Well, that was quick! Not very far removed from the release of Office 2010, Microsoft appears to be well underway with Office 15. As made apparent by the screen shots below, the infamous WZor (who were quite active with leaking information and builds during the Windows 7 development phase) has managed to get a hold of some pre-alpha Office 15 bits. A brief write-up accompanying the screen shots from WZor states that they will not be releasing build/lab information or the build itself. Likewise, WZor alludes to a release time frame of 2014 (which I’m not completely sold on) and the addition of “Office Lime”. More on “Office Lime” after the screen shots below (click on them to see a higher-resolution version):

Getting back to Office Lime, Mary Jo Foley writes that it’s a user interface utility for Office and not a new application in development for Office 15. Personally, I remember Office Lime being included in Office 14 (the codename for Office 2010), and though I do not have any Office 14 beta builds to install for verification, a quick Google search yields the following two results that reference Office Lime as far back as October of 2009:

October 2009: http://www.redmondpie.com/microsoft-office-2010-beta-2-build-14.0.4514.1009-zin795/
February 2010: http://pc-main.blogspot.com/2010/02/microsoft-office-2010-beta.html

So, between Mary Jo’s investigations and the two links above, I think it’s safe to assume that “Office Lime” is something Microsoft utilizes during the development phase of Office (since Office 14, at least) and indeed not something to keep an eye on for the Office 15 RTM time frame.

Click here if you would like to read much more on what Microsoft currently has in store for Office 15.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

I’m just passing along information contained in an email sent to me this morning. If you’re interested in obtaining Windows 7 certification, this may be an avenue for you to consider. ExamForce (click their name to head to their Twitter page) is offering a free Windows 7 practice test that is apparently comparable to the test that will land you a “MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration” certificate. If you’re interested, head on over to the following link and sign up:

ExamForce’s 70-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring Exam Preparation

And, no, I am not affiliated with ExamForce at all — I just thought someone out there might be interested. If so, then best of luck!

-Stephen

Ahhh, it’s a Microsoft kind of morning! I woke up, checked my Hotmail account as I do every day, and was greeted with a rather odd (yet quite humorous) series of emails from Microsoft! See the screen shot below:

An email from Microsoft with the subject “tbd” sounded rather interesting, so I started with it first. All-in-all, it was nothing special; just an OEM Partner Center newsletter dated August 16th which contained a contest, various partner-related training opportunities, etc. Next, I read the email with the subject “Updated Subject.” As you might have guessed, it was a repeat of the “tbd” email — same date on the newsletter and everything, despite the fact that it was sent the next day. I suppose the importance of it is the contest offering a chance to win a 42″ plasma TV. If you’re interested in said contest, visit the following link to read the rules and details: http://oem.microsoft.com/script/contentpage.aspx?pageid=566235

So, the long and short of it is that I found it hilarious that Microsoft sent out an email with the subject “tbd,” then sent out the same email a day later with an updated subject. Personally, I don’t see why they couldn’t have just waited a day to send out the email… or why coming up with a subject other than “tbd” was such an arduous task in the first place.

I’m just poking fun, though. I love you, Microsoft. =)

-Stephen

Well, after quite an exciting day of Windows 8 information leaking its way out to the Internet, it appears Microsoft is officially on the war path to finding who leaked the information in the first place. As noted on Twitter by Tom Warren of Neowin, the blog of Francisco Martin — one of the first to bring some of this Windows 8 information to light — has apparently been nixed by Microsoft (his blog resided on spaces.live.com). The earliest that these slides can be traced back is to the Website win7vista.com (thanks to @tom_warren for the link).

The documents were originally XPS files converted to PDFs with the goal of removing any incriminating watermarks. Well, win7vista.com made a mistake. As “DanielRemains” — the individual who posted the leaked content — notes, “I spent many hours working on these on removing watermarks etc.” Unfortunately, he seemed to miss a slide and it has undoubtedly brought some unwanted attention to one Derek Goode from HP. Here’s the slide which shows his email address (Update: email address removed from slide by request):

Whether or not Derek Goode is the individual who leaked the slides directly, if it was a colleague who did it behind his back, or some other scenario, Microsoft is clearly on the prowl. win7vista.com wanted all the credit, so I hope they’re ready for what’s about to ensue. Don’t be surprised if many of these posts around the Internet involving this Windows 8 documentation suddenly disappear.

