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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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Learn how to use Windows 7 features on a slate device, using touch-friendly features in IE9, the tablet input panel, speech inputs and more.
Our friends over at the FutureFed blog reported that Windows 7 the has passed the Common Criteria (CC) certification process and achieved Evaluation Assurance Level 4 with augmentation (EAL4+). Common Criteria certification is an international standard recognized by 26 member nations including the United States and is a procurement requirement for U.S. Defense and national security customers.
With this certification, we are excited that our federal customers as well as foreign governments can feel secure in deploying Windows 7, having successfully passed the rigorous security testing protocols set forth by the National Information Assurance Partnership.
This is exciting news, but not surprising as Windows 7 is our most secure operating system to date. In addition to enhancing existing security features in Windows, we incorporated customer feedback throughout the development process of Windows 7 to deliver innovative new security features, including Direct Access, AppLocker and BitLocker To Go.
Continue At Source
This week I had a chance to sit down with Brad McCabe, the product manager for DaRT (Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset). DaRT has been a favorite tool for many IT Pros, dating back to its days as part of Winternals Admin Pack. DaRT has continued to evolve since then but it’s still focused on helping IT Pros easily recover PCs that have become unstable, rapidly diagnose probable causes of issues, and quickly repair unbootable or locked out systems, all faster than the average time it takes to reimage the machine.
Customer can sign up for that Beta today here. Larger customers wanting to deploy DaRT 7 now can email us at dart7ct@microsoft.com to find out if they qualify to join the DaRT TAP program. The TAP program will allow them deep interaction with the product team and assistance in deploying and testing DaRT 7 in their production environment today.
IT Pros can learn more about MBAM (content coming soon) as well as DaRT, AGPM, AIS and the rest of the tools in MDOP in the MDOP Zone on the Springboard Series on TechNet.
Full Story At Source
The download from Microsoft, is here.
This week I had a chance to sit down with Anthony (A.J.) Smith, the product manager for the new MBAM tool. As many IT Pro’s know, with Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate there is a security feature called BitLocker which focus on full volume encryption of operating system partitions, fixed data partitions, and removable drives. MBAM builds on BitLocker in Windows 7 and offers IT Pro’s an enterprise solution for BitLocker provisioning, monitoring and key recovery. MBAM will help them simplify BitLocker provisioning and deployment independent or as part of their Windows 7 migration, improves compliance and reporting of BitLocker, and reduces support costs.
Stephen – A.J., thanks for taking time to chat with me. Let’s jump right in. Many IT pros are looking to make BitLocker part of their deployment process. How does MBAM help simplify BitLocker provisioning and deployment.
A.J.- Let’s start with provisioning since IT Pro’s need to think about how they want to configure MBAM and BitLocker. Decisions like what level of encryption, what protectors to use, what volumes they want to protect, and many others should be considered. The Springboard Windows Client Security and Control page has some great BitLocker documentation to help with making the right choices for their organization. Once they understand how they want to configure BitLocker, they can use the additional group policies that MBAM provides to setup their BitLocker configuration.
Continue At Source for full Interview
As part of our Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2011 earnings release, we announced that Windows 7 has sold over 300 million licenses to-date.
To put that in perspective, 300 million is roughly the combined number of households in North American and in Europe! Or, to put it another way, if you lined up 300 million Windows 7 product boxes, they would stretch nearly 1.5 times around the Earth!
As of today, over 20% of Internet-connected PCs worldwide are running Windows 7 according to Net Applications.
We continue to see fantastic momentum and excitement for Windows 7. CES earlier this month was also very exciting for us where we also talked a bit about Windows 7 momentum and showcased a lot of work our partners are doing. You can see all our CES 2011 blog content here which includes the amazing videos from Ben with partners. We also continue to see strong momentum with business customers with nearly 90% of enterprise businesses already making the move to Windows 7.
Source: Windows Team Blog
Today, we’re pleased to announce that a new Flickr application will soon join our mobile family. Introducing Flickr for Windows 7 and Flickr for Windows Phone 7!
This application brings the best of Flickr to your Windows 7 mobile devices. You can view your Flickr photos in stunning high-resolution display, browse through photostreams, sets and more with rich navigational features, share directly via email, Twitter, Facebook and upload directly from your device. You can also seamlessly transition from your Windows Phone 7 to Windows 7 tablet and back again without ever losing your place.
