Windows Media Player

The sales for Kinect for the Xbox 360 have been amazing with 18 million sold this last year. The end result has been countless hours of incredible fun with family and friends dancing and playing sports in the confines of their living rooms. Kinect has also opened the door for developers and businesses to create new and innovative experiences through natural user interface (NUI) on the PC. The explosion of imaginative ideas that can be done with Kinect is something we call the Kinect Effect.

Today at a Windows Store preview event in San Francisco, we announced the policies and business terms for the Windows Store. These details for the Windows Store are very important as it outlines the incredible economic opportunity for developers that Windows 8 represents as the Windows Store will be an integrated feature in Windows 8. For more details on what we’re announcing today, I suggest reading this blog post from Ted Dworkin.

We wanted to see what other members of the Windows team like most about Windows 8 so we asked some of our Windows engineers. Check out what they say in this video below.

I wanted to remind folks that as of today July 12th, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is no longer supported. We recommend folks look at upgrading to Windows 7 which is the fastest selling operating system in history selling over 400 million licenses to-date. Windows Vista users can also use Windows Update to update their PC to the latest service pack available which is Service Pack 2 (SP2).

Are you still running Windows Vista? Have you been lusting after the sleeker, sexier Windows 7 Professional? Luckily for you it’s no longer a fantasy. Windows 7 Pro is designed to make new technology, including advances in digital media, hardware and devices, really shine. For a limited time only, college students can upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Pro for just $29.99 by going here. The only requirement is that you are a college student with a valid university ID.

Last week was the 1 year anniversary of Windows 7 and to celebrate, I asked readers to share a list of their 7 favorite things about Windows 7. Everyone who shared their list was given a chance to win a full copy of Windows 7 Ultimate and some stickers. And we have chosen a winner!

15 years ago today, Microsoft launched Windows 95. In 1995 I was 11 years old and in the 5th grade. At that time, I never thought that today I’d be working at Microsoft – let alone helping to tell the story of Windows. So this is a really fun and personal topic for me to recall my memories of Windows 95 – today has been a neat day.

Thanks to @duepuntozer0 for the tip on ipodnn’s post, Onkyo updates receivers for 3D, Windows 7. The new Onkyo Receivers TX-NR3008 and TX-NR5008 are not only DLNA certified, they carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo.

Just a reminder that - as announced in April 2008 - as of October 22, 2010, OEMs will no longer be able to pre-install Windows XP Home on new netbook PCs.  However for a majority of our customers, they may not notice much change; many PC makers have already been actively manufacturing and selling a broad set of Windows 7 netbooks since Windows 7 released in October, 2009.