The fbl’s (feature build labs) are unstable development branches which contain the code that is under construction, whereas the winamin branch contains completed functionality that has passed integration tests. Since the winmain branch must contain code that has passed integration tests, it is (or should) be always ready for a release.

Basically there are two processes between winmain and fbl branches. One of them is called Forward Integration (FI) and the other is called Reverse Integration (RI). In the following I will try to illustrate and describe both processes.

Reverse Integration

When a new functionality in a fbl branch is completed and can pass integration tests, the code gets promoted from that fbl branch to the winmain branch. This process is referred to as reverse integration. A fbl branch can be reverse integrated to the winmain branch only after unit tests have verified the stability of the fbl branch.

Forward Integration

If code from the winmain branch gets merged to a fbl branch, the process is referred to as forward integration. Since the fbl branches constantly evolve, forward integration is very important because the winmain branch integrates changes from all development branches. Ususally forward integration occurs as soon as any development (fbl) branch integrates into the winmain branch. The code from the winmain branch gets froward integrated into all development branches then. Becase the winmain branch is kept stable, forward integration to the feature build labs is safe.

“Branching-Off”

“Branching-Off” is very similar to forward integration. When the Windows codebase is ready for a release (e.g. Public Beta, RC, RTM), a branch from the winmain branch gets created (e.g. winmain_win7beta, winmian_win7rtm). Usually these branches are not reverse integrated back into the winmian branch.

Hotfixes are also special branches are also branched off the winmain branch. Different from special release branches, Hotfixes are reverse intehrated into winmain.

Please let me hear your comments, corrections and other interesting things =D

This is a package containing 130 icons from Metro, the interface of Windows Phone 7 series. A preview of Windows Phone 7 has been shown at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona; it is not 100% sure whether these icons will appear in the final version of Windows Phone 7, but probably they will.

You are free to use and modify these icons for your website, your applications or whatever else you want.

Download at: metro.windowswiki.info

*These acronyms/terms have been explaned here: What does IDS/IDW mean and what are Escrow builds?

If you have any corrections or anything to add, please let me know.

Windows Server code name “Vail” is the name for the upcoming version of Windows Home Server. It will be based on top of Windows Server 2008 R2 and feature a complete new server console (now called Dashboard). A preview version of “Vail” (ctp4, community technology preview 4) with the buildtag 6.1.7360.0 (hsbs_ids.091210-1540) leaked to the internet in late January.
For an in-depth overview of the leaked Vail build, check this post by Rafael Rivera.
As you can see on the graphic below, private testing of Vail begun in 2009 and a public beta should be around soon. Microsoft has not announced a released date for Vail yet, but probably it should be available together with “Aurora” in the first half of 2011.

Windows Server code name “Aurora”

Windows Server code name “Aurora” is the name for the next version of Windows Small Business Server. Aurora will also be based on Windows Server 2008 R2. Not much is know about it yet, but there seems to be a build with the tag 6.1.7408.0 (hsbs_main.091216-2300). Aurora should also be available in the first half of 2011.

Update (4. Feb, 2010): I asked the owner of the server (wanderingkiwi.com) on which I have found the first Aurora bits about a possible date of a public beta and got this answer:

Unfortunately you have stumbled across one of my test servers at home.  I work in Windows Server at Microsoft. I wish I could tell you more, but at this time we are not ready to discuss future products but will certainly let you know as soon as more details become available.

Here is another answer I got from a Microsoft employee regarding Aurora:

We are not ready to discuss future products, but will certainly let you know as soon as more details become available.

Windows code name “Colorado”

“Colorado” is the code name of the new Client Computer Connector of Vail and Aurora. Since both, WHS and SBS are developed by the same team now (hence the hsbs in the build tag, hsbs stands for Windows Home and Small Business Server Team) the Client Connector is the same (also the remote interface of both looks pretty much the same at this point).

Update 2 (10 Feb. 2010): Recently a new version of the Client Computer Connector leaked (build tag is 6.1.7447.0 (hsbs_main.100207-2200)). It does not show the “Colorado” in system properties anymore.