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

A big thanks to @floo1989 for the heads-up! Over the weekend, the Italian Windows site “Windowsette” got a hold of some super secret squirrel Microsoft presentations apparently laying around on the internet somewhere. I took a look through every single one of these, slide-by-slide, so I’m quite confident these are the real deal. I just feel bad for the poor sap who either leaked these or inadvertently shared these with the world. Long story short, these slide decks are chock full of internal thinking on Windows 8 — everything from customer target audiences to the Windows 8 developer market to the Windows 8 product cycle and much, much more. As a preface, I’ve taken many screen shots of relevant slides for inclusion with this article, so click on them to see their full-sized versions. I’ll elaborate on some and allow the others to explain themselves. Lastly, I’ll be updating this post as I find more contained within the slide decks. Now, without further adieu, let’s get started!

Microsoft Looks to Apple

Included in these presentations is a rather telling (but obvious) slide which shows that Microsoft is clearly paying attention to Apple while planning Windows 8. Titled, “How Apple does it: A virtuous cycle,” Microsoft has broken down Apple’s UX/Brand Loyalty cycle and cited its value. Though it’s fairly obvious, the takeaway here is that Microsoft is aiming to give Windows the very same “it just works” status that Apple’s products are known for:

Windows 8 Prototype Machine

Speaking of Apple, I think the following prototype looks like some rejected Mac prototype (i.e. I don’t like it very much — at least from this angle). The wallpaper is the old Windows 7 beta wallpaper (as you can see by the beta fish in the center of it) and there is clearly some build information on the bottom right-hand corner of the desktop. This may well be something left over from Windows 7 planning, but being included in Windows 8 planning documentation, I figured it was worth tossing in. Here’s the machine and below it, its specifications:

Windows 8 Product Cycle

The following slide isn’t too telling in and of itself, but it serves to show how Microsoft has chosen to divide its Windows 8 product cycle into 3 main phases:

• Planning (from Framing to Vision): Big picture thinking, themes then scenarios, and feature identification list.
• Development (from Vision to Beta): Design and build features, refine SKUs (shelf-keeping units) and value propositions, and begin sharing code.
• Readiness (from Beta to GA+90): Feature complete and bug-fixing, establish and track readiness metrics, and focus on creating great Dell + Windows experiences.

Of note, these slides were apparently leaked or inadvertently released after being given to one Derek Goode at HP. Likewise, many of the discussions throughout the slides address HP, so the 3rd phase above making reference to Dell interests me. Anyway, here is the slide of note:

Windows 8: Identity Evolved

There appears to be considerable planning taking place as to how a user will access Windows. Right off the bat, one of my favorites is the following prototype which shows a user logging in via facial recognition! Basically, you enroll your face, then all you should have to do from that point forward is sit down, have your webcam get a look at you and then log you in based on facial recognition:

The following slide details other considerations for Windows 8 where identity is concerned. Namely, user accounts will still be the primary method of accessing Windows for individuals, fast user switching is a continued focus, and most notably, Windows accounts could be connected to the cloud which would allow for roaming settings/preferences between PCs and devices and PCs to log on to websites on the user’s behalf — all marking an evolution of Windows identity from being machine-centric to user-centric.

Trends Shaping the Planning of Windows 8

Shaping the planning of Windows 8 are explosion of form factors (laptops, netbooks, slates, etc.), assumed connectivity (focus on software + services for end-user scenarios), collision of enterprise and personal worlds (aiming to help customers have a seamless experience across their personal and professional lies), personal content experience, and more. The following slide elaborates:

Windows 8 Consumer Target Audiences

As we see detailed in the slide below, enthusiasts and mainstream consumers are the two main consumer target audiences for Windows 8:

Windows 8 Default Business Assumptions

Windows 8 Developer Market

No surprise here that Microsoft’s addressable developer market for Windows 8 spans from hobbyist/non-professional developers to professional developers to science, technology, engineering, and math developers:

Windows 8 Differentiation Goals

As for form factors, Microsoft’s 3 main focuses for Windows 8 appear to be Slate, Laptop, and All-in-One (all detailed in slides below). Additionally, customization areas include Applications, Devices, Multimedia, Help and Support, and UI and Theming (all also detailed in slides below). One of the key takeaways here is Microsoft detailing “Slate” as a major form factor focus. This means the Windows-based Slate devices are still likely to make an appearance at some point:

Windows 8: Energy Efficiency Areas of Focus

All of the following slides are highly-detailed and quite self-explanatory, but my favorite takeaway is a newly-planned feature that combines Logoff + Hibernate to result in a new off state. It will apparently give the look and feel of boot/shutdown but will be much faster. This feature is detailed in the next set of slides, titled “Windows 8: Fast Startup:”

Windows 8: Fast Startup

These slides give great detail on the Logoff + Hibernate feature mentioned above. There isn’t a name for the feature yet as it will be exposed to the user:

Windows 8 Help and Support

Help and Support was going to be a major focus in Windows 7, but it was dropped. Now, it looks like that focus is back for Windows 8 and the aim is to help users “know with confidence how to respond and what actions to take” when an issue arises.

Windows 8 Push Button Reset

This is an interesting one. Microsoft appears to be planning functionality for a reset button that will essentially reinstall Windows while maintaining all of your personal files, applications, settings, etc. without the need for the user to back all of that stuff up. A scenario is presented in one of these slides to demonstrate how it would work.

1 – Jon notices that his Windows 8 PC is starting to perform poorly and he can’t figure out what to do. He presses the reset button and chooses to reset his Windows 8 PC.

2 – Wanting a fresh start, he chooses to reset his PC knowing that all his stuff is safe.

3 – Windows 8 automatically retains files and personalization settings, and migrates the user accounts.

4 – Windows is restored to the factor image and restarts.

5 – After restarting, Jon can launch the App Store to reinstall applications he purchased there and see a list of other applications that he had installed outside of the App Store.

Internet Explorer 9

There’s an entire slide deck dedicated to Internet Explorer 9 discussion. There isn’t much contained within that we don’t already know, but there is an announcement for the beta to take place in August 2010:

Windows 8 Introduces “Windows Store,” Microsoft’s App Store for Windows

Though Microsoft has already attempted some semblance of this with Windows Marketplace, Windows 8 will introduce “Windows Store.” Yes, it will be an application store which will allow you to purchase applications for Windows (and perhaps Microsoft mobile devices as well, such as Windows Phone, Zune HD, etc.). Microsoft has a solid foundation on this and as the slides below note, they’re anxious to bring this to fruition A.S.A.P. Detailed below are the customer experience, developer experience, and channel experience (for partners). For customers, it looks like Microsoft is interested in integrating Windows Store results into Bing’s Web and Local SERPs as well as Windows Search. For developers, there appears to be a great panel for tracking just about every metric you could want to track as a developer.

In conclusion, Microsoft defines Windows Store’s success for consumers as, “getting applications they want, that they can feel confident in, that they can use on any Windows 8 device.” Have a look as there is much more information in these slides that I did not elaborate on. Oh, and be sure to keep your eyes on http://www.windowsstore.com/ as it is mentioned in one of the slides below and is indeed currently registered (as are the .net and .org URLs).

I will continue updating this post with elaborations, clarifications, and screen shots as I continue digging through all the information, so stay tuned!

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

Goodbye Office 2010; hello Office 15! After some extensive (see: exhaustive) research, I’ve unearthed enough to confidently say that Office 15 planning is not only under way, but thriving as well. Amongst all the information are implications as to when Microsoft aims for its release, some of what Microsoft is specifically focusing on in their plans, mentions of specific Office 15 applications, services, and more! Follow along as I take you from the earliest mentions of Office 15 back in September 2009 up through to the very latest of what’s floating around from job postings, employee profiles, documents, and more. If you don’t feel like delving into the whole post, I’ve summarized the key points at the bottom of the post for quick review.

It’s Official: Office 15, the Codename

Beginning with a bit of history, I’ve been keeping my eye on Office 15 since September 2009 when I first noticed what seemed to be an employee referring to the next version of Office as “Office 15″ and “Office 2013.” A couple of months afterwords, I made note of a program manager mentioning Office 15 in an interview on Microsoft’s website. Shortly thereafter, references were also being discovered by MJ Foley and others. Fast-forward 6 months and now there are job postings on Microsoft’s Careers website that specifically reference “Office 15″ in various contexts which I will be referencing shortly.

