The Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) is a series of technical conferences and workshops, where

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

elaborates on its hardware plans for Windows devices. The WinHEC from 1992 to 2008, which stood for Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, was an annual software and hardware developer-oriented trade show and business conference, where

elaborated on its hardware plans for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

-compatible PCs. From 2008 to 2015, WinHEC was then replaced in Microsoft's schedule by the Professional Developers Conference, later merged into the Build conference. On September 26, 2014, Microsoft announced that WinHEC would be returning in 2015 in the form of multiple conferences held throughout the year. The first conference was to be held in Shenzhen, China on March 18 to 19. The industry had changed significantly since Microsoft's prior WinHEC event, with innovation happening at a much quicker pace and across more geographically diverse locations. Because of that, Microsoft evolved WinHEC to be more than a single annual conference. WinHEC was to consist of technical conferences and smaller, more frequent, topic focused workshops that were local to the hardware ecosystem hubs. The WinHEC acronym also changed its meaning to "Windows Hardware Engineering Community". On December 17, 2014, Microsoft announced that registration was open for the first of its re-launched WinHEC summit, taking place March 18–19, 2015 in Shenzhen, China. The company also announced that Terry Myerson, Executive Vice President of the Operating Systems Group would keynote the event. They would discuss advancements in the Windows platform making it easier for companies to build devices powered by Windows as well as Microsoft’s growing investments in the Shenzhen and China ecosystem.

Audience

WinHEC will stay true to its strong technical roots. The agenda will be packed with executive keynotes, deep technical training sessions, hands-on labs, and opportunities for Q&A on topics across the spectrum of Windows-based hardware. For executives, engineering managers, engineers and technical product managers at OEMs, ODMs, IHVs, and IDHs who are working with or want to work with Windows technologies

Events

* 1992 –

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. March 1–3, 1992 * 1993 – San Jose,

. March 1–3, 1993 * 1994 –

. February 23–25, 1994 * 1995 –

. March 20–22, 1995 * 1996 – San Jose,

. April 1–3, 1996 * 1997 –

. April 8–10, 1997 * 1998 – Orlando,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. March 25–27, 1998 * 1999 –

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. April 7–9, 1999 * 2000 –

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. April 25–27, 2000 * 2001 – Anaheim,

. March 26–28, 2001. **Announcement of the availability of

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

Beta 2, which includes the first public beta of Internet Explorer 6. * 2002 –

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, Washington. April 16–18, 2002. * 2003 –

. May 6–8, 2003. **Bill Gates keynote; demonstrated "Athens" PC concept, discussed

64-bit computing In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, ...

, uptake of Windows XP. **Initial Windows Longhorn demonstrations and discussions, focusing on a new Desktop Composition Engine (which later became known as the Desktop Window Manager) * 2004 – Seattle, Washington. May 4–7, 2004. **Discussion of Longhorn release timeline and upcoming service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 **Updated Athens concept PC design, named "Troy" based on a Longhorn user interface * 2005 – Washington State Convention and Trade Center,

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

. April 25–27, 2005. **Bill Gates gave a keynote speech on various topics including Windows "Longhorn" (known later as

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

) and 64-bit computing. * 2006 – Washington State Convention and Trade Center, Seattle, Washington. May 23–25, 2006. Attendance of more than 3,700. **Microsoft announced the release of beta 2 of Windows Vista, Windows Server "Longhorn" and Microsoft Office 2007. **The

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

staged a protest outside the venue, wearing yellow hazmat suits and handing out pamphlets claiming that Microsoft products are " Defective by Design" because of the

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

technologies included in them. * 2007 –

Los Angeles Convention Center The Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center located in the southwest section of Downtown Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, California, United States. It hosts multiple annual conventions and has often been used as a filming locat ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. May 15–17, 2007. * 2008 –

. November 4–6, 2008. ** Immediately following PDC 2008, held at the same venue, October 27–30. ** Focusing on the then upcoming

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

. * 2015 – Grand Hyatt Shenzhen Hotel,

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. March 18–19, 2015. ** Microsoft released the source of the Windows Driver Frameworks. ** Focused on

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

References

External links

; Main * ; 2006
Press materials from WinHEC 2006

Online videos etc. from WinHEC 2006
; 2005
WinSuperSite show report for WinHEC 2005

{{Microsoft Microsoft conferences Recurring events established in 1992 Recurring events disestablished in 2008 Recurring events established in 2015 Recurring events disestablished in 2015 1992 establishments in California 2008 disestablishments in California 2015 establishments in China 2015 disestablishments in China