Just head on over to http://www.win741.com/ and then click on the “Buy” tile. Then click on “Buy Now $119.99 $29.99” and you’ll be directed to the digitalriver.com website which will then send you an email confirmation.

The offer is good until January 3rd, 2010 at 12:00 AM CST so you do you have some time to take advantage of this offer. Oh yeah.. you won’t be able to download the purchase until October 22nd when Windows 7 becomes officially available.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Windows 741, Windows 7 College Offer

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Windows 7 launch date

Rumors had been swirling around the net that the general availability of Windows 7 would be slated for sometime this fall/winter but finally today, we’ve got some confirmation thanks to Brandon LeBlanc of the Windows Blog. In a posting entitled “Windows 7 on Track to Hit This Holiday Season”, Brandon publicly confirms that if all goes well, Windows 7 should be “done in time for the holidays.”

Of course a great deal has to happen before Microsoft can release the final shipping version of Windows 7. Check out Steven and Jon’s posting on the “Next Engineering Milestone” for Windows 7 over at the Engineering Windows 7 blog – that is of course the road to RTM. As they point out in their blog posting “RTM is not one point in time but a process.”

And finally, all of this is certainly not nailed into stone as of yet. The road to the final release is ultimately determined by the quality of the overall product. However, if the RC build is any indication, things are certainly looking up for Windows 7.

Out of curiosity, how many machines have you installed Windows 7 RC on? I have it running on four systems thus far with nary a single problem.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7 RTM, Windows 7 Release Date

And now.. onto the new Windows 7 XP Mode feature being introduced with the latest RC release. This new feature of Windows 7 relies on Microsoft’s Virtual PC virtualization technology and allows users who have investments in software which only runs on XP, a chance to runt he very same software on Windows 7. Clearly, it’s Microsoft’s attempt at removing obstacles from the Windows 7 upgrade path.

But the real question is – how does the current beta stack up? PC Magazine took the XP Mode feature for a test spin and found it to be a “mixed bag of clever programming, appalling kludges, missed opportunities, and challenges to the ingenuity of even the most experienced Windows user.”

Yikes.

I agree with the author of the article in that it would have been nice had Microsoft released a “classic mode” of sorts within Windows 7 – allowing users to run XP or older apps in they’re own container environment – yet seamlessly integrated with the Windows 7 desktop. I suppose using virtualization technology is an easier path for Microsoft in that it keeps the different systems separate to a certain degree (most of the work I’m guessing would be to bolt the Windows XP VM onto Windows 7 as opposed to the other way around).

sigh.. can’t have it all.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7 RC, Windows XPM, XP Mode, PC Magazine Review

If you’re been working with build 7000 up until now, you won’t be able to directly upgrade to build 7100. I tried that on my work laptop and the setup process denied me. Luckily I did have build 7077 (or something like that) on hand so I upgraded build 7000 to that build and then upgraded from 7077 to build 7100 just fine. Again – you’re probably better off reinstalling everything from scratch.

In any event, go install with confidence folks – Windows 7 RC looks awesome. The new XP Mode on the other hand.. well.. more on that in a second.

[Check it out]

Read this in Chinese Simplified and in French

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate

In total, there will be six editions of Windows 7 – Windows 7 Starter Edition, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 8 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate. According to Windows General Manager, Mike Ybarra, “With Windows 7 there is a more natural progression from one edition to the next.”

Here’s the high level summary for each of the new editions:

Windows 7 Starter Edition – will now be offered worldwide and only as a OEM pre-install for new hardware. You can not purchase this edition separately. According to Microsoft, “For OEMs that build lower-cost small notebook PCs, Windows 7 Starter will now be available in developed markets”. a.k.a. You can expect to find Windows 7 Starter on netbooks – ALTHOUGH Microsoft does mention that consumers will want to go with Windows 7 Home Premium if they want to get the most out of their PC.

Windows 7 Home Basic Edition – this will only be available in emerging markets for “customers looking for an entry-point Windows experience on a full-size value PC.”

Windows 7 Home Premium Edition – this is the recommended choice for consumers. It provides the “full-function PC experience and visually rich environment.”

Windows 7 Professional – recommended choice for small businesses and for people who work at home. If you’re on Windows Vista Business then Windows 7 Professional is probably the choice for you.

Windows 7 Enterprise – for the biggest enterprise customers. This will not be available at retail or by OEMs. Enterprise will only be available to annuity customers with Software Assurance agreements. Windows 7 Enterprise Edition will offer advanced data protection, lower cost compliance, and IT tools for PC management.

Windows 7 Ultimate – this won’t be sold directly to consumers either. Windows 7 Ultimate will be offered only as an upgrade to either Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional. Windows 7 Ultimate takes features of Windows 7 Home Premium and adds in Enterprise features such as BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, BranchCache, DirectAccess, etc. There will no longer be “Ultimate Extras”.

So, there you have it. The six versions of Windows 7 – two of which you will really only care about.. and ultimately only one – Windows 7 Home Premium. Of course, no additional info on pricing nor availability.