Additionally, residing on Microsoft’s download servers is a PDF document by a company named Basex who makes mention of Office 15. Though in its own right, that doesn’t say much since any random company could simply reference “Office 15″ from what they’ve read elsewhere, the fact that the document is being served on Microsoft’s download servers lends a little more to its credibility:

Now, I know some of you are saying, “alright, already — it’s called “Office 15,” geez.” The reason I’m being so thorough is that an impending codename is never guaranteed (as we learned with “Office 13“) and I would rather err on the side of too much information to state my case than not enough. And for those of you who still aren’t sold, don’t worry; much more “Office 15″ referencing is on the way.

Release Date Implication: Office 15, a.k.a. Office 2013

Along with my previous mention of what appeared to be an employee referencing the next version of Office as “Office 2013,” I’ve now found a similar reference from the following job profile of Microsoft employee Adam Callens courtesy of LinkedIn:

Directly engaged IT Pros to understand pain points and opinions of trending technology and drove their concerns directly into our planning pillars for Office 2013.

Basically, the key (and ridiculously obvious) takeaway here is the year Microsoft aims to release Office 15: 2013. With Windows 8 rumored to wrap up between late-2011 and sometime in 2012, that would potentially position the release of Office 2013 within a similar cadence to Office 2010, where Office 2010 was released well-after Windows 7 as opposed to alongside it as was Office 2007 with Windows Vista.

Office 15: Goodbye Ribbon UI?

This is mere speculation on my behalf, but the following found on Microsoft employee Josh Leong’s LinkedIn profile provides a vague-yet-enticing user experience mention that gets me thinking on the track of if Microsoft is going to simply refine the Ribbon UI as they did with Office 2010, or if they’re going to opt for something completely different:

Designing the new visual & interaction experience for Office 15.

The Ribbon UI is highly-touted in Microsoft’s products since its implementation in Office 2007. It has been carried through to much of Windows 7′s OOTB applications like MS Paint, Calculator, WordPad, and more recently, refined in Office 2010. Personally, I’m not so willing to bet that it will be done away with in place of something drastically different by the Office 15 time frame. I feel as though Microsoft will see to getting as much mileage as they can out of the Ribbon UI. Having a look at Josh’s personal page, it appears he does some pretty forward-thinking concepts (which probably don’t include the Ribbon UI), so I’ll certainly be paying close attention to any work on that front.

Office Mobile 15

Remember the job postings on the Microsoft Careers website I said I would be referencing? You guessed it; now is that time! Here, we have two job postings seeking to fulfill different positions on the same Office team. Both ads make reference to the Office Mobile suite and hint at additional functionality being planned for Office 15. Clearly not going anywhere, Microsoft acknowledges the need for Office tools on mobile devices and they’re obviously positioning themselves to meet that need as best they can through the Office 15 time frame (albeit, specifically on their mobile OS platform).

Now is your chance to get in on the ground floor of the Office organization’s newest team. The Office Mobile suite includes Communicator Mobile, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, SharePoint, with more applications and capabilities being planned as part of the Office 15 product suite. This unique position involves technical challenges of working across multiple operating systems and devices as well as the chance to work with teams across the company and around the world. Our key focus going forward is designing and developing new end to end Mobile Office scenarios that greatly improve mobile meetings, productivity, and document management. All while taking advantage of the greater computing power, networking, memory, screen & touch, and GPS capabilities on next generation mobile computing platforms.

Source 01: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=16832
Source 02: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=16684

Outlook 15, Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15 Services Planning

Now to touch on some vaguely-mentioned specifics that are planned for Office 15 inclusion, I’ll begin with another job ad located on the Microsoft Careers site. This time, we see the Outlook team seeking a candidate to help impact the Outlook 15 release:

Outlook is currently in the process planning for Office 15. Right now is an excellent time to utilize your passion for engineering, contribute in the strategy and have a major impact on what Outlook does for the next release.

