8.Applications and Media Experience, App Experience, Core Experience Evolved, Devices & Networking Experience, Global Experience, Hardware Developer Experience, Runtime Experience, User-Centered ExperienceI love the words "Core Experience Evovled" :)Enterprise networking is a waste in Windows and must go away. I mean, how much as SDI, DirectAccess, IPsec and IPv6 been adopted? Support for the OSI layer model is more than sufficient in Windows.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I'm going to add my vote asking for a straight-forward answer to a simple and important question: with Win8, what technologies can developers use to write applications?  Will C# still be supported?  Will Silverlight?  What are the odds that all those WP7 apps will be easily portable to running on tablets that run Win8?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  As a professional software tester, I'd be very interested in a topic which goes into the huge task that is testing something as massive as Windows 8, from low level kernel APIs all the way up to the UI/desktop.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I really want the ability to use more than one taskbar. Similar to toolbars in Windows XP, but with the same look and feel as the original and default taskbar. I hate all the docking applications...

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  I am definitely interested in Media Center development if any assuming it is even in Windows 8. There is so much that could be done and it is disappointing to see it ignored.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  +1 on Media Center developement.How will it be supported in Windows 8?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  someone said, would be super cool if spellchecker is implemented as a service to OS so the apps like Notepad, wordpad, IE yada yada can utilize it! (also the 3rd party consumer apps..)^^ +1

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  would like to see the program easy to install and remove (xcopy?). for example to remove visual studio completely is not easy.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  @DranzerV  We should see a "developer preview" at the Build conference... http://bit.ly/pKjjAg

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Hi Steve,I have a suggestion about how to solve the issue that will arise about have too many applications open and switching effectively between them in the new Windows 8 GUI. While the one finger swipe from the left to switch between apps look and works great with a handful of applications open it won't work with a larger number of applications. A solution that I have thought of, actually it is inspired from Windows Phone Mango's Card switching interface, is to use a two finger swipe from the left which would bring up an interface showing all running applications as cards allowing the user to click which application they want to switch to. This is not a replacement for the one finger gesture that was demoed at All things D but an extra gesture that I am sure powerusers would love to make use of.Rami Alamhttp://www.tabletslatepad.com

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Hi Steve,I have a suggestion about how to solve the issue that will arise about have too many applications open and switching effectively between them in the new Windows 8 GUI. While the one finger swipe from the left to switch between apps look and works great with a handful of applications open it won't work with a larger number of applications. A solution that I have thought of, actually it is inspired from Windows Phone Mango's Card switching interface, is to use a two finger swipe from the left which would bring up an interface showing all running applications as cards allowing the user to click which application they want to switch to. This is not a replacement for the one finger gesture that was demoed at All things D but an extra gesture that I am sure powerusers would love to make use of.Rami Alamhttp://www.tabletslatepad.com

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Sorry about the double post. I accidently double clicked the post button.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Please use DirectWrite to render text across Windows 8, not just in Internet Explorer 10. This will make all text (not depend font type and size) anti-aliased.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Looking forward to see what HTML5/JS means to developers on this platform...

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Excellent information, but please: Add language support for Spain. I see other languages ​​and you give little support to Spanish, where there are many users of Windows and other Microsoft products. (Text translated using Google Translator)Spanish: Excelente informacion, pero, por favor: Agreguen soporte para el idioma Españo. veo otros idiomas y ustedes le dan poco soporte al español, donde hay muchos usuarios de Windows y otros productos de Microsoft. (Texto traducido usando Google Translator)Edward OcandoVenezuelawww.soydesarrollador.net

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Hi Microsoft, But I am very concert about the new Windows Activation Technology. Is it going to be harder to Cr@ck the software? I request to microsoft please do not make it harder or make it like windows 7 at least.Just install SLIC emulator and boom get genuine windows ready.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  WOW - what a lot of comments.My question is simple: where's PowerShell in the list?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  @LongARM I posted that comment sarcasticaly.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  @Sabyaadmin Yah that's what I said. If you write this comment especially sarcasticaly then why my comments WERE don't show. But I'm fine now and I'm not want debate with you just I noted.So finnaly my comment showed. I hope Ms take into consideration something from my and others comments.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Please dont discontinue MediaCenter. It has been my tv for many years now. A standard tv is sooo limited...

