Exclusive: Website leaks confidential Microsoft Windows 8 documents

Several confidential Microsoft documents have been posted on a Korean website. The documents seem to be mainly intended for OEMs / PC builders and contain guidelines and requirements for Windows 8 OEM builds and hardware. The documents are dated July and August 2013 and all contain a large Microsoft Confidential watermark and Microsoft confidential text in the footer.

myce-microsoft-weg

ADVERTISEMENT

One of the documents is called Form Factor Guide and is full of recommendations on  hardware for Windows 8,  it describes recommended sizes of the display, hardware buttons, display resolutions and brightness and much more. The Windows Engineering Guidance for Manufacturing explains, as Microsoft calls it,  "the ideal manufacturing process".

The Image Customization Guide explains how OEMs can adapt Windows 8 with their own logos, additional software, registration page and more. Another document describes best practices for OEMs and Windows 8 (and 8.1) apps in the Windows Store. In total the leak contains 8 Windows Engineering Guides.

From the image above you can see that Microsoft also tries to optimize the Windows 8 footprint. In the document describing how OEMs can deliver apps with the PC, we also found that OEMs like Dell, HP and Lenovo appear to earn 5% of all apps purchased on devices that are registered as sold by them.

ADVERTISEMENT

myce-windows-confidential-revenue-share

The documents also shed a light on NVME support in Windows 8.1.  NVMe provides an interface controller standard and by implementing a native driver in the operating system all NVMe SSDs work out of the box. This means manufacturers don’t need any resources to develop drivers themselves.

myce-microsoft-confidential-screenshot-nvme

ADVERTISEMENT

The contents of all documents is too much to cover but they can be easily obtained from the Korean website. If you can't find them yourself, check the screenshot in this thread.

We don't provide and won't allow links in fear of getting in trouble with Microsoft's legal department.

No posts to display