List of Microsoft codenames

Microsoft codenames are the codenames given by Microsoft 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 in particular) are of major significance to the IT community, and so the terms are often widely used in discussions prior to 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 codenames 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 so as to avoid needing product codenames.

Windows 3.1x/9x

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=15%|Preliminary name !width=15%|Final name !Notes |- |Sparta, Winball |Windows Plus |Windows for Workgroups 3.1 | |- |Snowball | |Windows for Workgroups 3.11 | |- |Chicago |Windows 4.0 |Windows 95 |The 32bit protected mode kernel of Chicago (Windows 95) was codenamed Cougar and runs on top of Jaguar (Chicago kernel). |- |O'Hare | |Internet Explorer, first shipped in Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 |The codename O'Hare ties into the Chicago codename for Windows 95: O'Hare International Airport is the largest airport in the city of Chicago, Illinois — in Microsoft's words, "a point of departure to distant places from Chicago". |- |Frosting | |Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 | |- |Detroit | |Windows 95 OSR 2 |Named after Detroit, Michigan. A writer for Maximum PC suggested that "Detroit" and other Windows 95-era names were answers to the question posed by Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today?" marketing campaign. |- |Nashville |Windows 96 |Windows Desktop Update, Internet Explorer 4.0 |Cancelled upgrade for Windows 95; sometimes referred to in the press as Windows 96. Codename was reused for Internet Explorer 4.0 which incorporated many of the technologies planned for Nashville. |- |Memphis |Windows 97, Windows 4.1 |Windows 98 |The codename was the key to activating an easter egg in Windows 98:

Open the "Regional Settings" control panel;

Go to the "Regional Settings" page;

Hold the Control key and drag a line with the mouse cursor from Memphis, Egypt (or maybe Cairo, codename of Windows NT 4 - the map is too small to tell) to Memphis, Tennessee. Still holding the Control key, drag another line from Memphis to Redmond, Washington;

A window opens with the credits for Windows 98.

|- |Millennium | |Windows Me |Me stands for Millennium Edition. |}

Windows NT family

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Daytona | |Windows NT 3.5 | Named after the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. |- |SUR (Shell Update Release), Cairo | |Windows NT 4.0 |Microsoft originally planned for NT 4.0 to be just a simple "Shell Update Release" to integrate the Windows 95 GUI with Windows NT 3.51's kernel. |- |Wolfpack | |Microsoft Cluster Server | |- |Hydra | |Terminal Services, Windows Terminal Server |Terminal Server adds "multiheading" support to Windows (the ability to run multiple instances of the graphics subsystem), and the hydra is a mythological monster with multiple heads. |- |Janus | |Windows 2000 64-bit | |- |Impala | |Windows NT 4.0 Embedded |- |Neptune |Microsoft Neptune |Never named |Planned consumer version of Windows 2000, merged with Odyssey to form Whistler. |- |Odyssey | |Never named |Planned successor to Windows 2000 for business customers, merged with Neptune to form Whistler. |- |Whistler | |Windows XP |Named after Whistler, British Columbia, where design retreats were held. |- |Mantis | |Windows XP Media Center Edition | |- |Harmony | |Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 | |- |Symphony | |Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 | |- |Emerald | |Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2 | |- |Diamond |- |Lonestar | |Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 | |- |Whistler Server |Windows Server 2002,
Windows .NET Server |Windows Server 2003 | |- |Bobcat | |Windows Small Business Server 2003 | |- |Eiger, Mönch | |Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs |Mönch included additional features for use on mobile devices. |- |Longhorn | |Windows Vista |Went gold (RTM) on 8 of November 2006. Named after the Longhorn Bar in the Whistler-Blackcomb resort; initially planned as an "interim release" between "Whistler" and "Blackcomb" (which was "Vienna" and is now Windows 7). |- |Mojave | |Windows Vista |Spoof codename used for the Windows Vista "Mojave Experiment" marketing exercise. |- |Q, Quattro | |Windows Home Server | |- |Vail |Windows Home Server V2 | | |- |Longhorn Server | |Windows Server 2008 | |- |Cougar | |Windows Small Business Server 2008 | |- |Viridian | |Hyper-V |Virtualization update for Windows Server 2008. |- |Centro | |Windows 7 | |- |Fiji |Windows Vista Media Center Feature Pack 2008 |Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 | |- |Red Dog |Windows Cloud |Windows Azure |Windows cloud services platform |- |Aurora | |Windows Small Business Server 2008 | |- |Quebec | |Windows Embedded 2011 | |}