The Flickr application will be available to the general public on January 31st
Visit http://www.flickr.com/windows7 for more information!
Today’s an exciting day! We are announcing that more than 240 million licenses of Windows 7 have been sold. Windows 7 is the fastest selling operating system in history. As of September, Windows 7 was running on 93% of new consumer PCs and has over 17% global OS market share (according to Net Applications as of October 1st). There is an amazing array of great PCs out on the market today. Six months after launch, 100% (over 18,000) of our OEM partners were selling Windows 7 PCs versus 70% for Windows Vista PCs at a comparable time period. And there is an incredible ecosystem of products – software and hardware – that work great with Windows 7 too. You can check out and discover many of those products at Windows Product Scout which was announced yesterday.
Over the last year, we saw that customer satisfaction for Microsoft had outpaced Apple in February and in May the American Customer Satisfaction Index report showed a jump in customer satisfaction for Microsoft in 2010 over the previous year. Both of these attribute Windows 7 as the key factor for improved customer satisfaction for Microsoft. Customers are very happy with Windows 7.
Starting today, customers in the United States can purchase the Windows 7 Family Pack at participating retailers and online at the Microsoft Store. This is your chance to get up to three PCs running Windows 7 Home Premium for the low price of $149.99 ERP. But act fast—Family Pack is only available while supplies last.
For those of you living outside of the U.S., Family Pack will be available for purchase on or after Oct. 22. A list of participating countries can be found at the bottom of this post.
According to IDC’s Consumerscape 360 data, the average U.S. household has two PCs and, for most of these households, setting up a home network is not the easiest task. To meet the needs of these families, Windows 7 was designed with home networking in mind. Windows 7 Home Premium comes with HomeGroup, a new feature that makes sharing photos, music and files between all the PCs in your home network a snap. It’s especially handy if all of your PCs share a printer.
Upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP also lets you take advantage to one of all the benefits of the new Windows Live Essentials 2011. Windows Live Essentials is a free suite of software designed to complete your Windows 7 experience by giving you tools to help connect and share with the people you care about most and includes Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, Mail, Family Safety and Writer.
Full Story at Source
Most PC makers gained ground in the latest edition of a major customer satisfaction survey because they like Windows 7 a lot more than they did its predecessor, the much-maligned Vista.
"Computer manufacturers have to live with the vicissitudes of the software that Microsoft makes," said David VanAmburg, managing director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a survey founded by the University of Michigan.
"But they're benefiting now that customers are perceiving the quality of the machine to be better because the machines are easier to use," said VanAmburg, who credited Windows 7 for boosting scores.
"The overall effect of Windows 7 has been positive, just as the overall effect of Vista was negative in 2007," VanAmburg said.
Full Story at ComputerWorld
All summer long we’ve given you some great reasons to purchase a new PC and make the move to Windows 7, an operating system loved by a whopping 94% of folks who use it! Here’s one more: starting October 3 in the U.S., Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for purchase at participating retailers and online at the Microsoft Store.
Purchasing the Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for the low price of $149.99. To take advantage of Family Pack, you’ll need a PC running a genuine copy of either Windows Vista or Windows XP that is capable of running Windows 7. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor can tell you which features and editions of Windows 7 will run on your computer(s).
For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., Family Pack may be coming your way too. It goes on sale in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia and many other markets on or after Oct. 22 (Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary!)
Source: WindowsTeamBlog
If you’re making the move to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and/or Office 2010, you need tools and guidance to help you through the process. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010, a free Solution Accelerator, is designed to fill that need.
The latest MDT 2010 Update 1 release, now available for download, offers something for everyone:
For System Center Configuration Manager 2007 customers:
For Lite Touch Installation:
More info at source
Download the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1 here.
Microsoft's reputation among customers plunged after it released the widely criticized Windows Vista, but Windows 7 helped Microsoft achieve an increase of nearly 9% in its customer satisfaction score between 2009 and 2010.
When Vista was released in 2007, "customer satisfaction plunged 4% to an ACSI score of 70, well below the industry average, where it remained for the next three years," University of Michigan business professor Claes Fornell writes in analysis of the new ACSI numbers.
But when Windows 7 was introduced in October 2009, the software reached 4% market share within just three weeks, whereas it took Vista seven months to reach that milestone.
As a result, Microsoft's customer satisfaction score rose from 70 to 76 in 2010, an 8.6% increase.