Entries tagged with vista week - Channel 9

Connected: Windows Vista Networking Overview

Charles — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:58:12 GMT

As you know, the Windows Vista networking stack was re-written from the ground up. In this interview we meet some of the folks who made this happen. We cover wireless, diagnostics and architecture.

Participants include Neeraj Garg, Dave Thaler, Rajesh Sundaram, Vishesh Parikh, and Dalen Abraham.

Stressed Out Windows: Making Windows Robust

Charles — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:05:34 GMT

What happens within Microsoft when a Windows Vista or Longhorn Server daily build is ready? Thousands of machines spin up an insane stress test that sucks up all available memory and handles and then pushes the machine to the limits with an intensive set of feature stress routines.

This is an incredibly tough test that helps us find obscure race condition bugs and assess the overall robustness of the operating system.

Join Dr. Sneath and Stress Technical Lead, Eric Hanson, as they expose the great work of the Windows Stress team to the outside world for the first time.

UAC - What. How. Why.

Charles — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:40:05 GMT

There has been a large amount of confusion and concern out there about Vista's new user security model (Everybody runs as Standard User, a new user account security construct, UAC, acts as gatekeeper of process security boundaries - a doorway to process security context elevation).

Users should be in control of what executes on their system under Admin (full trust, highest privilege) context. User Account Control was created to enable users to prevent or allow a process to run in an elevated way (which simply means that the process can successfully execute code that can do core system operations).

In this interview we tackle UAC from various angles:

1) What problems does UAC attempt to solve?
2) How does UAC actually work?
3) Why did we implement UAC UI to be so aggressive, from a user experience point of view?
4) How will UAC evolve?

Here, Jon Schwartz, UAC Architect, and Chris Corio, UAC Technical Program Manager, discuss, in detail, the history of UAC, the architecture and design of UAC, the new security model of Vista (we are all Standard Users (gone are the days of running as Admin by default on Windows), what happens when a UAC security dialog is invoked, how UAC impacts developers, how UAC will evolve...

Enjoy this latest episode of Going Deep.

Making Windows Vista Sing: Robert Fripp and the Vista Melody

Charles — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:06:57 GMT

On May 4^th, 2006, Steve Ball invited Robert Fripp back to the Microsoft campus for a second full day of work on Windows Vista following up on his Vista Week video begins mid-stream with some extremely rare footage of Fripp Soundscapes being created in real time. This is followed by Q&A from the Windows product team members in the Soundscapes audience, an overview of Fripp’s gear, and some details about the recording equipment used at Microsoft Studios. This is then followed with another rare and intimate interview with Fripp and members of the core team working on Windows Vista UX.

This single session resulted in over six hours of multi-channel raw tracks including hundreds of melodies, textures, soundscapes, and orchestrations. After this session, it took another three months of orchestration, iteration, remixing and refinement to select the final four seconds that became the final Windows Vista startup sound: a “glassy” Fripp melody, a harmony by Steve Ball, and a “Win-dows Vis-ta” rhythm contributed by composer, Tucker Martine.  This all on top of a brief Fripp Soundscape that fades out as the user lands on the Windows Vista log-on screen. The flowing Soundscape ‘textures’ from the session also inspired the sonic palette that was used for the default Windows Vista sound scheme.

Like the previous Fripp video, this is a very different kind of Channel 9 video. Fripp talks candidly with us about music, his approach to creativity, making music for Windows Vista, shares his thoughts on Vista, and much more.

About Robert Fripp: for close to forty years, Robert Fripp has been a world-renowned pioneer driving innovation in both music and technology. For more details about his history and recent work, check out Fripp's web site!

Transactional Vista: Kernel Transaction Manager and friends (TxF, TxR)

Charles — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:48:29 GMT

Windows Vista is the first general purpose consumer-grade OS that provides transactional support (ACID) for file IO and Windows Registry modification operations (these are only two of the consumers of KTM - point is, you are enabled to write your own). In this interview, we meet Jon Cargille, the software developer who owns KTM, and Christian Allred, the software developer who owns TxF (Transactional File System). If you are curious about how KTM and TxF work and how you can leverage their functionality in your applications on Vista, this interview is for you. We also briefly touch on TxR (Transactional Registry).

