Download Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 for Windows 7
The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) version 5.5 contains the necessary tools and documentation to evaluate and mitigate application compatibility issues before deploying Windows 7, Windows Vista®, a Windows Update, or a new version of Windows® Internet Explorer® in your environment.
The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.5 helps customers understand their application compatibility situation by identifying which applications are compatible with the Windows 7 RC and Windows Vista® operating system and which require further testing. ACT helps customers lower their costs for application compatibility testing, prioritize their applications, and deploy Windows more quickly.
You can use the ACT features to:
- Verify an application’s compatibility with a new version of the Windows operating system, or a Windows Update, including determining your risk assessment.
- Become involved in the ACT Community, including sharing your risk assessment with other ACT users.
- Test your Web applications and Web sites for compatibility with new releases and security updates to the Windows® Internet Explorer® Internet browser.
You can download the Microsoft ACT here
Behind the Scenes of Windows 7 Enterprise
An article has been posted on the Windows Team Blog highlighting the enterprise value of Windows 7 and how it reflects what customers and partners told us enterprises need most. Here is what the article reads-
With Windows Vista, we learned a lot about how involved our customers and partners like to be in the development of an OS – in a nutshell, early and often. With Windows 7, we changed the way we developed the Windows OS in order to be more responsive to that feedback. As such, early on we identified three main principles to our new process:
- Planning: Our team spent six months on planning Windows 7 in a “vision phase.” We analyzed trends and customer needs before building features. We also focused more on end-to-end business scenarios, rather than solely on features and technologies.
- Predictability: We committed to giving our customers and partners a timeframe for our release and stuck to it. We remain on track to ship Windows 7 within three years of the Windows Vista release. We also only shared information about Windows 7 when we had a higher degree of certainty which has resulted in minimal changes from earlier disclosures.
- Early Ecosystem Engagement: We engaged with partners during the early stages of Windows 7 development, rather than waiting for the traditional beta timeframe. This has allowed for a more seamless experience and greater compatibility in all areas.
The article is big enough to be posted here so you can read the rest on the Windows Team Blog
Windows 7 Beta Brings New Functionality to Games Explorer
In Windows Vista, we introduced the Games Explorer. This is the place where you can launch and manage your games, including built-in Windows games such as Solitaire and Chess Titans, and also PC games such as Games for Windows (and Games for Windows – LIVE) titles.
In Windows 7, we are introducing new functionality to Games Explorer that we think people will enjoy. These new features in Games Explorer can not only be appreciated by the casual gamer looking to play one of Windows 7’s many built-in games, but also the more advanced PC gamer too.
The new features I am going to talk about here are available for you to try out in the Windows 7 Beta today.
When you first fire up Games Explorer in Windows 7, you will notice that Games Explorer is divided up between Games and Game Providers. Game Providers are the companies that distribute the games you install on your PC.
Read the full article at Windows Team Blog
Enabling Multi-Touch in the Windows 7 Beta
Windows 7 has been out for a while, I’d like to highlight how folks can try out Windows Touch, Windows 7’s new multi-touch capabilities.
In order to take advantage of it, you are going to need a PC that supports multiple touch points. Today – there are a few PCs on the market to choose from:
- HP TouchSmart All-in-One PCs (IQ500 series & IQ800 series)
- HP TouchSmart tx2 Tablet PC
- Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC
To enable multi-touch capabilities on these PCs running the Windows 7 Beta you will need to make sure you have the latest multi-touch beta drivers. The driver allows the digitizer screen to support multiple touch points. Remember these are beta drivers, they still need to pass through our rigorous Windows Logo process before they are final, we can’t guarantee that all pre-Windows 7 PCs will have logoed drivers.
- For HP TouchSmart All-in-One PCs: The driver is available from Windows Update. After you have installed the Window 7 Beta, open Windows Update from the Start menu. You might have to click the “Check for Updates” link on your left so it will find the driver, it is Optional right now so you’ll have to select it before it will install.
- For the Dell Latitude XT and HP TouchSmart tx2 Tablet PCs: the drivers are available now on N-Trig’s website. N-Trig is the company that makes the digitizer in these PCs (you should read the release notes, there are some limitations, like no pen support you should be aware of and how to switch between Windows Vista and Windows 7). Please also note these are beta drivers and are not supported by Dell or HP.