Update 3 (17 Feb. 2010): A few more Client Computer Connectors leaked. Here is a list of all currently known Vail/Aurora builds:

6.1.1224.0 (wssg_common.090723-0400)
6.1.1308.0
6.1.1326.0 (wssg_common.091105-0400)
6.1.1329.0 (wssg_common.091110-0400)
6.1.1335.0
6.1.1336.0 (wssg_common.091119-0400)
6.1.1340.0 (wssg_common.091125-1800)
6.1.1345.0 (wssg_common.091203-0400)
6.1.1346.0 (wssg_common.091204-0400)
6.1.7360.0 (hsbs_ids.091210-1540)
6.1.7408.0 (hsbs_main.091216-2300)
6.1.7434.0 (hsbs_main.100125-2200)
6.1.7444.0 (hsbs_main.100204-2200)
6.1.7447.0 (hsbs_main.100207-2200)
6.1.7451.0 (hsbs_main.100211-2200)

(those in italic have been found in the leaked Vail CTP, it’s not clear whether these are Vail builds or not)

Windows Home Server / Small Business Server Support Lifecycle

Windows Product Roadmap

Finally, here are some wallpapers I made:

"Aurora" wallpaper

"Vail" wallpaper

"Aurora" / "Vail" bliss

There are 3 kinds of these developer builds, which are:

IDW – Internal Developer Workstation
IDS – Internal Developer Server

Originally the IDS term was used to describe a build which can be used as a server and the IDW term was used for a build which can be used as a workstation inside Microsoft “without too much pain”. Later, this connotation has changed and these builds have been seperated into two “tiers”: IDW for unstable builds and IDS for builds which are a bit more stable than IDW builds, but not as stable as beta builds. IDS builds did not have to be a Server SKU anymore (and vice versa).
Today, the term IDW is used for CTPs and stuff like this and the term IDS is used to describe unstable builds, or builds of a “helper-branch” (for example winmain_win7ids).
The term IDX (Internal Developer Client/Server) is used to avoid confusion between IDS and IDW.

Here is a quote a guy from the WSSG (Windows Server Solutions Group) made once:

This milestone is termed the “Internal Developer Server” (IDS) build – it’s
an internal quality term we use meaning that the build is stable enough to
deploy and evaluate, but may contain more minor bugs than a Beta build.
You’ll run into some unedited UI stings, and some bugs that we purposefully
chose not to fix until later in the development cycle. It’s a tradeoff we’ve
made to ensure we keep getting great feedback without unduly delaying the
project.

EDW – External Developer Workstation

This term was used during the final development of Windows Vista (between RC and RTM) for builds which got released to the TAPs. I am not sure if this term has been used for anything else, but I think you can compare this with the IDX builds of Windows 7 (which represent something like an inofficial/internal Release Candidate).

Let me know if you have any anything to add.

What are Escrow builds?

(Update from 10. Jan, 2010)

Sometimes Microsoft released builds referred to as “Escrow”. Escrow means the development of a branch gets stopped and the code is being tested. If Microsoft or its testers don’t discover any serious bugs (“showstoppers”), the current build becomes the final milestone (usually RC or RTM, but sometimes there are also beta escrow builds). Escrow builds are usually handed out to TAP (Technology Adoption Program) testers, ISVs, IHVs, etc.

A few days ago I stumbled over a 3GB zip file containing all the work related to this project but unfortunately the archive was damaged. For amusement’s sake I tried to recover as much files as possible and managed it to get most of them back, so I installed the latest build of Codename Sylvester I found.

Most likely you have seen some of these hacked (and in most of the cases pirated) Windows XP versions called something like “Windows XP Dark Edition” or “Windows XP Ultimate Gamers Edition” or whatever. When I was working on Sylvester I didn’t had the feeling that I am creating something like this. My goal was to create a light-weight, fast, stable and good-looking version of Windows XP which not only I would use, but also other people.

After installing it I was a little bit impressed, because parts of it looked very well (re-styled setup routine, OOBE, logon UI, etc.), but this impression didn’t last very long. All I have done are some hackjobs on various resource files and executeables and slimming down the ISO, but actually I didn’t accomplish any of the goals I had for this project expect the visuals (which are incomplete too).

Why am I writing this? Well, there are so many projects similar to Sylvester and I came to the conclusion that they are useless. Actually noone will ever use bullshit like that. They don’t work very well with Windows Update (reshacked dlls get replaced and things are broken then), often they are slow and bloated and of course, they are illegal. I have been working on Sylvester for about two months back then and I must admit, this was wasted time.

Don’t waste your time!

• WIM2VHD

  This batch file converts WIM files to VHD files; you can create VHD images identical to those which have been leaked by Wzor recently with that batch file.

  Download WIM2VHD

• VHD2WIM

  This batch file does exactly the opposite as the first one. If you have a VHD image, it creates a WIM image for you, which you can put on an ISO file to install it.

