Windows 7
Developers making plans for Windows Azure, Windows 7
Like most of the developers and other technology professionals who attended the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008, held at the Los Angeles Staples Center Oct. 27-30, Dan Rigby attended to see the latest from Microsoft and rub elbows with Microsoft’s technology leaders.
But equally important was the chance to catch up with peers, and meet some new ones. “It’s a great place to build up relationships with people I may only have met online,” says Rigby, Lead Software Engineer at Interactive Intelligence, an Indianapolis-based firm that develops call center software. “I got to meet a lot of people that I knew online through Facebook and other sites, and I saw a lot of Microsoft people I may have met in forums or online.”
For the 6,500 developers who attended PDC2008, the event is one of the tech highlights whenever it’s offered. But along with the usual networking, this year’s PDC also was the site of some major announcements from Microsoft. These include the Azure Services Platform, which extends Windows and an array of services such as Microsoft SQL Services and Microsoft .NET Services in the “cloud,” and also a first look at the new features of Windows 7 as well as Office 14, (code name of the next version of Office) and the new Office Web applications.
For most PDC attendees, the broad outlines of a Microsoft cloud initiative, plus a look at Windows 7, and Office had already been the subject of speculation and techosphere discussion, online and elsewhere.
Source- Microsoft Press Release
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Upcoming Windows 7 Media Center Feature: Broadband TV Services
By now you have most likely seen what some of the new features of Media Center in Windows 7 are, but don’t think it stops there. In this series I will go over some of the upcoming features of Media Center in Windows 7. These features should start appearing in later builds, although some of them will be limited to specific testers.
I’ve been saying for some time now that Media Center needs to get serious about Internet and Web TV. Microsoft will be taking another step toward this in Windows 7 by integrating online services in the standard EPG (Guide). Below is a screenshot of the type of integration you can expect. Wouldn’t it be sweet to get Hulu in here?
Source- Chris Lanier’s Blog
Windows 7’s new “play all” decoders, encoders and transcoding capabilities
When Microsoft finally releases its follow-up to Windows Vista and it’s time for the business and technology journalists (yes, bloggers are included in that grouping) across the world to decide if Windows 7 is the kind of operating system most people should want to use, Microsoft will be facing a deluge of biased individuals that, aware of that bias or not, won’t give Windows 7 a fair shake.
Maybe it’s wrong for a journalist to call out colleagues and fill you in on a dirty little secret that occurs across all sectors of this business, but, to be quite honest, I don’t think I’m saying anything that should come as a surprise to anyone who follows the news. Regardless of whether you believe in the greatness of Steve Jobs or you choose to use only Velocity Micro machines out of your hatred for Apple, one thing remains: the vast majority of journalists use Macs to write their stories and have a deep-seated love for Apple products.
Source- istartedsomething
Microsoft provides latest Windows 7 roadmap
Microsoft has been releasing monthly updates to OEM’s on their upcoming Windows 7 operating system.
Techarp has posted their latest update where Microsoft notes that they are currently finishing product research based on feedback from OEM and end users. This will help them determine potential Windows 7 offerings / SKUs. Microsoft aims to provide detailed Windows 7 SKU information sometime this month. The next OEM update is scheduled to be released around November 13, 2008.
Interestingly, Microsoft has revealed the "Windows 7 Language Waves". Localised versions of Windows 7 will be released over 101 days after RTM. These are not general release dates but dates that indicate when the various languages will be finalised.
Wave 0 - RTM - English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French
Wave 1 - RTM + 14 days - Italian, Dutch, Russian, Simplified Chinese
Wave 2 - RTM + 28 days - Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Korean
Wave 3 - RTM + 45 days - Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong), Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian
Wave 4 - RTM + 59 days - Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål), Finnish
Wave 5 - RTM + 73 days - Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Ukrainian
Wave 6 - RTM + 87 days - Thai, Romanian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Bulgarian
Wave 7 - RTM + 101 days - Estonian, Croatian, Serbian Latin, Latvian, Slovenian
In the OEM update Microsoft also detailed Windows Anytime Upgrade (WAU). Like Vista, Windows 7 users will be able to upgrade to a "more premium" version to unlock additional features. More details will be forthcoming in Novembers update presumably when Microsoft release SKU information.
