While we're hard at work making sure you never have to turn off your PC and can run in a connected standby state, we know that there will still be reboots for updating key system components. We've previously talked about reengineering the Windows boot experience and how we modernized and touch-enabled the core boot loader and choices. We've also mad
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
This post goes into the details around the multi-monitor experience for Windows 8. From the very first public release and demonstrations of Windows 8 we have shown improvements over Windows 7 for multi-monitor scenarios and have shown how we support new Metro style apps within a multi-monitor environment. We have continued to develop and refine feat
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
This blog often focuses on the bits and features and less on the “philosophy” or “context” of the product. Given the level of brand new innovations in Windows 8, however, we think it is worth putting Windows 8 in the context in which we approached the design. As with any significant change to a broadly used product, Windows 8 has generated q
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
As we developed the app model for Windows 8 and the new Metro style apps, a key architectural requirement has been to deliver app to customers that can be used with confidence--confidence that apps will be well-behaved with respect to resources, that apps will not interfere with other apps, that apps use system resources with your permission, that a
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
One of the intrinsic capabilities of Windows 8 is the ability to use multiple accounts on any PC. This makes it much easier for parents to use tools that can help protect their children from content on the Internet as they see fit. It is also a great way for each family member to maintain their own unique online identity while still sharing a single
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We’ve written about tons of improvements in the OS kernel, networking, and file system. While for most client PCs, the tried and true chkdsk utility is one we rarely use anymore except in very rare circumstances, we are using Window 8 as an opportunity to improve this utility. We wanted to focus on rethinking how the utility works
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We thought we would follow up the previous post with an FAQ which is based on the comments and discussions, so Bernardo put this together so things are in one place. Some of these might be introductory for some but since the comments covered a lot of topics, it seemed reasonable to start at the beginning. --Steven What are the codecs nee
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In this post we wanted to update you on Media Center and Windows 8, specifically how we will make sure Windows 8 fully supports the capabilities of Media Center as it is in Windows 7. We took the feedback about maintaining the functionality very seriously, and we clearly understood what we’ve heard many of you saying around the value of Media Cent
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We have talked quite a bit about SkyDrive and using your Microsoft account for the sign-in and roaming capabilities of Windows 8. These are just two aspects of a broad service infrastructure that you can tap into when using Windows 8 (and Windows Phone, Xbox LIVE, and a host of other services and apps). We want to talk more about the capabilities an
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In February, we told you about our goals for connecting your apps, files, PCs, and devices to the cloud with SkyDrive and Windows 8. Since then, we have provided the App Preview of a Windows 8 app to access SkyDrive, and we’ve updated the SkyDrive web experience. Today, we are delivering new capabilities for SkyDrive across the Windows platform.
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
With more and more people providing their own hardware for work, the "bring your own" PC is becoming more commonplace and IT Pros want to have the confidence that they can support their clients who follow this trend. The presence of BYO does not change the need for IT Pros to manage, secure, and remain accountable for the network assets of an organi
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Modern operating systems take a different view of the resources on the system. Regardless of the form factor, it is important for the OS to more effectively manage resource utilization than in the past. Currently, it is far too easy for a single process to consume available resources (memory, CPU, disk I/O) even when this does not improve the overal
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Last September we blogged about experiencing Windows 8 touch on Windows 7 hardware, introducing the story of touchscreen hardware, how it is evolving, and what we expect Windows 8 will bring to the ecosystem of touch. We discussed how our engineering efforts (software and hardware) are driven by key user experiences, how these experiences play a big
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
There’s a ton of innovation in the world of displays—from pixel density, to aspect ratio, to core technologies. Windows 8 is designed to grow and improve as the display ecosystem grows and improves. Our goal is to support the broadest range of display technologies so PC makers can build PCs or you can use external displays that provide the best
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In this post we want to talk about the new Internet Explorer 10 browsing experience.  We have considerably improved the underlying browsing engine with performance, standards, and features as we have previously blogged about (link).  IE10 designed for a Metro style experience is a new and improved way of browsing, where you can truly focus
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
As we start to talk about some more of the details of the Consumer Preview release and some of the changes, or just features we haven't had a chance to blog about yet, we wanted to take a step back and re-introduce the team a bit--a reminder of the people behind the features we talk about. Building Windows 8 is a pretty significant undertaking and i
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We’re very excited to get to the point in the project where we can provide a pre-release version of Windows 8 that is broadly usable by the tech community on a daily basis. We know folks who are anxious to run the Windows 8 Consumer Preview are probably interested in suggestions around what hardware to use. This post provides the technical details
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Today is a big day for the Windows team. At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain a few moments ago, we unveiled the Windows 8 Consumer Preview to our partners and press. Based on a broad range of feedback, we have made over 100,000 code changes and the Consumer Preview represents a refined product ready for broad and daily usage by those of you
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Since its introduction in Windows 2000, Multilingual User Interface technology, or MUI, has allowed customers to install additional display languages on their Windows PCs and to switch between them. But for the majority of users, the language you got when you booted up your Windows PC for the first time was likely the one you were stuck with. For Wi
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Many folks reading this blog are active users of SkyDrive and Mesh, both part of the broad set of Windows Live services (like Hotmail), and the Windows Live Essentials programs (Messenger, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Mail, and more). With their introduction and with Windows 7, we have talked about how these services really complete the Windows exper