  Download VHD2WIM

• CREATEISO

  This batch file allows you to create an authentic ISO image, if you only have the setup files of a build (for example the 7022 and the 7048 leak).

  Download CREATEISO

Update (16 Apr. 2010):

• Disk2vhd

  by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell

  Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk – Microsoft’s Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted (though performance is better when the VHD is on a disk different than ones being converted).

  Download Disk2vhd @ www.sysinternals.com

Y: This increases every year the team is working on the product
MM: The month in which the build was compiled
DD: The day on which the build was compiled
NN: Number of recompiles of the build (during the development this number is mostly 00 or 01, but when a build gets branched for release, the other parts of the build number are freezed and only this part increments)

This build number format is not only used for Visual Studio and .NET, but also for many other products like Commerce Server 2009, Codename Geneva ir Microsoft Silverlight.

Here are a few examples:

8.0.40607.16 – VS 2005 Beta 1 – 2004*, 7th June, recompile no. 16
8.0.50215.44 – VS 2005 Beta 2 – 2005, 15 February, recompile no. 44
8.0.50727.26 – VS 2005 RC – 2005, 27th July, recompile no. 26
8.0.50727.42 – VS 2005 RTM

9.0.20404.00 – VS 2008 Beta 1
9.0.20706.01 – VS 2008 Beta 2
9.0.21022.08 – VS 2008 RTM

10.0.11001.01 – VS 2010 CTP
10.0.20506.01 – VS 2010 Beta 1

*Orginally the Y was the last character of the calendar year, but with the beginning of the development of Visual Studio 2008 it has been changed to the number of the year the team is working on the project.

This is where Parser comes into play: It reads the setup information file and sorts the files for you.

How does it work?

Microsofts setup information files usually look like this (excerpt):

tutor = “wintutor.exe ”
NetSetup = FALSE
MouseDrv = TRUE
Version = “3.1.040″

; This is data needed by the MS-DOS half of setup so that it can copy the
; proper kernel and start Windows for the GUI portion of setup.
;
; ** MS-DOS documentation says that first byte of command line for 4a call
; ** should be space. ==> in execcmd RHS leave first space as it is now
[winexec]
execstd = “dosx.exe ”
execcmd = ” krnl286.exe /b /q:”
exechimem = “xmsmmgr.exe”
himemcmd = “”
Krnl386 = 2:krnl386.exe
Krnl286 = 2:krnl286.exe
dosx = 2:dosx.exe

; Names of the disks Setup can prompt for.
[disks]
1 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #1″,disk1
2 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #2″,disk2
3 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #3″,disk3
4 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #4″,disk4
5 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #5″,disk5
6 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #6″,disk6
7 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #7″,disk7
8 =. ,”Microsoft Windows 3.1 disk #8″,disk8

[oemdisks]
Z =. ,”HP DeskJet Series v2.0 disk (z krabice s tiskárnou, nebo od HP)”,diskz

[user]
4:setup.ini, noupdate

[windows]
1:setup.hlp
1:install.com
1:setup.txt
1:win.src, Net
1:system.src, Net
1:winhelp.exe
2:control.hlp
2:GLOSSARY.HLP
3:WINHELP.HLP

[windows.system]
1:gdi.exe
2:user.exe
1:win.cnf
1:lzexpand.dll
2:ver.dll

Using regular expressions, Parser looks for every line in the file with matches with that pattern N:FILENAME.EXT (N is the number of the floppy disk on which the file has to be put to).
After scanning the setup.inf file, Parser creates folders for each floppy disk and moves the respective setup files into them. All you have to do after that process is putting the contents from each folder onto a disk image or floppy disk.

PARSER 1.1

Version history

v1.1 – 26/07/2009 – Minor bug fixes
v1.0 – 27/04/2009 – Initital release of Parser

Known issues

• Parser does not support chars as floppy disk identifiers fixed in version 1.1
• Parser does not support paths containig spaces at this point

Microsoft Hotfix Installer (.exe)

setup.exe /t:C:\extracted_files\ /c

Microsoft Update Standalone Package (.msu)

expand -F:* update.msu C:\extracted_files
cd extracted_files
expand -F:* update.cab C:\extracted_files

Microsoft Patch File (.msp)

msix patch.msp /out C:\extracted_files
msix.zip

Windows Installer Package (.msi)

msiexec /a setup.msi /qb TARGETDIR=C:\extracted_files