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Windows 7 for XP ProfessionalsUpdating Support Skills from XP to Windows 7by Bink.nu's Raymond Comvalius
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We were recently able to catch up with Sven Hallauer, Director of Release Management for Windows Vista, to ask him a few questions regarding the build process of Windows Vista. Sven is the master of all Windows builds.
On top of the awesome interview Sven did for us, he also helped us understand the process of incrementing build numbers. In particular, why are we hearing about builds numbers in the 5500's and at the same time builds in the 5700's? That's an awfully big jump in build numbers, so we needed an explanation.
As a preview of the podcast, here's how the road to Release Candidate 1 works: Sven’s team has set aside a specific range of build numbers to incrementally build toward Windows Vista's Release Candidate 1 (RC1) milestone; in this case, build numbers ranging from 5400 through 5699. Likewise, numbers beginning with 57XX have been set aside for the RTM (Release-to-Manufacturing) release.
So does this mean that MS is working on builds for RC1 and RTM in parallel? You bet!
Download our interview with Sven in MP3 or WMA formats.
Mark's Blog: I’ve been extremely busy here at Microsoft and so haven’t had time to blog until now, but plan on getting back to posting regularly. Before I start with a look at a technical problem I ran into recently, I’m pleased to report that the Sysinternals integration is proceeding smoothly and that Bryce and I will unveil an exciting new tool when the site moves to its new home under Microsoft TechNet in late October.
Cash, curriculum and a software grant to the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County help workers stay competitive.
In the information-based economy of today, a skilled, educated workforce is the most critical factor for productivity. Technology skills and digital literacy have become essential tools for employment and economic growth. Yet millions of people around the world still face the challenge of how and where to acquire these skills.
As part of its ongoing effort to support technology skills education for the U.S. work force, the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program has donated more than US$440,000 in cash, software, and teaching materials to the Workforce Development Council (WDC) of Seattle-King County and WorkSource employment centers across Washington state. This donation allows WorkSource “one-stop” employment centers to offer courses utilizing Microsoft Unlimited Potential curriculum to jobseekers who want to improve their workforce readiness through technology skills training. It will also allow the WDC and WorkSource to expand Unlimited Potential to additional sites and customers in Seattle-King County through added instructor staff.
“Microsoft deeply values its partnership with the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County and we appreciate their efforts to keep America competitive in today’s economy,” says Pamela Passman, vice president of Global Corporate Affairs at Microsoft.
The WDC of Seattle-King County played a valuable role in supporting the rollout of Unlimited Potential training curriculum to public “one-stop” employment centers across the nation. Microsoft approached the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., to offer the Unlimited Potential program at one-stop centers. Taking a leadership role, the WDC of Seattle-King County agreed to oversee the program’s testing in Microsoft’s own backyard: WorkSource, the one-stop system in Washington State.
With a large number of local job seekers seeking to acquire basic computer literacy or to upgrade existing computer skills, the WDC of Seattle-King County took the critical step forward by expanding their technology skills training programs and simultaneously assisting Microsoft in expanding the pilot program and implementing Unlimited Potential curriculum in 19 training sites across the state. Since then, more than 1,500 adults have benefited from the program, a resounding affirmation of its success.
Michelle Hartman, who was laid off from a data entry job, completed four of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential courses (covering Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint) at WorkSource Renton (overseen by the WDC of Seattle–King County). “I had very limited knowledge of these programs, and was looking to be more marketable,” says Hartman, 63. As she went through the Unlimited Potential program, she started getting calls for job interviews and was subsequently offered a higher-paying job as a receptionist and office administrator for a Georgetown design company. “They were very impressed with all the programs I knew,” Hartman says.
“The classes were a marvelous opportunity, one that I wouldn’t have been able to afford on my own,” said Hartman. “Today I have a second lease on life and I owe it to WorkSource and Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program!”
Due to the success of the WDC’s pilot project, Microsoft announced donations of $3.5 million in cash and software over two years to provide support through the Unlimited Potential program in public “one-stop” employment centers across the U.S.
Microsoft's Mac Business Unit (MBU) has launched its first official blog, which is available on the company's website.
Called 'Mac Mojo', the blog is focused on the company's Office for Mac development.
"We decided to create a team blog because we wanted to offer a broad range of voices and perspectives across MBU. Bloggers on this site include developers, testers, user assistance, product managers, usability engineers, product marketers, and our general manager," the company explains.
"We'll blog on a variety of topics (some technical, some not) that interest us and we hope will interest you," the company adds.
Enter the Internet Explorer 7 Quick Reference Sheet! We’ve created this sheet to bring together keyboard shortcuts and directions for common tasks in one, easy to access location. Rather than provide an exhaustive listing of ALL the IE shortcuts (there are a lot!), we focused on outlining only the ones that perform the most popular actions within the browser. Limiting the scope in this way allowed us to create a document that can be printed on a single page of paper, which you can keep handy near your computer as you browse the web.
Following on a previous entry in April, within the last hour, Beta 2 of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 has been made available for public release. For more information, sign up at http://connect.microsoft.com
Beta 2 introduces support for AMD Virtualization Technology (formerly Pacifica) for hardware assisted vitualization. Beta 1 previously introduced this support for Intel VT. If, on the host, you are running an x64 version of Windows on an AMD machine, you will need to install a hotfix _before_ installing Beta 2. More information is in the release notes.
Beta 2 also introduces VSS support, a long asked for capability to be able to perform snapshot backups, and support for mounting of Virtual Hard Disks.
As always, please remember to take all the normal precautions - NOT deploying Beta software in your production environment, limiting it to test use only and reading the release notes carefully. Oh, and don't forget to shutdown (not save the state of) your VMs before upgrading to this build. Otherwise, enjoy!
More information can be found here.
The Kanalyze also analyzes deadlocks, wait-chains, and other hard problems. Note that the Kanalyze is not designed for general users of Windows. It is assumed that the users are already familiar with the kernel debuggers, have knowledge of the inside of Windows, and have basic skills of debugging kernel mode programs. Download At Source
Kerala Education Minister M A Baby said his government would promote the use of open source Linux operating systems along with Microsoft in high schools in Kerala, India’s most literate state which has a population of 31.8mn.
"We are against monopolies of multinational companies in any sectors," he said.
"So we would like to provide equal opportunity for both Linux and Windows-Microsoft operating system in the school curriculum." But "ideologically I support Linux and Free and Open Operating Systems for IT enabled-education in schools," he added.
Baby’s statement came two weeks after the southern state alarmed international investors by banning sales of US soft drinks Coke and Pepsi after an environmental group said their locally bottled beverages contained high pesticide levels.
Five other Indian states imposed partial bans on sales of the cola products following the environmental group’s allegations. The US soft drink firms dismissed the charges as unfounded but sales of their products have fallen.
The Kerala government launched a program to provide computer-enabled education to high school students in 2002 that it dubbed "IT @ School."
The project has now been rolled out in all 2,724 high schools across the state.
The education minister said there was no truth to Indian media reports that the government was seeking to ban the use of Microsoft Windows in high schools.
"We won’t act undemocratically. We are giving options to the students and teachers. They can decide on what tool they want to use," he said. There was no immediate response available from Microsoft