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Hi Microsoft, i wish that in windows 8 you add a new feature .among these i'm totaly interested that u add folder .second feature screen capture (if you can name it like this )ihope you add a command that will allowed the user to capture the screenshot without going though paint , because it 's take time .in the other OS  they have this quite simple command .sorry for english.

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Can you make Windows 8 much more customizable???

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  Anything for spatial visualizers in the Windows Explorer folder pane? Like drawing connections between the files on a FolderCanvas ?

• Anonymous
  August 18, 2011
  @Mo - you need to learn PowerShell. It's got all the features you would need to monitor, manage and support WIndows servers (and desktops). PowerShell is object oriented, thus removing much of the need for GRED/SED/AWK and indeed all the string parsing (aka prayer based parsing)  you HAVE to do on Uinis/LInux. PowerShell is built on top of .NET, with the ability to to access easily COM and WMI objects. Handling XML is a breze, and eventing is built in, as is module control and a host of other things. I look forward to seeing what things MS is to do with PowerShell in Windows 8. No doubt we will hear soon enough.Steven - any clues here??

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Please continue to spruce up and support Windows Media Center.  With CableCard tuners becoming more and more accessible its user base is exploading.  It really is an absolutely amazing platform and with ARM and SOC tiny, quite, and cool HTPC's will become seriously affordable.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  I just want to ditto BrianR78 on Windows Media Center.  I just built an atom based HTPC for the bedroom and much prefer it to a regular tv.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Would like to see Safari Reader like feature in IE 10.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Why you make laptops/desktop Pcs look like a phone or tablet? Try make tablets like a desktop version. It is fine for you (ms) because people will love a tablet that can do everything that only a desktop PC but I'm not happy for that my laptop will be a tablet...

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  make just one Iso for all different version, like you did in Vista. I know in Windows 7 you must remove Ci.cfg, but one iso for all version would be better and even reduce space on msdn.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Any networking improvement? Windows 7 HomeGroup idea was great but it does not work in all conditions.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  I know I will love Windows 8 :)

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  I know I will love Windows 8 :)

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  I love media center but I'd like to have the possibility of recording the tv in the format that I want as avi,mkv.....

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  It seems that win8 it will be focused on tablet devices. How she will behave on usual laptops???

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Hope to see zune integration ,, New interface , New File system , New Method of using windows , hope to see a full MinWin in windows 8 ..oh by the way , IS WINDOWS 8 THE OFFICIAL NAME OR JUST THE CODENAME ?

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Windows, what in windows 8 is truly "revolutionary?" What are you doing that has not been thought of? How is this going to topple apple? Do you even plan to compete with apple? Can Pc users look forward  to higher end computers, or will we all be using $300 plastic laptops with switchable lids?

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Please Make Windows 8  Ultimate Edition at 99$

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  I Hope There's no DirectX 12 or DirectX 12 With FULL SUPPORT of DirectX 11 Graphics Card

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  There some optimization for SSD Storage (HD Form Factor or PCI-e)?

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Really cool thing you guys are doing with this blog. Thanks.PS. It would be very cool if you guys talk a bit about your how you handle daily builds and testing.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Me dont care much about new. me want speed and graphic and tons of rams.you dont have i dont buy.i built my own who will be better anyway.me forgot fix stupid mail system it really bad news.make it simplier to sinc account.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  And, maybe, has come time to realise the concept of several desktops (as in KDE Linux)???

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  In the W8 is necessary to include the possibility of HPC

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Can u allow 16bit software run in fullscreen such as Turbo C and C++. It will be tremendous help. Thanks

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  SabyaadminCan u allow 16bit software run in fullscreen such as Turbo C and C++download and use DOSBox. This works fine.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Hi team,I hope you will have an integrated bing app in Windows 8. It would sicken me to see MS release such a nice app for iPad, a product from MS's primary competitor, and not Windows 8, it's own platform. Please integrate all your services.Thanks.

• Anonymous
  August 19, 2011
  Is WinFS still alive? I need WinFS! I want WinFS!

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  iam iranialietemad80@yahoo.comwww.worldmodern.blogfa.com

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  GavinIs WinFS still alive? I need WinFS!why do you need it? Only for bashing?

