

Building Windows 8 - justanotheratom
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/15/welcome-to-building-windows-8.aspx

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thebigshane
I think some commenters here seem to have missed (or forgotten about) the IE
blog[1] and the Windows 7 blog[2] which had great technical articles. This
initial post resembles the first Windows 7 blog post posted 3 years ago [3].
If this new blog continues the standard set by these other two, then I have
high hopes.

Bottom line: This post does sound fluffy because it is intended as an
introduction to an entire series of posts of the development of Windows 8.

[1]: <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/> [2]: <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/> [3]:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/archive/2008/08/14/welcome.aspx>

~~~
Someone
I agree there was content, but the wording, to me, way too often made it look
as if a flock/herd (what's that called? A burial?) of marketeers vetted every
stroke of every character in those posts.

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ezy
"Building the next release of Microsoft Windows is an industry-wide effort
that Microsoft approaches with a strong sense of responsibility and humility"
and "we learned some great lessons and renewed our sense of responsibility to
the community"

Given that this was full of stuff worded like this, I sort of doubt that. You
feel like you're being snowed from the first sentence onwards. I realize this
is somewhat orthogonal to the technology that might be included. However, this
is supposed to be from "inside the engineering team", and it's almost
completely tone-deaf. Either they need to hire more intelligent PR people or,
I don't know, let _actual engineers_ talk about what they are building.

~~~
arihant
He's not a PR guy. Here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sinofsky>

MSDN blogs are usually full of stuff MS engineers are doing. I think he is
trying to write to a more broader audience than just developers (bloggers,
social media people, etc.), hence the crafty wording.

~~~
barista
I think he's a president at Microsoft. Nothing but great respect for this guy.

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shriphani
I had the rare opportunity to speak with Mr. Raymond Chen and Mr. Larry
Osterman last week. Both were extremely down-to-earth and full of enthusiasm
for windows 8. I mean, this product has 1 billion users across the world and
for a lot of people, this will be the first computing experience. I am truly
excited about this windows release.

Disclaimer : MSFT Intern but I haven't worked on / don't work on Win 8.

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alttag
Seems like an awful lot of words to say (a) computing has changed much in the
last 15 years [you don't say!], and (b) we're going to start talking about
changes early so the market isn't surprised or apprehensive.

Not much meat in there.

~~~
mitjak
Indeed, a very long-winded way to say "don't forget about us, we are working
on _something_ ".

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twog
I have been a mac/ubuntu user for the last ten years, but Windows 8 is the
first time Microsoft has really caught my attention since the xbox came out.

~~~
joebadmo
Wow, really? Which parts, exactly?

I'm genuinely curious, as someone who's been a Windows user for basically his
entire computing life.

~~~
melling
Well, as someone who only uses Windows when he has to, I'd say IE10 being the
default browser is pretty exciting. Win7 ships with IE8 so people may or may
not upgrade. With IE10, it's "HTML5" in full force.

<http://html5test.com/results.html>

~~~
mayanksinghal
I fail to see your point. IE10 looks like a great improvement but only when
compared to itself. Even current Tablet/Mobile browsers seem to have far
greater support than what IE10 will give!

Google Chrome 14.0.797 Score:329

Google Chrome 13.0.782 Score:329

Firefox 6.0a2 Score:312

Apple Safari 5.1 Score:293

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 PP 2 Score:231

Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 PP 1 Score:125

~~~
melling
IE10 isn't even close to done. At any rate, see the huge jump in HTML5
compatibility? IE raising the bar so much is a big win. In many corporations,
IE is the only browser that people care about. Becoming more compliant means
it's easier for developers to write "standard" web apps.

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alttag
More helpful (to me) was the two-month-old YouTube video preview.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p92QfWOw88I>

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tomlin
Although I am not a Windows developer, if I were, I would appreciate some more
information as to what to expect when developing applications on W8. So far,
I've only heard HTML+JS, which is great, but hopefully more information on
developing for W8 will make its way soon.

~~~
Que
I believe this to be a misunderstanding of the press out for W8. They are
simply promoting the fact that you can _now_ have HTML+JS+CSS as first-class
apps. They don't seem to be deprecating support for native or .NET based
development.

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merckx
>"Welcome to 'Building Windows 8,' or as we call it, 'B8.'"

Srsly? Bait? +1 for honesty.

~~~
nwatson
Just wait for the book. "How to Master Building Windows 8".

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DrHankPym
From what I've mostly seen and read else where, it really looks like Windows 8
is going to a cross between Windows 7 and webOS.

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benatkin
This headline would have a different meaning if it was an open source project.

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morsch
Yup, I honestly expected an article about the build environment and stuff like
build times. Can you compile Windows from scratch on a regular development
machine in a decent time frame? I guess it depends on whether you're thinking
of the Windows kernel or Windows the desktop environment.

~~~
benatkin
I posted my own version.

<http://batkin.tumblr.com/post/8967355366/building-windows-8>

I agree that they could have taken a different angle with the post title, even
though it isn't open source. I'm sure many would be interested in hearing
about how _they_ build it. I would.

~~~
cooldeal
A cursoy search gives this:

[http://mkl-testhead.blogspot.com/2011/01/testhead-book-club-...](http://mkl-
testhead.blogspot.com/2011/01/testhead-book-club-how-we-test-software.html)

[http://www.developerfusion.com/media/59835/dogfooding-tfs-
at...](http://www.developerfusion.com/media/59835/dogfooding-tfs-at-
microsoft/)

I am sure there's more content on Channel 9 etc.

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akshat
Given how insightful the previous site for Windows7 was, this is surely one to
follow.

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absconditus
Why is a PR puff piece receiving so many votes?

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cookingrobot
(disclaimer: I worked on Win 7 and Win 8. Don't work at MS now.)

The Windows 7 engineering blog led by Sinofsky was really well received. I
worked on a few posts and internally there was an extremely high bar for
clarity, accuracy, and usefulness of the content. And there was serious
attention paid to feedback.

This post doesn't really say anything other than that the engineering blogs
are starting up again - that's what people seem to be excited for.

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renegadedev
Oddly enough, Windows' best versions have been ones with simple numbers (3, 7)
as opposed to verions with years (95, 98) or names/acronynms (ME/XP). Here's
hoping 8 will continue that trend.

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jasonkester
Truly unfortunate combination of project abbreviation and font. I read it as
B$.

Hopefully it doesn't stick.

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jhuckestein
They call this process B8 - bait

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DonnyV
I really like the fact that they mentioned "performance" a bunch of times.
Windows has needed some serious streamlining and performance tweaks for a
while now.

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nopassrecover
Have you used Win7?

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DonnyV
yes...still could be faster.

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dade_
I've heard rumour that MS has already axed any radical changes to the UX. In
other words, the Windows 95 interface will continue. Windows needs a vision,
right now it looks like it is being run by a Dilbert comic. If it wasn't for
Bill, we would be using Program Manager and File Manager with Aero graphics.
Sad. Get rid of the Gorilla.

~~~
wmf
Didn't you see the "radical new WP7-inspired UI"? (Which will presumably have
to revert to a normal Windows desktop as soon as you actually launch an app.)