Windows CE family

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Pegasus, Alder | |Windows CE 1.0 |(released November 1996) |- |Birch, The standard dialogs and controls created by the Visual Basic runtime library all have "Thunder" as a prefix of their internal type names (for example, buttons are internally known as ThunderCommandButton). |- |Zamboni | |Microsoft Visual C++ 4.1 |After Zamboni, an ice resurfacing machine. |- |Ocracoke |Visual Studio Team System load testing suite | |Named after the Ocracoke Island Lighthouse on Ocracoke Island, also in North Carolina. |- |Phoenix | | |A Microsoft research software development kit. |- |Eaglestone | |Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere |This is the name given to the Teamprise suite Microsoft acquired. The product is now named Visual Studio Team Explorer Everywhere |- |KittyHawk | |Visual Studio LightSwitch |RAD tool aimed at non-programmers. |- |Rainier | |Visual Studio .NET | |- |Everett | |Visual Studio 2003 |Named after the town Everett, Washington in Washington state |- |Whidbey | |Visual Studio 2005 |Named after Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound |- |Orcas | |Visual Studio 2008 |Named after Orcas Island in the Puget Sound |- |Rosario | |Visual Studio Team System 2010 | |}

SQL Server family

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Sphinx | |SQL Server 7.0 |- |Katmai / Akadia | |SQL Server 2008 |(Version 10) |- |Blue | |SQL Report Designer 2.0 |This is the stand alone release of the tool for SQL Server Reporting Services. |- |Denali | | |(Version 11) |}

Other server products

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Catapult | |Microsoft Proxy Server 1.0 | |}

Experimental operating systems

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Singularity | |Singularity |Experimental operating system based on the Microsoft .NET platform, using software-based type safety as a replacement for hardware-based memory protection. |}

.NET

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Lightning, Project 42 |Next Generation Windows Services |Microsoft .NET v1.0 |Project Lightning was the original codename for the Common Language Runtime in 1997. The team was based in building 42, hence Project 42. "Next Generation Windows Services" appeared in the earliest press releases about the upcoming platform. |}

Xbox 360

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Natal |Project Natal |Kinect |The First generation of an Xbox 360 compatible gaming platform that uses unique 3D audio and visual sensors to control input during game play. The name Natal is from the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil where one of the creators spent time. |}