A conversation with Partha Sundaram about SQM (software quality metrics)

JonUdell — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:45:28 GMT

I'm deeply fascinated by software instrumentation in all its varieties. When Scott Dart told me that he had hard data on how many people are using the tagging features in Photo Gallery, I wanted to know how. The answer is SQM, which is pronounced "squim" and which expands to Software Quality Metrics.

According to Partha Sundaram, my guest for today's podcast, SQM was formerly used on a per-application basis, but is now, in Vista, also a piece of core infrastructure that can be used to analyze how the operating system itself is being used in the field. He reviews the current use of SQM in Vista, and some future goals for the technology.

Making Windows Vista Reliable: Introduction to Windows Reliability with Mario Garzia

Charles — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:08:54 GMT

One of the characteristics of a great general purpose operating system is simply being reliable - limiting user disruptions. Windows Vista is our most reliable OS to date. How can we say this? Well, this is Vista Week on Channel 9 and here we take this broad question to the development manager for Windows Reliability, Mario Garzia.

Mario and team have done some amazing engineering (you will meet more of the Windows Reliability team in the coming days) and Vista is full of new components that work in concert to make Vista a highly reliable system. Listen in. Learn.

Dr Sneath: Reflecting on Windows Vista, The Platform

Charles — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:18:48 GMT

By now, most of you know Tim Sneath, a technical evangelist in DPE (The organization in which Channel 9 resides) as Dr Sneath. There's a reason we call him doctor. He knows a LOT about Windows and other Microsoft technologies. So, you've seen his interviews for Channel 9. Now, as part of
Meet Melur Raghuraman, Development Manager, Matthew Kerner, Lead PM, and Jeff Meng, Development Lead. These are some of the people responsible for making Vista our most reliable OS to date. They are members of the Windows Reliability team.

You will meet more of the Reliabiliy People as Vista Week continues here on Channel 9.

Windows Vista "Time Warp": Understanding Vista's Backup and Restore Technologies

Charles — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:34:42 GMT

"Time Warp" is an awfully cool code name, but an even cooler file system technology that's part of Vista. So cool in fact, that I am taking the chance of getting yelled at for revealing it here as it's frowned upon (typically) to use code names for products that have already shipped...

In this second installment for Channel 9's here). We're pleased to introduce Adi Oltean, Software Developer Extraordinaire, Eduardo Laureno, Program Manager, and Jeffrey Saathoff, the software engineer who wrote the UI you see for Previous Versions.

Vista backs up your files for you automatically (of course, there is a limit to how much the system can maintain as back up data on your disk. Watch the video to learn more...) It's another example of an innovative low-level technology designed with the the user in mind. Vista is a highly user-centric OS. This theme will continue to shine through as we progress through Vista Week... (And you'll notice how often we emphasize this in the interviews... In fact, you should count the number of times you hear that Vista is user-centric coming from behind the camera for the next serveral days.)

Be sure to check out the Vista Week coverage on 10.

Welcome to Vista Week - Michael Wallent: Windows Vista for Developers

Charles — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:53:42 GMT

Welcome to Vista Week on Channel 9. For 9 days (that's one Channel 9 week) we will be focusing our content on the newest general purpose operating system from Microsoft, Windows Vista. Windows Vista was designed from the ground up with the user in mind. From reliability, performance, security, networking to the shell, Vista is truly our most user-centric OS to date. Vista Week on Channel 9 aims to address this claim by digging into the details behind it.

Here, Michael Wallent, General Manager and long time WPF team lead who also happens to be extremely passionate about Vista, talks with us about Vista from a developer perspective (describing what makes Vista appealing to developers and why). Of course, developers are also users and Vista is a highly tuned user-centric OS to the nth degree, so Michael and Charles wax on this as well. Enjoy!

Be sure to catch 10's Vista Week. Great stuff!