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  @Ra Puke Moanaseeing all contents of a folder on mouse over would be very expensive in terms of CPU cycles and disk i/o

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  @Frank Trout. As you said below:"My guess is that you are leaving out the bulkier apps from Windows 8 (Media Center, etc.) to live up to the promise of a slimmer. more lightweight OS. I am also hoping you will make such apps available optionally from the Windows Store. My concern is the lack of information on the business aspect of the OS and how all these new features effect it. I also know it is extremely early to be concerned about it, but thats my job :)"Well said man. Many do not use Media Center.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Ooo ooh I invented a good thing for windows media player: take in it a rating layer that can show musics eg.: "sad, cheerful, fast, slow" and if we check sad for a ballad music (or fast for a rock) when we wanna listen sad mucis, media player selects all of sad (or cheerful) songs/musics.So I mean, it could be have a new layer (with that meta-editor, named properties menu we can check the current status of a song). And that's will good for all PCs (eg.: tablets). That will like our mood if you select that layer for musics.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
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• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Please, don't leave Windows Media Center, is a master piece of software, support MKV files and SRT files in Windows 8, and new design for WMP13, thanks for everything

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  I certainly hope that the Media Center platform is not removed from the windows ecosystem.  With no "Media Center" the new CableCard tuners that were released are doomed for failure.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  This isn't burger king guys, it's not "have it your way"...

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Windows Media Center is one of the best applications around for an HTPC. Could you please respond to the future intention for this application? Will it be an optional download? An app from an AppStore? Abandoned?Integration of Xbox360 (or some other light front end based on Embedded MC) as a media center extender, make the existing solution simple and extensible.Please don't walk away from this great differentiator in Windows..

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Will Windows Explorer remember the custom views for all of my folders, regardless of the application? It gets really annoying when a folder looks one way when searching for a file to open in paint.NET, and the same folder has a different view when uploading that picture to facebook.Also, will Windows Update fix anything beyond security and compatibility (UI improvements, feature bugs, etc.)?

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Please fix the issue with expanding folders as someone else commented on and I bug posted pre Windows 7 as an issue.  It is THE most annoying thing in Windows 7.Also can you give us an option to make the indicator down by the clock do something (like glow, or have a swirl going round it) to indicate that you have left a VPN running.  The amount of times I start a VPN to log into a remote server using RDP pointing to the internal IP of the server and log out and then forget I still have the VPN running!!Also please fix the bug that when you log into a VPN local shares stop working and you start having to use a FQDN to access your own local server.Also please fix the default VPN behaviour, so that when you access the internet on your local PC that has a VPN going and you open your local browser it starts trying to find the internet through the remote gateway down the VPN.  Also if you untick the advanced option in the VPN TCP/IP V4 settings that says "Use default gateway on remote server" you get loads of failed logins using the VPN credentials on your own domain server!!PLEASE STOP THINKING THAT THE MAC UI IS BETTER THAN WINDOWS - IT'S NOT. I HATE IT EVERY TIME WINDOWS MIMICKS THE MAC. MACS ARE FOR AIR HEADS AND TRENDY'S. DO YOUR OWN THING CUT A NEW PATH IN UI DESIGN.I'M A PC - I GET THINGS DONE! EVEN IF I DON'T LOOK COOL AND TRENDY!!Sorry rant over!

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Thanks, Steve.  Looking forward to much more.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Just a reminder--please keep comments consistent with community standards.  

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Why don't you HTML5 support increases the forgotten HTML Appliactions.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  @Andre.ZieglerBecause I have many many files in my Hard Drive. I need WinFS to mange them efficiently. WinFS is important.With WinFS, Internet Explorer will bring us powerful Favorites management features like Mozilla Firefox easily. I can know if a URL I am currently browsing is already in Favorites. I can tag Favorites and rate them.This is a scenario example. WinFS will bring us much more. My English is poor, maybe I didn't express clearly.BTW, MSFT deleted my comment? This is the second time I post the comment. If my comment is not allowed, please tell me. My e-mail: gavindx#msn.com

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  OK, maybe I misunderstood MSFT. Seems the first time I post the comment was failed. Sorry.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Are HTML5 and XAML built on the same UI/graphics/input stack? They have so much in common already. One could actually build a pretty capable browser already using WPF as well as create WPF-like apps in HTML5. That would be truly thrilling if the choice between HTML5/JS and WPF/C# became less circumstantial.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Aero Snap is such a great feature of Windows 7. I hope it carries over into Windows 8. The snap feature demoed at the all things D conference looks interesting. I hope that you can resize the screen snap to equal split like in Windows 7. I use this feature alot when I am doing research and taking notes on my Asus Eee Slate EP121.Check out my blog post about it.www.tabletslatepad.com/.../what-is-true-multitasking-on-tablet-pcs.html

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  I'm tired of this message"Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device""This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows""that might be using the device, and then try again."Couldn't Windows just tell me which program to close?