Source- Windows 7 team Blog
Microsoft Answers Launches Beta
There’s a new web site just for Windows Vista users: Microsoft Answers (beta). On this site, designed as sort of a cross between a Q&A answers service and an online tech support forum, you can get your computer questions answered or you can share your own knowledge with the community. To use the site, you can do one of three things: search the site, browse the top questions and answers, or you can pose a new question to the community:
The site has the same clean and simplistic design that we’ve come to expect from all the new Microsoft services, like Windows Live for example. Thanks to this aesthetic, Microsoft Answers is very easy to use.
Why This is Awesome
Until now, getting computer help has meant searching the web for keywords only to stumble upon tech support forums where answers are often hit-or-miss (or sometimes even answered by very unhelpful trolls!). To get actual support from Microsoft professionals, the only other options has been delving into the more I.T.-friendly sites from Microsoft like TechNet. But with Microsoft Answers, getting help finally has a consumer-friendly face…and it’s staffed by actual Microsoft employees! Really! If you browse to this page and click on any of the folks listed under “Meet the Microsoft Answers Team,” you’ll see that that they are listed as Microsoft employees. That should certainly make you feel more comfortable about the quality of answers you receive.
If you end up asking a question, you don’t have to keep returning to the web page to see if it’s been answered. Instead, you can subscribe to your question to get automatically updated via your browser or email program (or RSS reader, of course!). How convenient.
If you have any burning computer questions, you should check out Microsoft Answers and see if they can help.
Source- Channel 10 Blog
Public beta of Windows 7 from January 7
winfuture.de , a german website reports that it has learnt from it sources that the Windows 7 beta would be available to the public on January 7 the next year,though the beta version would be available to the TAP partners from tomorrow itself.
The beta version would start from the 7K series and the build would be 7000.0.081212-1400,and adding to it,the build would be available in many other languages too.
The site also says that it has unconfirmed news that the Windows 7 would be available on preconfigured computers from November 2009 and would be available for retail in January 2010 almost exactly after 3 years the release of Windows Vista.We too have some unconfirmed news from our sources that Windows Server 7 would be even available for beta release in January next year,so indeed a lot more is coming in January along with the release of Internet Explorer 8 and probably the release of the final versions of Windows Live Wave 3 products
Source- win7.in
E7: Continuing our discussion on performance
We’ve talked some about performance in this blog and recently many folks have been blogging and writing about the topic as well. We thought it would be a good time to offer some more behind the scenes views on how we have been working on and thinking about performance because it such an interesting topic for the folks reading this blog. Of course I’ve been using some pretty low-powered machines lately so performance is top of mind for me as well. But for fun I am writing this on my early holiday present–my new home machine is a 64-bit all-in-one desktop machine with a quad core CPU, discrete graphics, 8GB of memory, and hardware RAID all running a pretty new build of Windows 7 upgraded as soon as I finished the out of box experience. Michael Fortin and I authored this post. –Steven
Writing about performance in this blog is nearly as tricky as measuring it. As we’ve seen directional statements are taken further than we might intend and at the same time there are seemingly infinite ways to measure performance and just as many ways to perceive the same data. Ultimately, performance is something each individual feels is right–whether than means adequate or stellar might vary scenario to scenario, individual to individual. Some of the mail we’ve received has been clear about performance:
- Boot-very very fast in all applications ( open-load applications) especially so many simultaneously!!!!! Hence, massive multicore ( quad-octa core cpu) , gpgpu for all!!!!!!!!!!!!
- This is right time to do this properly, the users want speed, we’ll give them speed.
- i want to be able to run windows 7 extremely fast and still look good graphically on a asus aspire one netbook with these specs-1.5 ghz intel atom processor (single core) 1gb of ram
- I hope that in addition to improvements in the gui and heart (I hope massive multicore + 64-bit + Directx 11 ..extreme performance, etc) for windows 7, modified the feature Flip 3d In Windows 7!!!!! Try to make a Flip 3D feature, really efficient and sensible in windows 7.
- With regard to the performance thing, could you look at ways to reduce the penalty of having a lot of fonts installed.
- From performance, boot up, explorer speed and UI experience , I hope the next version of windows delivers something new and innovating. I was playing with the new UI on the HP TouchPC and I have to say they did a great 1.0 job on the touch interface controls.
- I do keep my fingers crossed for Windows 7 to be dramatically better in its performance than Windows Vista.
- The biggest feature I see a lot of people wanting is performance.
Source- E7 Blog
Microsoft® Windows® Malicious Software Removal Tool (KB890830)
The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool checks Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 computers for and helps remove infections by specific, prevalent malicious software—including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom. When the detection and removal process is complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed. The tool creates a log file named mrt.log in the %WINDIR%\debug folder.
To download the x64 version of Malicious Software Removal Tool, click here.
Download the x32 bit version here