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
A big part of this blog is going behind the scenes to show you all the work that goes into the engineering of Windows 8. In this post we take a look at something we all care very deeply about--as engineers and as end-users--real world web performance. We do a huge amount of work to get beyond the basics of anecdotes and feel as we work t
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Windows 8 is a product we design for an incredibly broad spectrum of people around the world. One of the areas where we have worked to deliver an even greater level of innovation is in ensuring that Windows 8, particularly the new Metro style experience, is accessible to everyone regardless of their physical abilities. In this post we will talk abou
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
One of the notable aspects of Microsoft Windows has been the flexibility the architecture has shown through shifts in technology and expansion of customer usage over time. What started out as an operating system for one person working solo with productivity software is now the foundation of a wide array of hardware and software technologies, a spect
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Minimizing the power consumption of your PC while maximizing the responsiveness and utility (making it “fast and fluid”), is a significant engineering challenge. While it starts with the work we do in Windows to provide support for the right level resource usage, this work requires developers to take resource utilization into account as
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
As we approach our next public milestone, we will begin to circle back to topics we covered in the blog and talk about the changes we’ve made to the product since the Developer Preview. As we've said often, we read the comments, newsgroup discussions, and reviews that have been written about Windows 8 and track the feedback carefully. We liste
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Recent advances in sensor technology are catalysts for the acceleration and evolution of user experiences on PCs. The ability to react to changes in ambient light, motion, human proximity, and location are becoming common and essential elements of the computing experience. Even something simple—like an ambient light sensor to adjust display br
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In this post, we dig into the details of how we have re-engineered the wireless networking stack to optimize it for both mobile broadband and Wi-Fi networks. We’ve done a ton of work to enable mobile broadband providers to make it easy for you to use 3G and 4G connectivity along with Wi-Fi in Windows 8. In addition to this architectural work, we
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We wanted to continue our dialog about data storage by talking about the next generation file system being introduced in Windows 8. Today, NTFS is the most widely used, advanced, and feature rich file system in broad use. But when you’re reimagining Windows, as we are for Windows 8, we don’t rest on past successes, and so with Wind
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In this post, we are going to dive into a feature in the Windows 8 Developer Preview. Storage Spaces are going to dramatically improve how you manage large volumes of storage at home (and work). We’ve all tried the gamut of storage solutions—from JBOD arrays, to RAID boxes, or NAS boxes. Many of us have been using Windows Home Server Dri
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
The power of personalization is something we all love about PCs, but sometimes there is good reason to want to roll back to an earlier state. Most consumer electronics devices today can be reset to some factory state, and so we built this capability into Windows 8 too. Desmond Lee is a program manager on the Fundamentals team and authored this post
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We wanted to talk a bit more about the security of picture passwords in a follow up post based on some of your comments. Jeff Johnson, the Director of Development for the User Experience team, is particularly interested in the math and security of this feature and authored this post on how to optimize the security of the picture password. 
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Picture password is a new way to sign in to Windows 8 that is currently in the Developer Preview. Let’s go behind the scenes and see how secure this is and how it was built. One of the neat things about the availability of a touch screen is that it provides an opportunity to look at a new way to sign in to your PC. While many of us might prefe
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
We live in a world of usernames, passwords, and PINs when it comes to using our computing devices connected to the Internet. These are very important elements of the digital economy and providing the infrastructure for these in Windows is serious business. This work starts with the most basic step of signing in to Windows, and then includes the tech
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Today at our Windows Store Preview event in San Francisco, Antoine Leblond revealed the business terms and app policies for anyone developing apps for our new Windows Store. He showed some of the great apps that will be available in the Store at Windows 8 Beta, and demonstrated the design, capabilities, and flexibility of the Store as a platform.
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
One of the most basic services provided by an OS is the file system, and Windows has one of the most advanced file systems of any operating system used broadly. In Windows 7 we improved things substantially in terms of reliability, management, and robustness (for example, automating completely the antiquated notion of "defrag"). In Windows
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Installing Windows is a complex operation that provides an incredibly unique capability—the ability to run a new version of Windows on a vast array of hardware configurations and combinations that were designed with no knowledge of a future Windows, even a version with substantial re-architecture of the Kernel. While most people do not experience
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Before the Internet, updates such as service packs and "patches" were impossibly hard to come by. You ordered upgrade "media" or maybe bought a magazine with a CD in it. Of course, the Internet changed all that. In fact, when ftp.microsoft.com was first set up, among the first services was the ability to get updates for MS-DOS an
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
In this post, we look at the broad topic of developing an OS to reduce power consumption. We've seen an ever-increasing emphasis on power management in the OS from two perspectives. First, as Windows 8 comes to market, it is easy to see two-thirds of all PCs shipping as portable devices operating on batteries some or most of the time. And second, in
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
One thing that is becoming far more commonplace across all of our “screens” is the idea of lightweight notifications. Originally, Windows Gadgets were to offer this type of functionality—the idea is a quick heads up display for some critical information (news, weather, sports scores, or line of business events are a few examples).
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |
Ryan Haveson, a group program manager on the User Experience team, wanted to update folks on some progress with Task Manager since the Windows Developer Preview. In this post you'll find the updated Task Manager tools for managing systems with a large number of logical processors. This is scalability well beyond desktop PCs, and is designed for the
| Building Windows 8 | Microsoft Windows |