Windows Sustained Engineering in Spotlight

As security issues and patches garner unwelcome headlines for Microsoft, the immediate task of creating a fix falls increasingly on the shoulders of a little-known group in the Windows division. Called Windows Sustained Engineering (WSE), this team of program managers, software design engineers, and testers works closely with Microsoft’s Product Support Services (PSS), the Security Response Team, and the Windows product groups to research, develop, and test any changes to the shipping products. The ongoing barrage of security vulnerabilities, focus on new releases, and decreasing resources could put this team under increasing pressure.

Windows Sustained Engineering Responsibilities

Security fixes are not WSE’s only concern. In fact, once a version of Windows is released to manufacturing—or declared “golden”—the product team that developed it transfers the source code to the group. WSE then has primary responsibility for any further work over the next seven years (the supported life of the product), including hotfixes, security patches, updates (critical and noncritical), security rollups, feature packs, and service packs. WSE is also central to Microsoft’s efforts to improve the patching process itself. (For definitions of these deliverables, see the chart “Sustained Engineering Deliverables“.)