Microsoft Visitor Center

This is a review of me actually visiting the visitor center unlike other folks who rated this place so low while not even visiting…
Had a fun time checking out the visitor center and Microsoft campus. unlike many other high profile companies such as fb, google, apple, Unilocal?most of these companies don’t have a visitor center and tours are usually only done if your special or know someone within the company.
Getting here is pretty easy and the microsoft campus is huge. Free parking and before you enter the visitor center you can take a nice picture of the company logo. Once inside check in at the front desk and get a cool visitor’s badge which basically allows you access to the gift store and visitor center.
The visitor center basically reminds me of a larger version of a microsoft store you’d see at the mall. As for the company store, its really large and you can find microsoft items you normally couldn’t find elsewhere like unique tshirts to magnets etc. If your a mindcraft fan there’s plenty of goodies for you here.
Overall, not sure why people didn’t like this place… its free, they give you access that other big companies would never give, and their company store has unique items you couldn’t get elsewhere. If your a tech geek in the seattle area definitely a place worth checking out.

Had a nice visit to the Microsoft Visitor’s Center in Redmond, WA. They have quite a few hands-​on exhibits featuring some of the company’s most exciting technologies for home and business. It was so much more and less than I was expecting. My current company uses Lenovo products and I was able to see the next version of laptops that will be hitting the market soon. Another thing I enjoyed was a huge ball display hanging from the ceiling as you enter the room. It is a video screen actually and welcomes you to Microsoft. The disappointing thing was that there wasn’t much about the history of Microsoft or a timeline of major launches, etc. All in all, we did enjoy our visit and you can read more on my travel blog.

Basically a display room for current and future Microsoft products…
Interesting section right next to exit where an array of gesture and facial recognition software monitors are available to interact with… the computer can guess you age by scanning your face… pretty accurate
(Written by the husband)

Took my 4 year old here and he had a blast playing on the XBOX and seeing all things Microsoft! Parking was tough, only later to be told they had a special event going on but managed to find Visitor spot nearby and ended up walking to the Visitor Center. Once inside, you have to check in — be sure to know your license plate number and have your ID. They’ll print you or a Visitor badge. My son even got a badge with his picture on it saying «Future Microsoft Employee» with a pen and coloring book! He had so much fun just hanging out in the Visitor Center. People were taking pictures of him because he knew how to play most of the XBOX games and they were amazed that he was only 4! Be sure to check out the store, too! Lots of funny souvenirs to bring back home!

If you are a technology fan, it’s worth the stop at Microsoft. The visitor center does not showcase their latest research and development, but great nonetheless. I found it pretty fun to be able to test drive their latest products available on the market today.
The parking situation was a bit of a challenge. Parking spaces are tight and limited. I had to circle the lot several times just to park. Other than that, I enjoyed my experience at Microsoft.

So. Yes I work for Msft is sales but this is cool. Bring kids. My cousins loved it. Great way to inspire young coders.

This was basically the stupidest excuse for a visitor center I’ve seen. Basically they ask for your ID to go into a showroom of their gadgets, with no demonstrators to aid you, no movies that actually convey anything deeply historic, and anything interactive they have would basically work better in your home. Then it’s off to the store to buy typical clothes and products with microsoft logos on them. I’d never have gone here if I hadn’t had Asian guests who had it on their tour-​bucket list.

After installing Windows 10 I noticed a significant improvement on system response time in my laptop. Edge is also a much more stable and faster internet browser. The return of the start menu is also welcome feature. Finally, the fact that I can play my Xbox games from the laptop by streaming to the Xbox app while someone else is using the TV at home is very nice.

I had a magnificent experience visiting the Microsoft Visitor Center. The place looked spotless and offered us an insight to the latest technology, as well as historical events around Microsoft as a company. The front desk representatives were very friendly and answered many questions that we had. We also had fun playing with the new Surface books and camera driven applications. It’s a must visit place when you’re visiting the campus.

Staff is extremely friendly and helpful. Super interesting to learn about Microsoft and the new technologies they are working on. I don’t know who would come here if you weren’t already on campus for something — but it’s cool! I would suggest checking out the store (across the hall) too!

Microsoft Windows 10 along with the new Edge Browser just suck! The worst part is, you can’t go back. What’s up with that Microsoft?
I am underwhelmed with the new browser Edge’s performance and the annotation tool on the Edge Browser is buggy at best. The browser freezes occasionally.
Steer clear of Windows 10 and the new Edge browser, at least until Microsoft works out all the kinks. :/​
Peace out!