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Please add Zune for Windows 8 rather than the windows media player. Its so much sexier!plz plz plz plz.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  Why is the IE9 Notification bar interface so pathetically bad for keyboard users? You can't control the notification bar using standard keyboard arrow keys or even Tab! Nor can't you close it using Esc or Alt-F4! Talk about totally non-standard and non-accessible UIs. There is no documented keyboard shortcut for closing the notification bar either except clicking the microscopic Close button using the mouse.In the Mouse control panel, the "Hide pointer while typing" setting is completely broken since XP and it has never worked except on Windows 9x/Me. Windows always hides the mouse pointer/insertion point in standard text fields even if that setting is unchecked.

• Anonymous
  August 20, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Please don't forget the keyboard.  What little I've seen of W8 is very touch-centric (with "oh sure, you can use the keyboard too, if you want).  I understand that you're proud of the touch interface, and that it's great for tablets.  But don't forget the vast majority who use a keyboard (as Office 2010 largely did).  For one thing, a keyboard is much more efficient.  For another, for those using a vertical screen, it's tiring and awkward to keep touching the screen.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Also, I second this comment.  Hate this about W7:"n Windows explorer, when you click to expand a folder in the tree, the selected folder moves to the bottom of the pane, which is extremely annoying since you have to constantly scroll to see the newly-expanded subdirectories.  Please expand subfolders in the tree in-place."

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Truly fast startup and shutdown.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Better system info.  I remember that back on the PDP 11/40, ^T would tell you what the system was doing.  Somehow, while task manager and process explorer provide a LOT more information, I end up with a whole lot of cases where Windows is incredibly unresponsive, yet not process is using either much CPU or much memory.  Very frustrating.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  I second the comment about limited shutdown or problem information.  I too often get a W7 shutdown screen that says "  " is still working, where the list of programs is entirely blank.  This is not useful information.On a totally unrelated note - Windows has allowed 256 character filenames for a long time now.  Why are so many system files still given incomprehensible or non-intuitive 8 character names that are impossible to figure out without Googling?

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Please add zune to windows 8

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Hope it'll have better network administrator solutions to implement, to deploy and to use Windows 8 in a big environment using SCCM or not. GPOs, default profiles, centralized action center, migration Vista to 8 (if possible...), ... Keep your good work ! We're actually in paradise with Seven, it'll be surely the same with your new baby...

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Please Microsoft don't take out Media Center. That was the best for my TV with my laptop. It is the one of great programs that windows 7/vista has.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Why doesn't the Windows team do something to ease the transition of shell extensions from 32-bit to 64-bit? Because users can no longer run 32-bit Explorer in 64-bit Windows, 64-bit shell extensions are the only choice and many useful working but legacy/abandoned 32-bit shell extensions are unusable on 64-bit Windows. There is this project called WOW64Menu (www.gasanov.net/WOW64Menu.asp) that gives access to 32-bit bit context menu and Property Sheet extensions from the 64-bit Explorer shell !! Can the Windows team please do something like this built-in for all shell extension types?

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  None of the questions people actually seem to want answers to have been answered yet. Will there finally be dual monitor taskbar/wallpaper support? I mean, geez, your own devs are given dual monitors so it's not as if Microsoft doesn't know it's a standard. I grow sick and tired of downloading 3rd party apps for something that's built into Linux for free.Another thing, when are you actually going to bother responding to comments? I'm sorry if I seem a bit hostile, but this blog is a bit of a joke. Obviously it's going to be hard to respond to every single comment on this blog with Windows 8 development being such hard work, but you should do a FAQ post sometime soon based on the most commonly asked questions in the comments.Honestly, the average PC user doesn't want to see a tablet UI. They want functionality changes to the actual operating system--something I have yet to hear about for Windows 8. It's all about the gimmicky tablet feature and how many apps you can use. The problem is that I find a plethora of unacceptable things in Windows 7 that need improvement--things that take a lot of work, and sadly, are completely ignored by you guys.I bet you nobody will read this comment. If someone does, and responds to it, then I'll consider myself owned. I just wonder when this blind optimism on Microsoft's end is going to hit the end of its life.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  In my humble opinion, Windows always had a simple and practical user interface; with Vista and Seven it became more attractive. I hope Windows won't sacrifice practicality for aesthetics.The actual application bar is really simple and useful.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Please provide more info about changes in software development scenarios for Win8. What is new, what will be encouraged and what will be considered obsolete?

