Hi, it’s Mark Relph again from the Windows Ecosystem Team here at Microsoft. Over the summer, our team posted a series of updates on our progress overall and with hardware and software vendors. In advance of the launch of Windows 7, I wanted to provide an update on our progress to ready the ecosystem of hardware and software products that work with Windows. While Windows 7 is designed to be compatible with the most popular hardware and software products you use every day. Compatibility is critical and we’ve continued our focus on making sure our hardware and software partners have all the resources they need to test and build on Windows 7. We have spent a lot of time with these partners in the last few months, including hosting more than 60 application compatibility labs, 6 logo fests, and outreach to partners in more than 93 different countries. In the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program alone we now have over 50,000 developers from 17,000 companies using our technical resources to ready their products for Windows 7. This is translating into great momentum and real results:

• We have been hard at work partnering with vendors to confirm the compatibility of thousands of products to work with Windows 7. 
• As seen in our Windows 7 Logo Program update, while many products just work, we have thousands of partners meeting a higher quality bar by receiving the Compatible with Windows 7 Logo more than 6,000 hardware and software products. For example, we have more applications with the Windows 7 software logo today than we had at launch for any previous release of Windows.
• On the hardware side, 9 out of 10 beta testers and early adopters of Windows 7 have the drivers available for all hardware devices in and connected to their PCs.
• Here are examples of two partners, Sansa and Roxio who are ready for Windows 7 as part of the Ready.Set.7 program:

 

 

 All of this activity by partners and Microsoft goes to ensuring that customers continue to have a breadth of choice of great products available on Windows 7. To help customers find compatible products, we will unveil a new Windows Compatibility Center Website for the launch of Windows 7. We will have more on this as we get closer to launch, but thousands of products are being populated into the Compatibility Center right now based on confirmed statements of support from partners. If you are a customer, you can be confident that we are working with our partners to ensure you find the compatibility status, downloads, and helpful resources for the products you use every day.

If you are a hardware or software partner, please help Microsoft to tell our customers about your products. If you have not yet submitted your status - now is the time. Ensuring your product status is listed on the Compatibility Center so customers know your Windows 7 readiness status. You can visit the Product submission page to get started. If you are an ISV, there are some additional resources as a part of our Green Light program at www.isvappcompat.com.

First, let me introduce myself.  My name is Mark Relph and I am a Senior Director with the Windows Product Strategy Group and I lead a group known as the Windows Ecosystem Team. My team and I focus on a few specific areas – compatibility of applications & hardware, working with our partners and driving developer excitement for Windows 7 (and beyond). As we count down to the launch of Windows 7, I will be posting updates from all of these areas.

Partners, both hardware and software, are essential to Windows. They build the products that help you at work or entertain you at home. We call this our “ecosystem” of partners and they help to make your experience with Windows great. So, with the launch of Windows 7 right around the corner, I want to spend some time talking about the Windows 7 Logo Program that highlights the products from this ecosystem of great partners.

The Compatible With Windows 7 Logo is designed to help customers make better purchase decisions by identifying products that have passed Microsoft designed tests for compatibility and reliability with Windows 7. Since we designed Windows 7 to be compatible with the products you use every day, many of these products will just work and thousands of partners are committing to meeting an even higher quality bar.

For Windows 7, we’ve made a number of changes to the Logo criteria and the process for granting Logo status. Our goal is to make the “Compatible with Windows 7 Logo” about the customer and ensuring them the best experience possible with Windows. A few of the changes we made include:

• We focused on robust testing requirements to ensure optimal Windows 7 experience. Products that receive the Logo are checked for common issues to minimize the number of crashes, hangs, and reboots experienced by the user.
• To be granted the Logo, products are tested to work with all versions of Windows 7 including 64-bit. This is an important change since 64 bit systems are becoming more mainstream.
• We changed the testing process, reducing the amount of paperwork required and making it less expensive for our partners to achieve the logo.
• We reached out to partners earlier giving them more time to test their products for use with Windows 7

These changes have already been met with positive results from our partner community. For the last several months we have been running a program for partners called Ready.Set.7 designed to help them achieve the logo. There are already over 6000 products that have received the logo and many more are added every day. You can see some of the partners who have already passed the logo tests at readyset7.com.

Like I said, the Logo is really about our end-users. We have a simple goal to help Windows customers to easily find great products that work exceptionally well with Windows 7. Hardware and software products that receive Compatible with Windows 7 Logo offer many advantages for our customers:

• It is very easy to identify products that are for Windows 7. The logo will appear on packaging and on retailer websites
• Devices that carry the logo will work seamlessly. For example, a digital camera will automatically transfer photos or a wireless router will easily be set up in minutes and you can add a wireless device to Windows 7 that has received the logo in seconds.
• Software will install without worry. Applications and drivers are signed so that you know the file has not been tampered with and can trust there is no malware or spyware.

