Tag: Windows 7

Be careful: Why getting Windows 7 “RTM” today can be like a box of chocolates

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 19/07/2009
3 Comments on Be careful: Why getting Windows 7 “RTM” today can be like a box of chocolates

There’s a lot of talk on the Web and on Twitter that Windows 7 has hit the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) milestone.

Just a note that no definitive word has been released on this. I’m sure that the crew will post something on the Windows 7 Team blog when the time comes.

A word to the wise: be careful and don’t download something from a less than trusted source. As noted in my post here on the Windows 7 Release Candidate, please don’t use torrents or P2P to get Windows 7 bits, as has been noted in the in the news. (Also available via http://bit.ly/L9PaO.)So many people eager to get Windows 7 but may subject themselves to malware.

As Roger Halbheer (in his blog on Security) offers reasons why you should not use P2P Windows 7 Builds…

"… I refrain from downloading it from any of the untrusted sources. The reason for this is pretty simple: You never know (and it is illegal).

"Years back (and I have told this story over and over again) we ran an event where we fixed PCs of consumers for free for a whole week. Pretty often, when we found an infected machine, we found P2P software on it. When we talked to the person owning the PC he/she usually told us the “my son/daughter installed that and

IMHO, getting a Windows 7 RTM build via a torrent is akin to what Forrest Gump says about a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get.

Tags: articles, blogs, Windows 7.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, how-to, Windows 7, download, backup, Challenge-Windows 7

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Advisory: Information on changes coming to First Run in Internet Explorer 8

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 18/07/2009

The IE team just posted on their blog changes they’re making to IE8’s first run experience, coming in the next cumulative security update for Internet Explorer. As noted in their posts on the IE blog previously here and here…

"The goal of the IE setup experience is to put IE users in control of their settings and respect existing defaults. IE will never install, or become the default browser without your explicit consent. However, we heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit. This change is part of our ongoing commitment to user choice and control.

"Specifically, users who install IE8 and have another browser set as the default will now see this panel as part of their first run experience…"

As noted, this will impact IE8 installations on Vista and XP as well as for users with a non-IE default browser install Windows 7.

IT Pros and SysAdmins can find information on managing updates on Technet in the Update Management TechCenter.

Tags: articles, what I read, IE8, customer support, feedback, customer service, Internet Explorer, IE8, Internet Explorer

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Tags Announcements, IE, IT management, Windows 7

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Just ahead of Windows 7, Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 BETA is now available

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 17/07/2009

I now have a new project for the weekend: dogfooding the latest bits just released for the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 BETA, complete with new enhancements for Windows 7 PCs.

New from the Windows Home Server team is their announcement of the new Power Pack 3 Beta. Just ahead of our Windows 7 release, the team provides a "better together" combination across your Windows 7 PCs and Windows Home Server (we have an HP Windows Home Server at home).

We are pleased to announce the Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta which improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing the following new features: Backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers.

Power Pack 3 Beta provides some great new functionality including the full back up and restore for Windows 7 PCs, improved Windows Media Center abilities, and better support for small form factor portable PCs.

Although the team hasn’t said when Power Pack 3 will be officially released, this is your opportunity to help to test the Beta. The team did say that this free update to existing Windows Home Server users via Windows Update should be released "prior to the Windows 7 General Availability date of October 22".

If you are running Windows 7 on your home computer and are a current Windows Home Server user, the team could use your help testing the release. The beta is now available to the public via Microsoft Connect (available by going here).

Tags: announcements, Home Server, Windows 7, hardware, Windows 7

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Tags Announcements, Windows 7, Windows Server

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Your questions: what do I like about Windows 7? Hardware home pages with Device Stage

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 09/07/2009
2 Comments on Your questions: what do I like about Windows 7? Hardware home pages with Device Stage

John Swenson has an interesting article covering Device Stage in Windows 7, as he describes as "a home page for select compatible devices and printers. It’s a simpler and faster way of finding and using your devices with Windows."

"You don’t have to be a gadget geek to know that it can be hard to get a mobile phone, music player, or other device to work smoothly with your computer. How do you sync contacts and appointments to your mobile phone? How do you get music onto your portable music player? Where do you find the manual for your device, software updates, and help? The list can go on and on, depending on the device.

"Enter Device Stage. This new feature in Windows 7 solves these problems by gathering everything you can do with your device into a single window, making tasks easier to find and complete."

In Device Stage, you can view more information about a connected device and see its status from battery life to storage capacity, sync setup, links to manufacturer information (like support) and more.

To get an idea of where the concept for Device Stage came from, take a look at this WinHEC presentation form our Dennis Flanagan in Windows. In it, he covered some of the challenges of dealing with a number of different devices in Windows Vista.

One of the nice things about the hardware ecosystem support for older devices is what we’ve noted as a "baseline" experience in Device Stage, which the team covered here on the E7 blog earlier this year…

"This UX works exactly like full Device Stage; the device image appears on the taskbar whenever it is connected and tasks are exposed in the Jump List. On first connect, the shell Window containing all of the built-in tasks appears automatically and is always just one click away from the desktop icon or device image in the Devices and Printers folder. When the device maker implements a custom Device Stage experience for a device, it gets posted on the Web and the baseline experience gets upgraded when the device is later reconnected. The core functionality is the same, but all of the branding, imaging and vendor-specific tasks are now available automatically in the same convenient UI."

Tags: Windows 7, hardware, device stage, Windows 7

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Tags hardware, Windows 7, Your Questions

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Thoughts on potential competitors, new technology, and a new Windows division President

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 08/07/2009

Gosh, has it really been nearly two weeks between blog posts? Given the lack of blog posts, you should surmise that it’s been a busy few weeks at the company given we’ve been closing the end of our fiscal year, going through the last bits of, well, delivering RTM bits of Windows 7, and working on future products and services.

Today was a busy day at work, and in the news with lots of coverage of potential competitors, new technology, executive announcements and even tips and tricks for organizing your schedules, finances and other routines.

But first, a moment I noted on Twitter.

I love movies. This past weekend we watched The Terminator series. In the two sequels, I noticed that the evil Chrome T-1000 Terminators that also jump back from the future to do in the poor heroes of the film are eventually sent packing by the dutiful, more real and established T-101.

At least they were real competitors, ones the T-101 could directly engage, rather than just being taunted from the future by the promise of a superior T-1000.

Enough about movies. On to exec announcements.

As On July 7, TechFlash broke the news that Steven (Sinofsky) was the new President of the Windows division. With Jon DeVaan, Steven has brought what’s been categorized as "new discipline to Windows engineering" – it’s been and continues to be a good partnership. These two guys have worked together closely at Microsoft, back to the days when Jon was a dev on the Excel team and Steven was the Visual Studio program manager (as noted at WinHEC ’08). The two of them continue to work towards developing and delivering Windows 7 with high quality.

It’s a huge effort and responsibility, and it’s great to have these guys leading the way on Windows engineering, along with so many talented, super smart and dedicated people on the product team. You can read more about Jon in this interview with Mary-Jo Foley and in this Q&A on Microsoft Presspass, and get a sense of Steven from his old techtalk blog (perhaps he’ll revamp it) and from this interview last year with Ina Fried. Of course, the Engineering Windows 7 blog provides even more backstage and interesting news from the Windows effort.

On competition, I thought of Miyamoto Musashi’s epic work The Book of Five Rings, and the passage that states…