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  (This comment has been deleted per user request)

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  I'd like to see a 'pervasive Mesh' experience:Mesh enabled by default for favourites, Office settings, small stuff on >all< Windows devices Initial confirmation on install/first startup so those with metered internet accounts can disable Options to include documents, photos etc. up to SkyDrive limit

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  <a href="http://www.ford-dealership.net"> Ford Dealers < /a>

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  @Lady - your comments are most certainly being read and I'm certain some PM somewhere has a spreadsheet with each 'ask' in this long, long list. It wouldn't surprise me if they were also counting spam such as @adrian's one above.But you have to understand how responses will come. Stephen may respond to one or two comments in this comment stream. A few more will be answered in subsequent blog posts. There have been a great number of comments in the posts here so far around HTML5/XAML for example - and I suspect we'll see one (or more!) blog posts that directly talk to those points.But two other things - first the code is where MS will speak loudest. The answers to most of the questions here (will Win8 have 'x') are answered loud and clear when you see the code. Second, Microsoft has the BUILD conference coming up. It would be entirely in keeping with tradition for the Build keynote to answer at least some of the questions (the rest being answered in the code distributed in Build).Finally, give Steven and the team a bit of slack. They are working full tilt to a) get Win 8 builds out the door and b) getting ready for BUILD. You'll see a build of Win8 in the next month or so (well, hopefully those of us attending BUILD wilL!!!) and that will answer your questions.HTH.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  Thanks for the informative post about the Windows team, Steve!I was wondering if there is native password protection on files and folders in Windows 8. I believe this is an essential feature these days because a large majority of people do their work on a computer, and many of these people are concerned about the security of their important information. There should also be a password recovery process for those who have forgetten a password to a specific file or folder while logged onto their user account. Maybe the user could set a recovery question or something similar to that. I believe many people would appreciate this feature, and it would really make Windows stand out from the competition even more than it currently does.

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 21, 2011
  (Continued) Some people at http://free.flop.jp/gdi++/ created a program named "DWTray" to enable DirectWrite across Windows.Everything looks nice like DirectWrite-enabled rendering in IE9 and IE10, except the program is buggy.Download DWTray directly via this link: free.flop.jp/.../gdi0906.7z

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  @Lady -- please be a bit patient.  Everyone is reading all the comments (and hundreds of emails I've received).  The most value comes from using the comments to guide what posts to do.  It has just been a week!  Most all of the questions are worthy of posts and not just "answers" -- we want to have a dialog about building the product, tradeoffs involved, and how we make decisions.  What seems obvious to one person isn't necessarily obvious (or valuable) to another.  And many times you can see in the comments, people on completely opposite sides of the same design point--those are exactly the things we want to develop posts about and be thoughtful in discussing rather than trying to "answer" in a short comment that few will see.--Steven

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  Please allow Native Code capabilities on this new HTML5 and JavaScript App Framework.Are you considering Native Code like C and C++ with this new framework? Are you restricting Native Code Apps to the separate .NET framework? If so why not just use the .NET framework?Google Chrome Betas are already public with Native Code capabilities, and they render pages faster and better than IE, not to mention how many more CSS features are available in the open source browsers.. IE is still far behind and I cannot imagine myself adopting to coding apps built on the IE engine especially if you take out the power of the local PC and turn my experience into a web based attempt to make everything look pretty.I love windows 7. I love .NET. Please don't let us down by taking away what I know Windows to be and watering it down with fancy UI and less powerful frameworks.

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  This is an interesting entry.  If XAML has a team then I would think the Siverlight folks should see that as a sign there app is being worked on.  I am surprised still at the folks that do not understand the XML platform behind the products of recent years.As well folks should get used to non-tree paradigms.  I understand Microsoft finally not wishing to promise any items not complete and tested, however you would think there would be a lest some indication of the areas being worked on, so then I suppose this is close.

