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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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Many posts start with a thank you and I want to start this post with an extra special thank you on behalf of the entire Windows team for all the installs and usage we are seeing of the Windows 7 Beta. We’ve had millions of installations of Windows 7 from which we are receiving telemetry, which is simply incredible. And from those who click on the “Send Feedback” button we are receiving detailed bug reports and of course many suggestions. There is simply no way we could move from Beta through Final Release of Windows 7 without this type of breadth coverage and engagement from you in the development cycle. There’s been such an incredible response, with many folks even blogging about how they have moved to using Windows 7 Beta on all their machines and have been super happy. The question we get most often is “if the Beta expires in August what will I do—I don’t want to return to my old [sic] operating system.” For a Beta release, that is quite a complement and we’re very appreciative of such a kind response.
This post is about the path from where we are today, Beta, to our RTM (Release To Manufacturing), building on the discussion of this topic that started at the PDC. This post is in no way an announcement of a ship date, change in plans, or change in our previously described process, but rather it provides additional detail and a forward looking view of the path to RTM and General Availability. The motivation for this, in addition to the high level of interest in Windows 7, is that we’re now seeing how releasing Windows is not something that Microsoft does “solo”, but rather is something that we do as one part of the overall PC ecosystem. Obviously we have a big responsibility to do our part, one we take very seriously of course. The last stages of a Windows release are a partnership across the entire ecosystem working to make sure that the incredible variety of choices you have for PCs, software, and peripherals work together to bring you a complete and satisfying Windows 7 experience.
The next milestone for the development of Windows 7 is the Release Candidate or “RC”. Historically the Release Candidate has signaled “we’re pretty close and we want people to start testing the release, especially because all the features are done.” As we have said before, with Windows 7 we chose a slightly different approach which we were clear up front about and are all now experiencing together and out in the open. The Pre-Beta from the PDC was a release where we said it was substantially API complete and even for the areas that were not in the release we detailed the APIs and experience in the sessions at the PDC. At that time we announced that the Beta test in early 2009 would be both API and feature complete, widely available, and would be the only Beta test. We continued this dialog with our hardware partners at WinHEC. We also said that many ecosystem partners including PC makers, software vendors, hardware makers will, as has been the case, continue to receive interim builds on a regular basis. This is where we stand today. We’ve released the feature complete Beta and have made it available broadly around the world (though we know folks have requested even more languages). As a development team we’re doing just what many of you do, which is choosing to run the Beta full time on many PCs at home and work (personally I have at least 9 different machines running it full time) and we’re running it on many thousands of individual’s machines inside Microsoft, and thousands of machines in our labs as well.
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Gridplane spent a few months working with Microsoft’s XBOX 360 group developing concepts for the latest graphical user interface for the XBOX 360 console.
The time was spent exploring many ways that a new menu system could allow users to browse and navigate game libraries, music, movies and TV shows. Oh, and play games too. In addition to the menu systems, we dreamt up an immersive 3D environment for users to explore the latest games, events and online activity within the XBOX Live community.
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This is dedicated to every ignorant “tech journalist” who cried wolf about UAC in Windows Vista. A change to User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7 (beta) to make it “less annoying” inadvertently clears the path for a simple but ingenius override that renders UAC disabled without user interaction. For the security conscious, a workaround is also provided at the end. First and foremost, I want to clear up two things.
First, I was originally going to blackmail Microsoft for a large ransom for the details of this flaw, but in these uncertain economic times, their ransom fund has probably been cut back so I’m just going to share this for free.
Secondly, the reason I’m blogging about this flaw is not because of its security implications - it is blatantly simple to fix - but Microsoft’s apparent ignorance towards the matter on their official Windows 7 beta feedback channel by noting the issue as “by design” and hinting it won’t be fixed in the retail version. A security-minded ‘whistleblower’ came forth to ask me if I could publicize this issue to maybe persuade them to change their mind. And that’s what I’m doing.
Now for a bit of background information on the changes to UAC in Windows 7. By default, Windows 7’s UAC setting is set to “Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer” and “Don’t notify me when I make changes to Windows settings”. How it distinguishes between a (third party) program and Windows settings is with a security certificate. The applications/applets which manage Windows settings are signed with a special Microsoft Windows 7 certificate. As such, control panel items are signed with this certificate so they don’t prompt UAC if you change any system settings.
"Project: Virtual Reality Check" (VRC).
This is a independent research joint venture between our companies Login Consultants and PQR. The primary purpose of VRC is to release multiple whitepapers to provide information about the scalability and best practices of virtualized Terminal Server and Desktop workloads. The first phase of Project VRC on virtualizing Windows XP and 32-bit Windows 2003 Terminal Services on ESX, XenServer and Hyper-v.
The goal of Project VRC is to investigate, validate and give answers to the following questions:
All together over 150 test have been carried out. However, project VRC is not finished, and probably never will be. Additional publications are planned about virtualizing x64 workloads and the other (Vista and Windows 7) client OS's. Also, we look forward to evaluate new innovations in the hypervisor, broker and hardware arena.
The whitepapers can be downloaded freely at source
Since Windows NT4, clients who wanted to join a domain always needed a direct connection to the domain, either via VPN, dial-in or direct connection. New in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is the option for an offline domain join.. how does this work.. ? read on!
A new program is introduced called djoin.exe. We can use djoin.exe to join a computer to the domain without actually having a connection to it.
1. Logon to a system that already is a member of the domain with an account that is allowed to join computers to the domain
2. Use djoin.exe to create a text file (the blob) that contains all information for the computer to join the domain when it is online.