I regrettably regret updating to the new operating system on my work computer. Not only did it take all night to upload on to my computer it changed my default browser (Chrome) to their crappy Edge browser.
Right off the bat I had to hard reset my computer because it wouldn’t load past the welcome screen. Once I got it to load all the way through Chrome would not load anything. I encountered multiple browser freezes.
Edge it self looks like a toddler designed it. And is buggy as hell. No thank you I’ll stick with Chrome.
Happy they got rid of that BS looking app page, I will say that Microsoft 10 looks nice and clean but it still SUCKS.
Don’t upgrade. And if you do BEWARE.
Microsoft get your act together.

Walked around the visitor center. I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to come here. If you’re a big fan or nearby, then you would find it worth your time.
Didn’t encounter any staff to explain items or answer questions but good thing I didn’t need any help.
Parking here is a bit challenging. There is visitor parking available but at 8 am on a Wednesday, it was all full.

This review is about Microsoft, the company. I have to give them five stars for customer service. I have been a BING Ad Words customer for a year now. I decided to cancel and called up their Ad Words service center. A nice person answered, looked up my account, then gave me a month discount and refunded my current monthly bill. They could not have been nicer. I am now a Microsoft fan for life.

We visited on a Tuesday, the desk people was super friendly, we got a little visitor batch, we signed up a release info with our car, we parked in the garage because the parking right infront of the door was full. The walk wasnt bad at all.
The area is small but we were there for 1hr or so, we got to touch and use everything available. Lol it was fun, we played video games too. Lots of interactive tech to use.
The food restaurant area was nice too, you do have to batch yourself in or get inside with a party that batched themselves in (just sayin) lol live music inside.
we loved it and definetally plan to be back maybe in a year or so, in case they add new stuff to the display.

Not worth going out of the way for.
We were touring the campus with a friend who works at Microsoft, and we dropped by the visitor center but didn’t find enough to keep us there for more than half an hour.
This place is more like a Microsoft Store than a history museum. The only historical displays we saw were an Altair 8800 computer and a life-​size cutout of the founding members of Microsoft.
The rest of the room (it really is one large room) was taken up by modern Windows Phones, Surface tablets, Xboxes running different games, and some interactive games/​apps that didn’t perform the intended motion sensing all too well.
Given that this is the official visitor center at Microsoft HQ, we expected to see more of the technology that reflects the company’s history.

I was so disappointed to find out that they are closed on weekends! You would think that they would open on weekends in order to accommodate us tourists, but unfortunately I was unable to visit. I did walk around the massive campus and took some pictures. I love Microsoft products so at least I got to see HQ, even if it was from the outside.

Who knew this existed?! Located in Building 92, going inside is a love letter to the empire built by Paul Allen and Bill Gates… and by extension, tech in general. The parking is free and easy; just park in any visitor space.
Once inside, there’s an intimate museum/​showroom space dedicated to Microsoft over the past 40 years that almost doubles as an interactive advertisement with touchable devices, plenty of coffee kiosks, and, of course, a Microsoft Store (where you can find all kinds of Microsoft-​branded souvenirs, both high and low tech). Honestly (and surprisingly), I’ve always liked Microsoft’s showroom concepts better than Apple’s. Microsoft understands the big-​TV-​screen-​as-​backdrop thing… where Apple merely installs some backlit static posters printed on acrylic (I expected better, Apple!). The entire visit will likely only take 30 minutes to an hour, but once you’re finished, you can hop over to the Commons in a neighboring building (Microsoft’s campus-​style cafeteria with a plethora of both food and shopping options).
A cool tribute to Microsoft, especially if you know anyone who works at MS. It’s all designed to instill excitement over the past, present and future of technology and, of course, this very prestigious company… and, I must say, even though I’ve lived most of my life not even knowing this place existed, it does a pretty good job.

