Did you know that it's been a little over 15 years since Microsoft first announced Windows 8? To be precise, June 1, 2011. Years later, the company pulled support for the operating system on January 12, 2016.
But more interestingly, Microsoft veteran software engineer Raymond Chen recently shared a story in his ongoing The Old New Thing series about the code name the company used for Windows 8 during its development.
During the development of Windows 8, we needed a name for “that thing we’re creating.” Not being a particularly clever bunch when it comes to code names, we just called it “the modern experience,” to distinguish it from what we had in Windows 7, which was called “the classic experience.”
Raymond Chen
And, as is typical of Microsoft, employees within the organization started "abbreviating it like mad." In 2025, I extensively covered Microsoft's quirky vocabulary for internal communication, otherwise internally referred to as Microspeak. For instance, the phrase "on fire" refers to "when something has gone horribly wrong and requires immediate attention". Makes sense. Not too cryptic.
Going back to Windows 8, Chen disclosed that the development team behind the operating system abbreviated most things surrounding it. For instance, the new shell was called the “modern shell” or “MoSh” for short, whereas the old shell was referred to as the “classic shell.” Some twisted it a bit further to ClaSh, but the engineer says it didn't stick around for too long.
"When we couldn’t come up with a name for a component of the modern experience, a common fallback was to stick the prefix “Mo” in front," Chen indicated.
Interestingly, Chen reveals that the new Start menu was derived from earlier explorations known as the “Go page.” This is because it typically represents where the user would go when they want to search or "go" and do something. Consequently, Windows 8's Go page was called or given a new code — MoGo.
The list goes on and on. For instance, the settings control panel was called “MoSet,” while the ListView control started as a bit of a mouthful, “modern collection control”, it was later shortened to “MoCo.”
Over the years, Microsoft's internal slang has evolved significantly. We recently learned of Windows K2 — Microsoft's internal codename for an umbrella project that focuses on fixing Windows 11's biggest problems.
At the beginning of the year, the company pledged to address major pain points across the operating system as part of its broader strategy to improve the overall user sentiment. The company has already made good on its promise by reducing where Copilot and its integrations appear following backlash from users.
Microsoft will also allow Windows 11 users to postpone installing updates indefinitely, which is a level of freedom that hasn't been seen since the good old Windows 8 days. We invite you to check out our Windows K2 status tracker to keep tabs on Microsoft's rehabilitation project for Windows 11.
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