3. On the new computer use djoin.exe to import the blob
4. Reboot the new computer when it’s connected to the network
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Microsoft late last week confirmed recent rumors that it would combine its separate Office Live and Windows Live online offerings into a single, cohesive set of online services. Currently, the software giant is expected to simply market these services as Microsoft Live Services, but rumors persist that it may eventually change to the odd brand "Kumo."
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 for Windows XP
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Vista 64-bit Edition and Windows Server 2008 64-bit Edition
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2 64-bit Edition or Windows XP Professional 64-bit Edition
Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 for Windows Server 2003 SP2
Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows Vista (KB961813)
Headers and Libraries for Windows Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1
Windows Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Technology Overview for Developers
Windows Internet Explorer 8 RC1 Technology Overview for Enterprise and IT Pros
Windows Internet Explorer 8 RC1 FAQ for Business
Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 release notes
Internet Explorer Team Blog
First off: thank you for your interest in beta testing Windows 7! As we near January 24th, we wanted to update everyone again on the next steps for the Windows 7 Beta. The amount of feedback we have received has been amazing and continues to pour in. We are at a point where we have more than enough beta testers and feedback coming in to meet our engineering needs, so we are beginning to plan the end of general availability for Windows 7 Beta.
Because enthusiasm continues to be so high for the Windows 7 Beta and we don’t want anyone to miss out we will keep the Beta downloads open through February 10th. Customers who have started but not completed the download process will be able to do so through February 12th.
The shutdown of general availability for the Windows 7 Beta will occur in 3 phases over the course of the next few weeks:
Here we are presenting screenshots from Windows Mobile 6.5 Alpha! Firstly here you can see the cell-form-based icons: ... and here is the new home screen design of Windows Mobile 6.5 OS:
Microsoft executives say one of the lessons they've learned from Windows Vista is that notebook PCs have very different requirements than desktop PCs, and that adjustments reflecting this new understanding will be evident in Windows 7.
In a recent interview with Channelweb.com, Mike Nash, corporate vice president of Windows Product Management, said that in its development of Windows 7, Microsoft paid close attention to the transitions that notebooks go through between home and work usage, and how these transitions affected Vista notebook performance.
"We used to treat notebooks as desktops that fold up and have batteries, but after spending time looking at the fundamentals and foundation of Vista, and where processes are using more power, we've seen that notebooks are not the same," Nash said.
The knowledge gained from this scrutiny enabled Microsoft to improve shutdown and boot times and extend battery life in notebooks running Windows 7, according to Nash. For example, Microsoft found cases in which faulty drivers prevented Vista notebooks from entering a quiet state, which caused the notebook's battery to drain faster than normal. That won't be the case with Windows 7, Nash said.
Andrew Brust, chief of new technology at IT consultancy twentysix New York, says Vista has some notorious issues related to being suspended and resumed, as well as connectivity to projectors, managing Wi-Fi networks and power management.
But the early returns look good in terms of how Microsoft has dealt with these problems in the Windows 7 beta, Brust said. "It's looking like Microsoft has addressed all of these issues in Windows 7," he said.
Microsoft has delayed Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) by at least a month, and will now ship it to manufacturing sometime in May or June, according to a website that has accurately predicted Windows release dates in the past.
TechARP.com, a Malaysian website that correctly predicted the release dates for Windows Vista SP1 and XP SP3 in 2008, said that Microsoft will deliver a release candidate - the final test version - of Vista SP2 in March, a month later than the site had predicted earlier. Also, Microsoft will send the service pack to OEMs and out for retail copy duplication at some point in the second quarter of 2009, not in April as originally thought.
Windows Vista SP2 will be released for download from the web at an undetermined date after Microsoft ships the service pack to OEMs. In the past, Microsoft has had both short and long lag times between the two dates.
Oh Windows 7, is there anyone who doesn’t like you, other than John Biggs? In an interview, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder and head MF in charge of popular Linux distro Ubuntu, had many nice things to say about the newest OS on the block. He says it’ll bring a new kind of competition to the table
But Shuttleworth had more than shop talk for 7:
They’ve put concerted attention on the user experience with the shell. I think it’s going to be a great product, and every indication is we will see it in the market sooner rather than later.
It’s like a whale praising a harpoon!
Here's one particularly awkward exchange between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and RBC Capital Markets Analyst Robert Breza during Thursday's Microsoft earnings call.
Analyst: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe Steve, can you talk about as you look at the portfolio of businesses you have and obviously if you go through this economy the way it is, I mean when or if do you think you and the Board would take action to review your portfolio and make a strategic decision to possibly divest off certain assets or technologies, any color around the strategy in particular would be helpful? Thanks. Ballmer: I like our portfolio. Analyst: Okay. Ballmer: The Board likes our portfolio. Bill Koefoed: Operator, next question, and this will be our last question. (There were awkward pauses throughout)
Analyst: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe Steve, can you talk about as you look at the portfolio of businesses you have and obviously if you go through this economy the way it is, I mean when or if do you think you and the Board would take action to review your portfolio and make a strategic decision to possibly divest off certain assets or technologies, any color around the strategy in particular would be helpful? Thanks.
Ballmer: I like our portfolio.
Analyst: Okay.
Ballmer: The Board likes our portfolio.
Bill Koefoed: Operator, next question, and this will be our last question.
(There were awkward pauses throughout)
In any case, Microsoft is eliminating some parts of its porfolio, as part of the cost-cutting measures announced Thursday. The company said today that it was closing Aces Studio, which was responsible for both the Flight Simulator and Train Simulator games.