Programming Windows: WinRT (Premium)
It all began with a lie. “What’s the Windows 8 app platform going to look like?” Steven Sinofsky asked rhetorically, opening his keynote address at Build 2011 that September. It was the same question...
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I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a way to run the Windows 8 Developer Preview in a virtual machine so that I could write code using its bundled version of Visual Studio 11 Express and the...
View ArticleProgramming Windows: Reimagining Feedback (Premium)
With the Windows 8 Developer Preview, the Windows team had finally gone public with its plans to abandon .NET and pursue a mobile and touch-first strategy. The reaction was, to put it kindly, mixed....
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On February 29, 2012, Steven Sinofsky stepped onto a small stage at the Hotel Miramar and introduced the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. This was a make-or-break moment for Sinofsky and his controversial...
View ArticleProgramming Windows: 8 is Enough (Premium)
With the Windows 8 Consumer Preview behind them, Steven Sinofsky and his lieutenants prepared for the final stages of the product’s journey to release. They would focus on three core areas: Shoring up...
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For years, Microsoft had worked closely with its biggest partners to maintain and expand a symbiotic PC ecosystem based on Windows. This relationship was so successful that it catapulted Microsoft to...
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The fallout from Windows 8 was immediate. Steven Sinofsky, who had done more to harm Windows than any of Microsoft’s competitors, was summarily fired by CEO Steve Ballmer. And two of his underlings,...
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2014 began with exciting news: my sources told me that Microsoft would discuss its vision for the future of Windows at Build 2014, which would be held that April. This vision included a year-off...
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Microsoft spent much of 2013 and 2014 correcting the mistakes of Windows 8 via a set of small but meaningful updates. But its best work was yet to come: the software giant would celebrate the 30th...
View ArticleProgramming Windows: One Billion (Premium)
Confusion reigned in the wake of Microsoft’s consumer-focused Windows 10 event in January 2015. There was a lot of good news, not the least of which was that Windows 10 would be a free upgrade for...
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