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  Can we finally please get a built-in ability in Windows to optionally disable the tapping for extra sensitive touchpads/trackpads? Users have to hunt around for touchpad drivers just to be able to disable tapping. Just like the scroll wheel support, touch sensitivity and tapping on/off adjustment should be built-in.

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  This is a great post. I would like to see more of those. I would like to be a PM one day its great to read about your plans, the work strategy and understand the team structure.

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  Some massive confusion about XAML on the whole here, consider that XAML isn't WPF- in its most basic form its more of an object graph, some standardization and formalization on XML.Turns out XAML works really well for paradigms that are 'matter of fact' such as work flows (WF) and UI (WPF).

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2011
  Hi Steven! I think I already submitted this my comment below, but i didn't see it. So i try to post it again. We talk about Windows 8 features on forum.thewindowsclub.com>Technology News>What do you want to see in Windows 8? We are really super excited about Windows 8 and will be happy if somebody from Microsoft read our discussion topics there. Thanks.

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2011
  Tell us more about XAML...  Is this XAML-WPF/SL or XAML-WF?   How does Win 8 impact .NET.  Is the Kernel rewritten in .NET/C# ?  I am worried about my commitments to .NET after AllThingsD conference when you discussed about HTML5/JS as first class application, but you have stayed mum on .NET...

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2011
  Hey very useful blog. The article is quite awesome..... I read this article twice and i find it so interesting.Thanks for sharing this to everyone.i can feel u r a genius.

• Anonymous
  August 25, 2011
  It will be very usefull and interesting to know about Windows 8 and XAML. Will all UI be on WPF in Windows 8 or not. Also very interesting to know about WPF,XAML,Sliverlight and HTML 5 future. I read somewhere that silverlight will be dead and HTML will replace it. Or WPF is dead to and we will create UI on HTML 5 ( but it is very strange decision ). So you plan wit XAML on WIndows 8 is give me hope that WPF will be improved and will not burried

• Anonymous
  August 28, 2011
  Your idea was useful <a href="www.greengrace.in/">by Revathi</a>

• Anonymous
  August 29, 2011
  Will tablet functionality be part of the main OS UI functionality and end user experience? So far I am seeing a UI similar to windows 7. I would not consider this a tablet friendly environment and consider it more a laptop or desktop environment. My tip as a windows 7 and windows mobile 6.5 user is to not lose sight of the end user experience and consider bigger buttons in the windows, a clean window and menu experience and bigger buttons and test it on a tablet, not on a latop with mouse, as demoed in many of your videos. Good luck!

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2011
  Personally the explorer interface to me is horribly cluttered. You need to make things simple and easy to use and cater to the average user.  Making explorer look like Office 10 is a complete turn off for me. Simplicity is the key, lose that and you lose your shirt when it comes to getting people to buy your product.

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2011
  App Store in Windows 8 would be a radical change and i guess would affect so many shareware / freeware websites & software developers. I guess developers would be required to submit their applications on windows 8 after doing testing on windows 8. Microsoft's App Store is going to generate work for lots of people. Also new UI might need people to get bigger monitors or dual dual monitors http://www.dual-monitor.biz/ . So effectively windows 8 would generate work for software developers and providers and for hardware related business would get some new work as well.

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2011
  Hi, please take this in consideration:

1. Do not delete non used shortcuts in the maintenance.
2. Auto refresh desktop when an item is copied (some times F5 is needed)
3. Let admins to configure UAC (p.e. let an user to be the admin of a certain app) Thanks!

• Anonymous
  August 31, 2011
  +1 for Mr Greene's comment: a day in the life of a W8 dev/pm/tester/uxdesigner

• Anonymous
  August 31, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2011
  Your idea was useful <a href="http://www.greenmeadows.in /">by Revathi</a>

• Anonymous
  September 08, 2011
  Combine Windows and Windows phone in new OS. We hope to use computer and surf web anywhere. Why we use windows mobile again. It lack of application program, limited function... There should be noly one OS for PC, phone, MID and PDA in the future, the next OS can run windows program on different platform. social.microsoft.com/.../d7c80021-ac61-4dea-b1e7-e1532b247b08

• Anonymous
  September 19, 2011
  Great. Good luck for the team. Ahsima http://www.m6.net

• Anonymous
  September 27, 2011
  The comment has been removed

• 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.com