I think if you are a big fan of Microsoft and are don’t have to drive too far it’s worth checking out. I don’t think it’s all that exciting but it’s interesting.
When you get to the visitors center you will need to register your car (you need your license plate number). Parking is free just make sure you register.
The sort of «museum» area is interesting but for me just spending 30 minutes was enough. There are a lot of interactive activities and games that you can play which will keep you busy for much more than 30 minutes. The also have all the different Microsoft phones, surface pros. and more on display.
The gift shop had a lot of different items to purchase at very reasonable prices. Many things were on sale. You can get a T-​shirt for $ 10.00 and with a Unilocal check in you can get 10% off (the cashier wasn’t familiar with a Unilocal coupon but I asked a cashier next to her and he knew what to do).
It’s also fun to take a photo near the Microsoft sign outside the visitors center.
Not spectacular but interesting and worth a visit if nearby.

Nothing really stood out from my trip to this visitor’s center before I leave Seattle. It’s just like the MS stores that I have been into. Seems a bit on the smaller site from my expectations but at least you can tour stuff quickly.

So, the visitor center could use some more pizzaz. There are a couple really cool technologies there. If you go, use your network to find a friend who works there and walk around a bit. We got lucky and had with a friend there.
The campus is surprisingly hip and beautiful. This place is definitely worth hitting up on a trip to Seattle.

Microsoft visitor center was fun.
I personally enjoyed looking at all the products they had available. I also like being able to play the interactive games.
This place is definitely on the smaller side, so this can be done quickly. They also have a gift shop with some interesting things/​gadgets.

Eh, nothing great. All of the latest and greatest hardware that runs Windows is up for show, so there’s lots of stuff to ogle at and play with. There are some wall displays about how Microsoft came to be and stuff, but don’t come here expecting either a museum or a techfest with all guns blazing. If you just want to take a look at some nifty products, you can do that here, but not much else.

BOOO! They’re closed on Saturdays. :(Sorely disappointed in that, but hey, the campus was beautiful and fun to wander about.

I wasn’t impressed at all. It’s like a combination of a wannabe Apple store and a Best Buy, except that there aren’t any helpful people (or any people at all, for that matter) to answer questions about the products.
Some of the computers on display were slow/​buggy and locked up or froze temporarily.
The Microsoft campus itself is pretty neat — you’ll probably have more fun just driving around and looking at things than going inside the visitor’s center.

I found this place to be pretty cool. The building is a little hard to find (so use your Directions feature on your Unilocal app to help you). Plus I definitely recommend that you call ahead to make sure the center is open. We went there on 3 different occasions only to find that it was closed for employee events. Once we finally got to tour this place, however, we found it very informative. There is lots of hands on activities for adults and kids. Finally, we found a place where the Kinects actually works correctly. I sure haven’t been able to get my Kinects to work at home. For the first part of my computer life I was a huge fan of Microsoft products… until I upgraded my desktop to the dreadful Windows 8… which then caused me to go and buy my first Mac. :) But anyway, I found this place interesting, it’s free, and you can get through it in 30 minutes or less.

First of all, it is hard to find parking. We drove around for 20 minutes before a spot was available. There are no signs indicating where additional parking or lots may be. The signs in the visitor spots say you must display a registration. My husband sat in the car while I went in to see what I needed. There were no signs at the entrance for where to go, and the receptionist desk near the door had no idea what I was asking for. I waited 10 minutes at a desk down the hall (marked as «Visitor Center») and the lady apologized and said that registration is not required.
Once we started looking around, I was surprised how small it was. I was expecting to be impressed. The coolest display there was not even Microsoft stuff. It was a display of how communication has developed since the 1800’s (first camera, typewriter, telephone, television, atari, computer). The rest was just PCs, tablets and phones.
As other reviewers stated, you may as well just go to Best Buy. The XBOX One displays glitched out and one did not even load. They had some facial recognition software which started out fun, but kept resetting itself. At the end when you have decorated your face, it gave the option to post to FB or email to yourself, but there was no keyboard available to type in your info. boo.
We walked away frustrated.

For the two weekdays I am in the area the Visitor Center is closed. While the disclaimer on their website:
«Please call in advance to ensure we are open as we occasionally close for private events.»
suggests the center might not be open for a few hours some days, this is obviously not the case. As getting there is a challenge in itself, due to lack of signage, you definitely want to call ahead to ensure they are open before making the journey.
It’s a shame that a software company cannot find a better way to communicate the hours that they are open to the public.

lame. its great if you want to try out surface or windows 8. otherwise you can get the same experience at best buy. many other reviewers said the same thing. at least offer some unique experiences
company store wasn’t anything special at all.
JEANS: OK by far