Microsoft is also planning a Windows 7 Tech Guarantee Program, where end users you purchase Vista systems will have the option (for a limited time) of upgrading to Windows 7.
Eligible Editions : Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Ultimate
Eligible Languages : Wave 0 to Wave 4
Available Upgrade Paths : Like-to-like product paths only (e.g. from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium)
Source- Neowin
Microsoft Introduces Windows 7 to Hardware Partners
Today at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2008, Microsoft Corp. showcased new innovations in Windows 7 that make it easier for hardware partners to create new experiences for Windows PC customers. Windows senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan encouraged hardware partners to start testing their current products and building new products on the application programming interface (API) complete pre-beta that was distributed to WinHEC attendees. Microsoft also provided a pre-beta release of Windows Server 2008 R2 to attendees.
“We’ve done a great deal of work in Windows 7 to enable new scenarios with our hardware partners, and we are excited by the partner innovation we have shown today,” said DeVaan, senior vice president of the Windows Core Operating System Division at Microsoft. “Windows 7 presents tremendous opportunities for hardware developers. This innovation will enable our hardware partners to provide customers with even greater choice in rich computing experiences.”
Source- Microsoft Press Release
Windows 7 Homepage is Now Online
If you’re looking for information about Windows 7, you’ve come to the right place. And as we make new information available, we’ll make sure you can find it all from here. If you want day-by-day news about Windows 7, sign up for the RSS feeds of the Windows team blogs.
It’s the next version of Windows for PCs, and it’s the result of working hand-in-hand with our partners and with people who use Windows in the real world every day. We’re paying particular attention to the things they’re telling us are important to them and will make their PCs work the way they want them to—things like enhanced reliability, responsiveness, and faster boot and shut-down. We’re also trying to make their everyday tasks easier, like connecting and syncing devices, browsing the web, and managing a home network.
Of course, we’re also working on new capabilities, so people will be able to do things with Windows 7 that were difficult (or perhaps impossible) to do with PCs before. Finally, we’re working hard to ensure that Windows 7 will run on any PC and work with any program that works today with Windows Vista, so upgrading from Windows Vista will be easy.
Visit the Windows 7 homepage here
Windows 7 surprise: DivX built in
One of the new features announced at the recent Windows 7 Reviewer’s Workshop in LA is that Windows 7 will natively support a number of popular media formats, so that users don’t have to worry about finding, installing and downloading third-party codecs.
This is an evolution in media support which is similar to the inclusion of native MPEG-2 playback in Windows Vista, providing the DVD playback functionality which was missing in Windows XP.
It’s an interesting change by Microsoft, which, in the past, has doggedly clung to the hope that Windows Media Video will end up as the prevailing video format for the internet. It appears to have finally conceded that the vast majority of people are watching downloaded stuff in DivX or Xvid — possibly a realisation driven by the enormous amount of telemetry data it has collected from users of Vista that it never had access to through XP. It has stopped short of bundling Adobe Flash support into Windows, though, as it develops its own Silverlight technology.
Source- APC
Oh yes, the Superbar is available in Windows 7 Build 6801
Wishing that the new "Superbar" was available for the PDC build of Windows 7? What about for your trusty copy of Vista? Well it isn’t available for Vista yet (I am sure someone will whip up someway of porting it over) but it is available to all users who have a copy of Windows 7 Build 6801.
Rafael, the well known Ux theme patcher, from withinwindows.com, has uncovered how to bring this breakthrough feature available to anyone who is lucky enough to have Windows 7 build 6801. It does take some changing to the OS to enable this hidden feature but it is well worth it.
Source- Neowin