Source: https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?jid=17753

Up next, the following Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile contains a mission statement-of-sorts for their part in Office 15 planning. Receiving shout-outs are Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15. At the very least, it’s safe to assume that those applications/services are being considered for inclusion in Office 15. Have a look:

Office 15 Planning (Feb 2010 – present): Initial planning of user session management in Access Services 15.
• Identifying load balancing and session management requirements for Access Services 15;
• Investigating existing features for this purpose in SharePoint and Excel Services;
• Deep understanding of the existing implementation in Excel Services;
• A final set of suggestions on planning the implementation.

Excel 15 to Contain a “Major New Feature”

An employee by the name of Ben Gable has a rather interesting mention in his LinkedIn profile. Having completed a 12-week internship in the Office Excel group, he apparently has quite an offering to be unveiled in Office 15 (specifically, Excel 15). Who knows as of yet what that could possibly be, but it certainly sounds exciting. Here’s a snippet from his listed experience:

• Designed major new feature to be introduced in Office 15
• Wrote 80-page spec
• Managed tight deadlines
• Led technical team to plan implementation
• Held Office-wide review meetings
• Consulted with international Excel clients in financial services
• Coordinated with Product Research to hone feature design for the needs of world-wide Excel clients.
• Led usability testing. Created demos and mock-ups for usability tests. Analyzed data and presented findings. Used testing results to validate design decisions.
• Completed project 2 weeks ahead of schedule

Word 15: Taking Collaboration and Communication to the Next Level with Coauthoring

While browsing through recent interviews that populate the Microsoft Press Pass website, Microsoft Word program manager Jonathan Bailor answered some questions in regards to Office 2010. At the end of the interview, he was asked, “What’s next for you at Microsoft?” His answer sheds a bit of light of what may well be a major focus for Word 15:

In Office 15, we’d love to take collaboration and communication to the next level. We’ve unlocked all of these new ways to work and a new set of expectations from users, and we’re like, “Put us back in the ring; we’re ready for round two.” Until coauthoring a document is as easy and ubiquitous as e-mail attachments, our job isn’t done.

Customer Management and Relationship Marketing

If you keep up with Microsoft as a business (as opposed to just using their products), you’re probably familiar with the emphasis they place on their relationships with high-profile customers and partners. Employee Kristin Fitzpatrick’s LinkedIn profile shows that Microsoft is keeping true-to-form by identifying scenarios and key partners, as well as building business cases — all for research and development, planning, and feature request submittal. Detailed below are some of Kristin’s noted areas of work in these early stages of Office 15 development:

• Identified and built business case for in-product Relationship Marketing (RM) areas of investment in Office 15: identified successful examples of in-product RM (that increased usage & SAT) across Microsoft, worked with research vendor to quantify business impact, prioritized top areas of investment, and socialized results (CXM walking deck and Business Perspectives) with Office Product Management.
• Integrated CXM feature requests into Office 15 planning by identifying relevant partners, establishing new relationships, and understanding key milestones and points of engagement.
• Set up process for prioritizing Marketing requests to R&D (Office Online) to ensure feature requests were consistent with overall business strategy and R&D bandwidth.

Personas and Automation

Thanks to the following Microsoft employee’s LinkedIn profile, we learn here that Microsoft is researching and defining personas as well as focusing on upgrading Office’s Automation Framework (which some of you advanced Office users out there should be thrilled to hear). Here’s the profile quote:

CODE COVERAGE DRIVER
- Monitored code coverage for our Automation suite and communicated status to Management.
- Trained the team to use code coverage for effective Automation.
- O15: Came up with a strategy to use code coverage as a product health check and signoff tool for O15 and presented to management.
O15 PROJECTS
- Working with a few PMs to research and define Personas to target for O15.
- Leading the effort to fix our Automation Framework.

Office 15: Everyone Matters

I thought the following mention of Office 15 in the following LinkedIn profile was cute when placed in context of everything else above. This just goes to show that everyone from the top developers, designers, and managers all the way down to the testers and assistants help the planning process to happen as smoothly as possible!

Download data, create spreadsheets and other statistical reports to aid in Office 15 framework.

