UPDATED 09/01 2:14PM

I’ve moved the content of this blog post to a separate stand-alone page on the site due to it being so long and how it reads more like a whitepaper rather than a blog post. You can find the new page here.

I am posting this on behalf of Jason Grieves who is a Program Manager on the Windows Accessibility Team. He and his colleague Masahiko Kaneko co-authored a book about our engineering process for accessibility. This is a great example of us helping the ecosystem build great software.

Our expectations of software are very high (as they should be!). We expect that the software we use will be reliable, secure, and perform well - we expect the software to “just work.” There are many ways that we experience software, some of us use the traditional input method of keyboard and mouse. I and many other people augment this with accessible solutions such as larger screens, speech recognition, and screen readers.

In Windows we consider accessibility just like reliability, performance, and security to be fundamental to all software in the operating system. Our feature teams create their software to meet these and other core requirements, which combine to create an operating system that meets the essential expectations of our users. In Windows 7 we continued the integration of accessibility requirements into our software engineering process. Accessibility, like the other fundamental requirements, has been planned, designed, implemented and tested in Windows 7.

In an effort to enable software developers to create accessible Windows applications, we wanted to share our process with the community. We have captured this engineering process in a new book, Engineering Software for Accessibility. The book addresses three basic questions:

• How do you plan for accessibility?
• How do you design your software for accessibility?
• How can you implement and test to your software to confirm it meets the accessible design?

We encourage software developers and anyone with an interest in accessible software to get a copy of our book. You can download a free DOC version of the eBook (right-click to download), or order a paper copy from Amazon.

You will learn that properly implemented accessibility enables access to Windows applications for users with a variety of capabilities. We are pleased to offer you the ability to follow much of process our engineers used to make Windows 7 the most accessible operating system Microsoft has yet produced!

Engineering Software for Accessibility is the latest of several efforts to assist Developers and Testers create accessible solutions. Early in the Windows 7 development cycle we released two accessibility testing tools as open source on CodePlex. UI Accessibility Checker and UI Automation Verify are designed to check the accessibility of applications that implement programmatic access via the MSAA or UI Automation APIs.

We look forward to trying you accessible Windows software!

I wanted to take a brief moment and highlight a post by Windows Engineering Team today discussing just some of the more visible changes coming with the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) based directly off feedback from *you*. You should definitely give the post a read if you haven’t already.

Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky posted about the amazing amount of feedback we’ve received since the release of the Windows 7 Beta and how the Windows Engineering Team is digesting that feedback to raise the level of quality of Windows 7.

Some of you have noticed some changes to the Windows Experience Index in the Windows 7 Beta and have asked us to share more details about those changes. Today, you can read about those changes and how we’ve engineered the Windows Experience Index in Windows 7 in a blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog. 

While this blog is committed to bringing you the latest info on Windows Vista, I wanted to take a moment to take a look at what everyone's been talking about today: PDC, WinHEC and Windows 7.

The Professional Developer Conference (PDC) , taking place in Los Angeles Oct. 27th - 30th, is an event designed for leading-edge developers and software architects that are interested in the future of the Microsoft platform. If you're responsible for the technical strategy in your organization, or you're a highly skilled developer who likes to delve deep into the heart of the platform, then PDC is for you! You can register today for PDC by heading over to http://www.microsoftpdc.com/. Hurry, spots are filling fast!

The Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), taking place in Los Angeles Nov. 5th - 7th, focuses on designing PCs, servers, and devices that run and interface with Microsoft Windows with a focus on Windows 7. WinHEC brings together engineers, developers and testers, and product planners giving them a opportunity to stay aligned with Microsoft technology roadmaps and new product opportunities. To register for WinHEC - click here (register before Oct. 3rd and save $400!).

At each event you will hear from lead Windows Engineers including Steven Sinofsky, as well as see firsthand the next Windows OS. Just announced today - at both shows we will handing out a pre-beta build of Windows 7. By attending these events, you will be one of a select few to receive a pre-beta build of Windows 7 to take with you. If that's not incentive to head to these events, I don't know what is ;-)

Last week was an exciting week for Windows and blogging.  Senior Vice Presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan launched a brand new blog called Engineering Windows 7 (or E7 for short). In case you don't know who these guys are, Jon DeVaan manages the engineering team responsible for creating the central (or "core") components and architecture of Windows and Steven Sinofsky manages the group responsible for the user experiences in both Windows and Windows Live. The Engineering Windows 7 blog is designed to create an open discussion about how we're making the next version of Windows - currently codenamed Windows 7 - and to create a background of understanding for the engineering decisions made in order to ship Windows 7.

Engineering the next version of the most used operating system to-date is a very complex software project. Why? Because Windows has a very large user base and that user base is very diverse.  Planning the next version of Windows (and ultimately developing it) is a huge under-taking as it requires Microsoft to learn and understand the needs for all types of customers that use Windows today. On the Engineering Windows 7 Blog, you can expect a two way discussion on how those customer needs are balanced out to deliver Windows 7 into the hands of customers.

The one thing you won't find on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog is major product announcements. The focus is to simply discuss the engineering of Windows 7. Not only can we expect posts from both Steven and Jon on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog, we can also expect to hear from other members of the engineering team who are essentially building the next version of Windows as we speak. Sweet!

I look forward to reading about the engineering done to make Windows what it is.

So what does that mean for us here on the Windows Vista Team Blog and for the Windows Experience Blog?  Windows Vista is still very much relevant today. There is still very much to say in regards to Windows Vista and lots more experiences to blog about surrounding Windows Vista and Windows Live. Our blogs here won't be going away. We continue to add value to Windows Vista with releases such as Windows Search 4.0 and coming soon the Beta 2 release of Internet Explorer 8. You can also expect us to take part in the ongoing discussion taking place from the Engineering Windows 7 blog on building the next version of Windows as well.