Tag: People

Watching the Windows 7 keynotes at WinHEC… all from the comfort of my home office

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 05/11/2008
1 Comment on Watching the Windows 7 keynotes at WinHEC… all from the comfort of my home office

I’m out sick this week <cough, cough> whilst the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008 (WinHEC) kicked off today at the Los Angeles Convention Center (thru November 7).

"WinHEC 2008 provides the opportunity to learn about the latest product news and opportunities from Microsoft and the ecosystem. This year’s event will focus on partner opportunities with Windows 7 and Microsoft’s channel engagement and will discuss features of the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 update release."

Although I wasn’t there, I was able to watch the keynotes live from home over the Internet from the mail WinHEC page – recorded versions available on demand here…

CNET’s Ina Fried is covering WinHEC live this week and writes that Microsoft hopes to rebuild trust with Windows 7…

"In a speech to hardware makers attending the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft’s Jon DeVaan said that the company is aiming to rebuild trust that Microsoft will deliver products with the promised features and at the promised time. "And Microsoft is also hoping that most partners won’t have a lot of work to get ready for Windows 7. "We have the tenet that if something works in Vista it really should work in Windows 7," said DeVaan, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Windows core operating system division."

Also of interest: Todd Bishop is also in LA and posted that Windows 7 kicks Vista’s butt on his TechFlash site…

"Most companies talk about how much better they are than their competitors. Microsoft this morning kicked off its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference by detailing how much better it believes Windows 7 will be than Windows Vista in areas including boot time, battery life, graphics rendering, reliability and performance. "It was an implicit acknowledgement of Windows Vista’s problems. But the company is walking a fine line as it makes the case. On the one hand, it wants to convince PC and device makers that it has its act together this time around. However, with Windows 7 not expected until early 2010, the company also risks hurting Windows Vista’s sales in the meantime if it talks about how much better the successor will be."

Tags: Microsoft, performance, Windows 7, Windows Vista, WinHEC 2008.

http://tinyurl.com/6pwdnx

Tags conferences, Microsoft, People, video, Windows 7

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Ed Bott said ‘the experience is so dramatically improved’ with Windows Vista SP1 (Springboard Virtual Roundtable)

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 28/09/2008
1 Comment on Ed Bott said ‘the experience is so dramatically improved’ with Windows Vista SP1 (Springboard Virtual Roundtable)

On the Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable with Mark Russinovich, the panel discussed performance issues and common misconfigurations on Windows Vista. Among others joining Mark were Gabe Aul of Microsoft and the incomparable Ed Bott, the scribe behind Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report.

Gabe Aul noted that "driver maturity helps a lot" and Ed offered a specific example. Then at 6:20 in the video, Ed relates an hands-on experience with one customer who purchased a notebook PC with Vista in April of 2007, and had a negative experience (with Vista RTM). Ed recalls that he contacted the customer, arranged to get the machine…

"… a year later after SP1 came out, [I] refreshed all the drivers, installed SP1 and sent it back (to the customer) who said that "I don’t even recognize this machine, the experience is so dramatically improved."

Nice to hear. As I posted previously back in January as we were readying Vista SP1, I reinstalled the Vista OS complete with the new service pack on to a stock Dell Inspiron 600m laptop (nothing special notebook that originally shipped with Windows XP).

My unscientific findings: with a clean install on an old laptop, it takes only 20 seconds to recover from Hibernate, and less than five seconds to recover from Sleep. A DVD inserted in the drive is playing in less than 20 seconds.

Now, you can pay a retailer somewhere between $30 and $130 to optimize your new (or old) PC, or you can consider doing this yourself. As I noted, there are several sites and applications that can help you improve PC performance by removing pre-installed items…

Rid your PC of crapware video – CNET TV
How to fully de-gunk a PC of Crapware | George Ou | ZDNet.com
PC World – Zap the Crap on a New Windows PC
Banish crapware with The PC Decrapifier (Lifehacker)
Ccleaner freeware system optimization, to "removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space."

With one of our new PCs, I went through and uninstalled most of the pre-installed trialware and demoware via the Program and Features control panel.

Seeing Mark’s Springboard video, I’m also reminded that there is also Windows Sysinternals (for knowledgeable PC users), which shows you what applications are running during start up.

Back to Springboard. At 28:45, Mark and the panel talks about Experf:

I’m having trouble finding the tool mentioned earlier, whas that Experf ? (no hits on ms.com/downloads)

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perftools.mspx

Tags: Microsoft, performance, crapware, Windows Vista, Mark Russinovich, Springboard.

Tags IT management, Microsoft, People, webcast, Windows Vista

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Steve Ballmer has posted his own ‘I am a PC’ video clip

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 20/09/2008
2 Comments on Steve Ballmer has posted his own ‘I am a PC’ video clip

Yes, that’s right: our very own Steve Ballmer is on the Life without walls web site with his own video…

Find any more memorable clips?

Tags: Steve Ballmer, Windows Vista, Microsoft, video

http://tinyurl.com/4osfqg

Tags Microsoft, Microsoft culture, People, video

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Watching the water level drop

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 16/09/2008
1 Comment on Watching the water level drop

A while ago, Beth (who I first worked with in the Exchange group on DST and now on customer satisfaction improvements) told me a story that she’d heard from her husband in the past. When people leave a large company, it’s like when you remove your hand from a swimming pool: you don’t really notice a change in the water level.

But in some cases, people see the water line drop significantly when great people move on to a new role or leave a company.

I saw the water level drop today. Twice.

http://tinyurl.com/dcup2z

Tags People, whack

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Talk to Mark Russinovich via the Springboard Series on September 24th

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 27/08/2008
1 Comment on Talk to Mark Russinovich via the Springboard Series on September 24th

I just ran into Mark Russinovich (of Sysinternals fame) in the hallway and was reminded that on September 24th, he will host a virtual roundtable for IT pros worldwide to explore as I’m told “top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them. From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, this is chance for IT pros to find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what they can do to improve overall system performance.”

Tell your friends to save the date and join Mark on September 24th at https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard. As posted previously, Mark has hosted these live Springboard Series virtual roundtables discussing issues such as Windows Vista security .

As part of the “virtual” experience, you may submit questions about performance and optimization to Mark and the rest of the panel live during the event, or submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

Also of note: Mark’s Blog covering topics such as Windows troubleshooting, technologies and security.

Save the date! Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:00am Pacific Standard Time. To learn more, visit the Springboard Series site.

Tags: Microsoft, User Account Control, UAC, Windows Vista, Mark Russinovich.

Tags Announcements, Microsoft, People, webcast