Windows Vienna & IE 8 features Leaked

Some details of Microsoft internal blueprints for so called “Windows Vienna” and “Internet Explorer 8” managed to get leaked on the Internet by Channel9 regular and Microsoft insider “jamie”, as seen in this post and this post on their forums. Unfortunately Microsoft quickly locked the thread and deleted the contents, but a few lucky people like myself manged to peek in before then. Since Microsoft seems hellbent in keeping this information secret, I have no other choice but to share my knowledge with the rest of the Internet.

Reading the blueprints gives you an idea about how the inside of Microsoft works. It seems Microsoft is well aware about the existence of Firefox and Linux and plan to leverage their technologies in their new products, and they aren't the least bit secretive about it (at least internally). Some features planned for Internet Explorer 8 include “undo close tab (like Firefox)”, and “saving and restoring sessions (like Firefox)”. For Windows Vienna, expect “virtual desktops (like Linux)”, and “the ability to rearrange items on the task bar”. Keep in mind attributions are copied verbatim from Microsoft's task list. In an interesting move Microsoft will make the next version of Windows theming completely customizable, the internal e-mail says. The most interesting about the new version of Windows is virtualization will be prominent for “legacy apps”, all applications not specifically written for Window Vienna or in .NET will be run on a separate virtual machine. This is comparable to how Mac OS X handled Mac OS 9. Windows Vienna will also feature “Windows Core”, the ability to separate GUI and console from each other as in Windows Server 2008.

Expect to see “Windows Vienna” on store shelves some time in 2009. The final name, however, has not been revealed.