If you are in the market for new hardware or software and you want to know it will work well with Windows 7, look for the Compatible with Windows 7 Logo.  If you are a software or hardware vendor, see how other partners are getting ready and learn more by visiting readyset7.com

You will hear more from me about the Windows Ecosystem in future posts and you can follow me on Twitter @mrelph.

Update: To be clear, this program “Compatible with Windows 7” is intended for applications and devices you purchase after you get a computer, which is why supporting 64-bit Windows 7 is a logo requirement. As part of the Windows 7 Logo Program for computers, we have separate requirements that ensure PC’s will have a great Windows 7 experience out of the box and can upgrade to any edition of Windows 7. We’ll have an update on PC’s and what you’ll see on shelves in the coming weeks.We already have tons of great new PC’s in the pipeline running 32-bit and 64-bit  in all types of form factors including small notebook PC’s (netbooks), tablets, desktops and all-in-ones)

Hi, Mike Nash here from the Windows Platform Strategy Team.

Earlier this week, I was in New Orleans at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC). It was amazing to see the strength and scale of the Windows ecosystem at this event, particularly as we get closer to the launch of Windows 7.

As I return to Redmond, I’d like to give an update on our approach to partner outreach and enabling the Windows ecosystem.

Driving early engagement

Our partners have been clear from the outset that they needed access to stable Windows 7 builds as early as possible. So we started our ecosystem readiness journey by delivering an API complete pre-release developer build of Windows 7 in October at the PDC, a year before our scheduled General Availability (GA). We followed that with Windows 7 Beta at CES in January, and Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) in May.

This access has enabled partners to be in a great position to complete final testing of their products and services when Windows 7 is released to manufacturing (RTM) later this month.

Focusing on application and device compatibility

When we designed Windows 7, we worked to minimize changes in the way applications and devices interact with Windows. As a result, the work done by 3rd party software and hardware developers to make their products work on Windows Vista generally carries forward for Windows 7. In most cases, the same software and hardware that works on Windows Vista will also work on Windows 7 today.

Some software that is written to very low levels of the operating system, like antivirus and disk imaging software, may require some updates. We have been able to engage closely with those partners and have addressed compatibility issues earlier in the process. As a result, today 10 antivirus companies offer beta versions of their flagship products that are compatible with Windows 7 RC.

New content and programs for partners

Millions of developers and partners have been able to get detailed technical guidance, white papers, tools and code samples from the Windows Developer Center, so they can plan, build and test on Windows 7 sooner. Moreover, thousands of partners are participating in the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program, which has reached nearly 45,000 software and hardware developers. And over 6 million people have checked out the content at Ready. Set. 7 about how many of our partners are preparing for and innovating on Windows 7.

How customers can get ready for Windows 7

We’ve also been working to ensure customers can take advantage of all of this great work by the Windows ecosystem.

We have created the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, an end-user tool designed to help customers assess their ability to upgrade their Windows XP or Windows Vista-based PCs to Windows 7. A Beta version of the can be downloaded here.

We also have the Windows 7 Logo Program, to help customers know what is compatible with Windows 7. While many products will work with Windows 7, products that carry the “Compatible with Windows 7” logo have passed testing for compatibility with Windows 7 – and because 64-bit support is a logo requirement, logo’d devices will work with both 32 and 64 bit!

Business customers can also use the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, but they need more information on compatibility for enterprise applications. So we’ve also put together a comprehensive list of the most widely used enterprise applications, which we have continuously tested on Windows 7 throughout the product cycle. In addition, there is the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) to help customers assess compatibility of software.

For internally developed line-of-business (LOB) applications, Windows 7 provides a number of in-box compatibility tools. For example, if an application fails to install because of a hard-coded version check (some software installers check the version of Windows you’re running), the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter can troubleshoot the problem by using a version number expected by the installer and running the installer again, with user consent.

How developers can get ready for Windows 7

If you’re a developer and you haven’t yet started testing for Windows 7, I recommend you do 5 key things:

1. Go download the Windows 7 Release Candidate and try it out.
2. Get compatible and test your products.  You can visit www.readyset7.com to learn more about getting ready for Windows 7.
3. Test for the Logo Requirements with our Windows Logo Kit for software and hardware.
4. Tell the world!  Make a statement of support on the Windows Compatibility Center.
5. Unlock your creativity and innovation with the new features in Windows 7. Get started by taking advantage of new opportunities in Windows 7 by evaluating the Windows 7 Developer Guide and Windows Hardware Developer Central.

Being at WPC is a good reminder of all the work it takes across tens of thousands of companies and millions of developers and IT professionals to get ready for a new Windows release. So let me conclude by saying THANK YOU to all of our partners from around the world for your engagement, testing, innovation and feedback – all which will help make Windows 7 a great release for our mutual customers.

--Mike