Thread by @stevesi

New in Hardcore Software—094. First Public Windows 7 Demo
“I’m superenthused about what it [Windows 7] will do in lots of ways.” — Bill Gates April 2008 // 18 months since Vista, what was it like to do the first demo? Stressful! 1/ …rdcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/094-first-pu…

2/ We (and I) had been very quiet. The Microsoft press called this the “Sinofsky omertà” (🙄) but really it was just a desire to “promise and deliver”. We had caused so much pain/cost/damage to the ecosystem by failing that. Still, press had fun with me and was losing patience.

3/ We had plans and timing around the professional developer conference that would come in the Fall of 2008. Then least expected, Bill Gates himself leaked what many thought of as a release date when he mentioned Windows would arrive “sometime in the next year or so.”

4/ Oops, that was not scripted or the plan (especially not to release the date). So we scrambled—the toothpaste was out of the tube. First stop (almost a tradition) was @waltmossberg and @KatieBoehret at WSJ. We were fresh off the MacBook Air launch, so top of mind was new h/w.

5/ Part of the trick of working on Windows is that we don’t announce new PCs so there was little I could share there. But I did want to walk through all sorts of data about how Windows and Internet Explorer were doing in the market. Some data on IE already in beta:

6/ We (@DeanHach) showed some of the work in the area of IE privacy (tracking cookies, sharing browse journey). We showed how even leading sites (like NYT) “when you visit you visit dozens of other sites”. Regretfully, MS’s lawyers put kibosh on feature for fear of regulators.😾

7/ Primary goal was Windows 7 and showing the themes. The big theme “putting users back in control” which including dreaded User Account Control, Notifications, and popups from Windows. @Julie_LGreen led this part of meeting. Starting with state of Windows that looked like this.

8/ User Account Control is so fascinating to think about. Tech enthusiasts *hated* it b/c they “saw it *all the time”. So we showed the global histogram for how much really. For all this hate (incl “Get a Mac” commercial) ironic how it is a mainstay of mobile platforms and worse!

9/ Techies just didn’t represent the mainstream nor did they generally get how they did not. Frustrating and big theme for next chapter on Windows 8.

Big feature was the new Superbar (taskbar++) in Windows 7. Merging launch, switch, and document access into one. Real code ->

10/ Knowing Mac was top of mind and the bar we had to cross, we went aggressively against the current Mac dock which (even today) remains less capable/more confusing in many ways.

11/ BUT we had a big surprise which was that we were working on adding touch to Windows. This was huge because obviously the iPhone was new and while there was early resistance to touch the world had embraced it by then. We were working with PC makers to make touch PCs.

12/ Our demo took the apps built for the *original* Surface (the big table below) and ran those on a typical laptop with a touch screen. True multi-touch on a PC. We built on the APIs from Surface which also built on Tablet PC. Also Windows Live Photos.

13/ Why show off touch since that was easy to make a huge “surprise”?
1. To get support from OEMs we needed to show commitment and skin in the game.
2. RUMORS Apple would add touch to Mac. Of course we just “knew” it would be done b/c well “we would do it too”. So to scoop them.

14/ Demo went well. We discussed possibly showing this off at the upcoming All Things D conference hosted by Walt and Kara Swisher after May holiday. Yay!!! But that meant we needed to work backward and start “disclosure” or there would be too much for press to take in.

15/ @adriannafb was leading communications at the PR agency. She’s hardcore through and through. She suggested I do a Q&A format with @inafried. Problem was I still didn’t feel good about just talking without a follow up. I basically said nothing.

16/ Adrianna wanted to kill me. On teh call I could see her getting more frustrated with each of my non-answers. I really messed this call up. After 2 years I just wasn’t ready—I thought “so much could still go wrong”. So 3,000 words of NOTHING. #failure.

17/ We recovered but this was really a mess in terms of getting out from under the whole “Sinofsky omerta” thing.

We headed off to the D Conference. It took a half dozen people to set things up so the demo would actually work. I still miss old school demos like this!

18/ The demo would come right after BillG+SteveB joint interview all about BillG leaving Microsoft as an employee. Walt asked Steve directly, “Is Vista a failure? Was it a mistake?” Steve answered, so did Bill.

Then time for @Julie_LGreen to demo.

19/ Aricky demo. Walt and Kara kept wanting to touch and point things out, but given the state of the code we had a very narrow “window” of what can be touched without “bad”. Also we didn’t want to talk about things like the “Superbar”. Full demo:

20/ We showed some of the OG Surface apps as well such as a “Google Earth”-like app. All super fun and generated a ton of excitement. Maybe touch would be a big deal?

Well, Windows 7 was out there now. We just had to get the code in the hands of people.

PS/ If you enjoyed this please sign up and don’t miss a full post. There’s *lots* more in the post (photos, articles, memos, memorabilia, etc.) Also a podcast version! Next week, the beta and then on to LAUNCH! Then comes Windows 8. Don’t miss that. hardcoresoftware.substack.com