I'm curious if there were any structural changes to the product which needed to be made to support a more agile workflow. For example when I was there, just the branching and RI schedules were massive taxes on everyone. Also there were periods of insane 'gates' to code changes to get something committed- what has been done to allow less ship room and more code changes?

Edit: I left Microsoft to escape the VS ship schedule, I have not heard of significant changes from the co-workers I keep in touch with.