Others

{| class="sortable wikitable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%" |- style="background: #ececec;" !width=15%|Codename !width=20%|Preliminary name !width=20%|Final name !Notes |- |Acropolis | | |Application framework for Smart Clients |- |Aero Diamond | | |Used during the development of Windows Vista to describe a set of advanced user interface effects for the Desktop Window Manager to be introduced after Vista's release. |- |Albany | |Microsoft Equipt |Albany is Microsoft's all-in-one, subscription-based service for office, communication, and security software. |- |Alexandria | |Zune Marketplace |An online music store. |- |Argo | |Zune |A digital media player. |- |Atlanta | | |A cloud service that monitors Microsoft SQL Server deployments |- |Atlas | |ASP.NET AJAX |An implementation for ASP.NET of Ajax native to the .NET Framework 2.0. |- |Bandit | |Schedule+ 1.0 |Microsoft's first Personal Information Manager |- |Bullet | |Microsoft Mail 3.0 |Microsoft's first LAN-based email product written in-house. (Microsoft had earlier purchased Intermail for AppleTalk networks and Network Courier for PC networks.) |- |Budapest | |Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access 2005 | |- |Catapult | |Microsoft Proxy Server 1.0 | |- |Cider | | |Visual Studio designer for building Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Meant to be used by application developers. |- |Cirrus | |Access 1.0 | |- |Concur | | |Aims to: define higher-level abstractions (above "threads and locks"); for today’s imperative languages; that evenly support the range of concurrency granularities; to let developers write correct and efficient concurrent applications; with lots of latent parallelism; that can be efficiently mapped to the user’s. |- |CRM V1.0, Tsunami | |Microsoft CRM version 1.0 |The platform was initially code named Tsunami, |- |Darwin |Microsoft Installer |Windows Installer | |- |Danube Phase I | |Microsoft CRM version 1.2 |- |Greenwich |Real-Time Communications Server 2003 |Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003 | |- |Istanbul | |Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 | |- |Clarity |LINQ | |Language Integrated Query Language extensions to expose query syntax natively to languages such as Visual Basic .NET and C# |- |Maestro | |Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005. | |- |Media2Go | |Windows Mobile software for Portable Media Centers |Platform built on Windows Mobile found on portable media players. |- |Metro | |XML Paper Specification (XPS) | |- |Milan | |Microsoft Surface |Table-top style computer with multi-touch touchscreen interface. |- |Mira | | |Windows CE .NET-based technology for smart displays. |- |Monaco | | |Music-making program similar to Apple's GarageBand application |- |Monad |MSH, Microsoft Shell |Windows PowerShell |Monads, according to philosopher Gottfried Leibniz's monadology, are the ultimate elements of the universe, individual percipient beings, and MSH is similarly composed of small, individual modules the user puts in interrelation. |- |Morro | |Microsoft Security Essentials |MSE was codenamed after the Morro de São Paulo beach in Brazil. |- |Origami | |Ultra-Mobile PC | |- |Omega | |JET Engine |ISAM database engine used in Microsoft Access, a desktop database management system. |- |Opus | |Word for Windows |Word for Windows 1.0 for Windows 2.x, named after the penguin in the comic strip Opus. |- |Palladium |Trusted Windows | |Effort to develop a small, very secure operating environment within Windows, including curtained memory, trusted input, and graphics. Project renamed to Next-Generation Secure Computing Base, and was never fully implemented. |- |Pinball | |High Performance File System |Implemented as an Installable File System when IBM and Microsoft were co developing OS/2. |- |Volta | | |C# to JavaScript compiler. |- |Softsled | | |Software based Media Center Extender. |- |Springfield |Microsoft Popfly | |Website in Alpha testing stage providing mashup and webpages creation tools, with publishing as Rich Internet Application option. |- |Tahiti | | |Supposedly a family of multi-core technologies including an operating system, applications and development tools designed to make better use of today's multi-core CPUs. It is believed that Midori may be a part of this suite of new Microsoft technologies. | Microsoft SharedView | |A screen sharing tool which allows users to take over sessions and interact with remote desktops. No audio or conference facilities. |- |Tahoe | |Sharepoint Portal Server 2001. | |- |Titan, Kilimanjaro | |Microsoft CRM version 4 |Was originally Kilimanjaro but changed to Titan as Kilimanjaro was too difficult to spell. |- |Jasper | | |“Jasper” provides a programming interface to your data that is well-suited to rapid development. When a Jasper program runs, Jasper connects to the database, determines the database schema, and generates corresponding data classes. This generation step does not result in source files; the data classes are compiled in-memory and available for use within the running program. |- |Jolt | |Silverlight 1.0 | |- |Paxos |Silverlight 1.1 | | |- |Wolverine | |TCP/IP Stack for WfW 3.11 |Named after the Wolverine the character from Marvel Comics. |- |Oslo | |set of SOA - technologies |http://www.microsoft.com/soa/products/oslo.aspx |- |Velocity | | |Distributed Caching for .NET |- |Zurich | |Azure |Microsoft's Cloud platform (See Azure Services Platform) |- |D | |M |Modelling language |- |Dorado | |Zune PC Client | |- |Metro | | |Windows Phone 7 user interface, largely based on Zune HD |}

References

Codenames Category:Code names