Conclusion: Key Takeaways

Well, this wraps up everything I’ve dug up thus far. To summarize the key aspects of all the information above, I thought I would culminate a list of key takeaways. Thanks for reading and please do chime in with your comments! In no particular order:

• Office 15 is without a doubt the codename for the next version of Office.
• 2013 appears to be the magic year Microsoft aims to release the next version of Office.
• Office Mobile 15 is at the very least a consideration alongside the planning of Office 15.
• Currently known to be planned for Office 15 inclusion are Outlook 15, Word 15, Access 15, SharePoint 15, and Excel 15.
• Office 15 will sport a new user interface. How drastic of a change it will be is yet to be determine.
• Excel 15 may include a “major new feature” completely new to the Office suite, courtesy of Office 15.
• Improving document coauthoring, a new tool in Office 2010, appears to be a primary focal point for Word 15.
• Target personas are being researched and defined for Office 15 focus.
• Office 15 should see an improved Automation Framework.

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

Apparently, Verizon’s employees aren’t very educated with Windows Phone 7 yet. I recently purchased an HTC Incredible (I’ll get a WP7 device one day, but desperately needed something more modern than my LG Dare what with social media being the way it is these days and all), but just prior to making that purchasing decision, I decided to see what the response would be from the guy trying to make the sale when asking him about Windows Phone devices that are supposed to hit the market at the end of the year. His response? “No. No, no, no… you don’t want a Windows Mobile device. They’re horrible.”

The Microsoft evangelist in me wanted to educate him a bit on Windows Phone 7, but I decided to inquire more. He basically noted all the pitfalls we’ve seen with previous iterations of Windows Mobile and assumed the next revision would be exactly the same. I told him it’s supposed to be a lot better and started to go into why, but I could tell he didn’t really care. His thoughts looked to be something to the effect of, “yeah, that’s what they say about every version that’s about to be released.” Ergo, I decided the battle would be best fought another day. With a different opponent. On a completely different battlefield.

With that in mind, the story I almost missed was the chance to write about the stigma that’s already carrying over from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7. Instead of excitement and intrigue, this guy made Windows Phone 7 sound like it was going to be worth its weight in pyrite (aka, “fool’s gold”). Had I been any other clueless buyer, I might have taken his recommendations (or lack thereof) and passed them on to friends and family — ensuring a no-sale from all I spread the word to.

The question it brings to mind is how Microsoft will choose to market Windows Phone 7. I know it’s not really a big deal at the moment and the only people inquiring about WP7 are those who are either already informed (like me) or have formed an opinion either way, regardless of how informed said opinion may or may not be. I did notice the Kin setup in Verizon a couple of weeks ago — a kiosk-type of setup with banners, lcd displays running promotional videos, phones set up that you can play with, etc. — so I’m going to take a wild guess that Microsoft will hit the marketing pretty hard once devices are ready to roll out. Hopefully, they’ll get with the right company, because Google is killing it right now with Android (and I’ve got to say, I’m a full-on believer now from owning my HTC Incredible since its release — I LOVE this phone) and I’m sure Apple’s got something up their sleeves for the upcoming iteration of the iPhone.

Perhaps a WP7 representative in a bunch of stores like they did with Windows 7 and Best Buy?

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Thanks to Android Central for the heads-up about this.

Yes, it’s true! Windows 3.1 on Android is the latest addition to the “let’s-see-what-all-we-can-get-Windows-3.1-running-on” benchmark. An Android enthusiast by the name of “drraccoon” thought it would be a fun idea to try to install Windows 3.1 on Android and the result is an ultimately useless but really cool (in a geeky sort of way) implementation of an ancient OS on a mobile device! Check out the screen shot below:

*Image courtesy of drraccoon

I don’t want to steal his glory by posting his method here (it’s really simple), but I *will* make a contribution by providing you a download link to the Windows 3.1 ISO which contains the installation files you will need should you choose to give this a shot yourself (they’re in a self-extracting .exe file I created with WinRAR, so I know this is virus-free).

Download: Windows 3.1 ISO

Now, go visit the source to obtain everything else you need to install Windows 3.1 on Android and feel free to post your results and/or ideas to try as I would certainly be interested to hear of everyone’s progress — especially if any of you give Windows 95 (something drraccoon also seems interested in attempting) a shot or some other legacy Microsoft program/game!

