Microsoft codenames are given by

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 ...

to products it has in development before these products are given the names by which they appear on store shelves. Many of these products (new versions of

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 ...

in particular) are of major significance to the IT community, and so the terms are often widely used in discussions before the official release. Microsoft usually does not announce a final name until shortly before the product is publicly available. It is not uncommon for Microsoft to reuse

codename A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in ...

s a few years after a previous usage has been abandoned. There has been some suggestion that Microsoft may move towards defining the real name of their upcoming products earlier in the product development lifecycle to avoid needing product codenames.

Operating systems

Windows 3.x and 9x

Windows NT family

Windows platform engineering milestones

The following are code names used for internal development cycle iterations of the Windows core, although they are not necessarily the code names of any of the resulting releases. With some exceptions, the semester designations usually matches the Windows version number.

Windows CE family

Windows Mobile

Windows Phone

Others

OS components

Microsoft Servers

SQL Server family

Others

Developers tools

Visual Studio family

.NET Framework family

Languages

Others

Gaming hardware

Office software

Other codenames

References

{{Reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite web, last=Foley , first=Mary Jo , title=All About Microsoft: CodeTracker A monthly look at Microsoft's codenames and what they reveal about the direction of the company. , url=http://i.techrepublic.com.com/downloads/Kaelin/CodeTracker-July2011.pdf , work= ZDNet , publisher=

CBS Interactive Paramount Streaming (formerly CBS Digital Media, CBS Interactive, and ViacomCBS Streaming) is a division of Paramount Global that oversees the company's video streaming technology and direct-to-consumer services; including Pluto TV and Paramo ...

, access-date=30 October 2011 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111031111707/http://i.techrepublic.com.com/downloads/Kaelin/CodeTracker-July2011.pdf , archive-date=31 October 2011 , url-status=dead

External links

Microsoft Codenames List
Codenames Computing terminology Lists of code names