Source: drraccoon’s Android Blog

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

This post is my gratuitous offer to Microsoft to help them track down websites of piracy advocates who store and/or share activation cracks and similar nuisances. This all started as an experiment to see how many ways I could find a particular file and I’ve come to the conclusion that Microsoft probably either isn’t implementing half the methods I’ve devised or they don’t have the time/interest or a person/team in-house or outsourced dedicated to formulating solutions like this. I’ve cherry-picked two methods to delve into, then listed some action items to follow through with in taking said methods into consideration.

I would use Bing for these examples, but I’m still waiting for an all-encompassing guide for using advanced syntax usage in Bing. Usually, when I try to replicate my Google methods in Bing (yes, I make sure I’m using Bing’s syntax where applicable), the results are dismal. Anyway, I’d like to think someone at Microsoft will see this for what it is and bring me in to really get creative with this stuff, because there’s a whooooooole lot more where this came from! But I won’t hold my breath, because in the words of one Tony Lucca, “if I held my breath, you’d be the death of me.” lol.

Method 1: Use the following query in Google (I’ve even hyper-linked it for your pleasure):

 

intitle:index.of removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: A large number of personal websites where they have the RemoveWAT file stored and directly accessible for anyone to immediately download.

Method 2: Go to Google. Click “more” and then click “Blogs.” Now, perform a search using the following query and then, on the left-hand side, click, “Sorted by date” (yes, I’ve hyper-linked this one as well already using the aforementioned steps):

 

removewat21 | removewat22 | removewat*

 

Results: An ever-expanding list of blogs linking to the file(s) you’re interested in getting off the internet. Most of them link to file sharing services, but that’s a major score as well.

Action Items: Bearing in mind the methods above, the next thing is to gather a list of as many variables of the RemoveWAT file name as you can, such as scene release names, shortened versions, etc. and interchange them throughout the queries. Rinse and repeat the process with other activation crack technologies and voila. From there, of course, gather contact information from somewhere on the site, perform a whois search, etc. to contact the individual(s) to remove the file or simply send a DMCA take-down request to the host or whatever legal actions Microsoft has to adhere to.

Also, you can get more extensive with the research portion and use Yahoo Site Explorer or SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer to search for inbound links to the links harvested via method 1. The results are a mixed bag where that’s concerned, but I’ve found that Google typically yields those results after spidering the site from a completely separate entry point, so whether or not the person posted the file in a public forum or simply posted something completely irrelevant and Google happened to spider its way to the particular file is up in the air until additional research is performed.

Oh, and while you’re at it, you might as well try to make this process as automated, productive and facile as possible by setting up some Google Alerts (or something similar) for all the terms/queries you come up with and keep an eye on when new sites are indexed with those file names. What a great way of finding and getting rid of those files from (probably) a completely untapped avenue.

There! I’ve officially put my personal information-finding and off-page SEO research methods to good use for Microsoft’s anti-piracy endeavors. =) But bear in mind, the aforementioned methods and action items are just the tip of the iceberg. If I so chose, I could use just about any Microsoft product for free without ever touching a P2P application or utilizing a crack — all thanks to Google and absolutely careless individuals out there. There’s a lot out there; you just have to know how to find it.

Happy hunting, Microsoft.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

While having a conversation on Windows Live Messenger with MJ Foley today, the subject of project Natal came up. If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically a camera and microphone device for your Xbox 360 that will track your movements, gestures, and voice commands all in real-time. If you *do* happen to know what Natal is, then you just read that last sentence for nothing! *ahem*… Anyway, I had a funny thought that came to mind after reading MJ’s latest short about Natal: Basically, since Steve Ballmer has been the primary candidate speaking about Natal at select conferences, I thought of something I hope Microsoft (and Steve) seriously considers when launching Natal… and that is to have Steve give a repeat performance of the following:

… except, the difference for Natal’s launch would be to have a fighting game up on the big screen in the background and see if Ballmer can win simply by Natal “watching” him run around the stage in a frenzy like that. How great would THAT be!? Pretty darn great if I say so myself! And I do. From a marketing standpoint, it would be a great way to have Natal go viral instantly on YouTube, I think. Anyway, please consider doing this, Steve/Microsoft! I think it would pretty much be the most awesome thing ever. The end.

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com