[Check it out via PC Magazine]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7 SKU, Windows 7 Starter Edition, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate

So go ahead and download if you haven’t done so!

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Windows 7 Beta

If you installed the pre-beta/M3 build of Windows 7 from last week’s PDC, you might have been disappointed to discover that some of the new taskbar features known as “Aero Shake” were missing (things like Jump Lists and the integrated Quicklaunch toolbar). It turns out however, that some of these new features were in fact hidden from view. Rafael over at “Within Windows” discovered the “protected features” were only available to 1) members of an allowed Microsoft domain who 2) were not temps, contractors, or vendors. He’s kindly put together an executable which will unlock the protected features on the M3 build. Now keep in mind – don’t set your expectations too high here. While the new quicklaunch feature is enabled, Aero Peek doesn’t work and the Jumplists “are stale”.

[Check it out via PC Mag]

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, pre-beta, Aero Shake, Protected Features Unlocked

Curious to see what the pre-beta build of Windows 7 would be like on a Mac system? Well the folks at PC Magazine/Gearlog did exactly this by installing the pre-beta build delivered at last week’s PDC on a new MacBook Pro system using Bootcamp. Unfortunately it appears the Mac drivers for Windows Vista did not help with Windows 7 as various features were not working including wireless networking, and mouseover preview. They’ve posted a video up on YouTube (shown below).

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Windows 7 Pre-beta, MacBook Pro, Bootcamp

It’s 8am and it’s day two of the Microsoft PDC. Today we’re expecting the announcement of Windows 7 as well as the announcement of what exactly is in the next version of Windows. It looks like Wi-Fi is working just fine this morning – well at least until the rest of the thousands of developer drones walk into this hall. In any case, I’ll try and get you the latest updates as fast as possible. Pictures will probably have to wait till I get a chance to upload pics to my trusty little netbook. BTW – I now officially need a lighter SLR camera. Now that I have a netbook that’s under three pounds, I need a camera that’s lighter… then life would be perfect as a blogger. OK.. time to conserve battery..

Oh.. and I do believe we get “the goods” today… (for those at the PDC, this will occur at 1pm).

8:08am – Darn it.. just as I thought – too many users in one location and now Wi-Fi is practically useless. Oh well – guess you’ll have to wait for the info till after the keynote is over with

8:26am – they’re asking us to sit down now.. soon.. oh so soon.

BTW – excuse the typos – I’ll clean this up when I get out of the keynote (and add pictures).

8:30am – they’re starting up the keynote on time today – opening things up with a video of various vendor applications running on what I presume is Microsoft Windows Vista.

And now.. here’s Ray Ozzie (cue in applause)

Ozzie begins by recapping yesterdays announcement of Windows Azure (Windows in the Cloud) and the Azure Services Platform. Yesterday it all about the computing foundation for services – the backend tier. Today, Microsoft will be showing the outside in view – the user interface, the front end innovations, the new client platforms, the applications, Microsoft’s take on the current era of personal computing.

Ray – “Its hard to imagine a life without a PC.. I mean what would you do all day?” (laughs from the audience) (slightly paraphrased too).

Time for a little reflection on the PC and Windows and on how it has adapted  according to our changing needs.

Today the PC is adapting once again. According to Ozzie, we’ve barely scratched the surface on how the PC can improve what we do on the net and how the net can improve the value of the PC. Ozzie brings the phone into the mix now and has a call to action for developers to help improve the PC, phone, and web and make it more valuable collectively.

Application development for the PC is still very relevant. People build apps to bring an experience closer to the user – closer to the hardware. The key to a Windows PC is how it richly enables the way we edit and consume content. A PC is a personal information management device.

So what about the web? What makes it so special? According to Ray, the web lets us communicate with people. It allows us to find access share and transact information; it allows us to connect to devices, services and activities; and it assembles the worlds people and information.

And the phone? It’s similar to a PC in terms of development. However, the key to the phone is – it’s always with you wherever you are. Its unique value is how it enables an app spontaneity.

Thus the PC, phone, and the web all of their unique roles and values and when taken together, they’re far more valuable than taken apart.

Microsoft wants to build the best apps for all three tiers and wants to help developers build the best apps by providing tools, platforms, and services to make this all possible.

And now, Ozzie goes over who will be coming on stage.

• Steven who will introduce Windows 7 and talk about Windows Live Wave 3
• Scott and Dave will talk about development for PC phone and web
• Takeshi will come out to talk about Office and software + services

And now, let’s talk about Windows 7 – Steven comes out and starts things off by showing all of us a demo.

A demo of Windows 7 now..

Here are the key notes thus far:

• Windows 7 has a new taskbar. The quick launch buttons that we all love has been enhanced greatly and merged with the open windows buttons.
• Hover over a button and it will show you all the instances of apps running through thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail to open up the app. Close the app by clicking on the X button on the thumbnail.
• If no app is running then no thumbnails will appear
• Right click a button and a new “Jump List” feature will pop up showing documents, actions etc specific to the app.
• Finally, you can move open windows around and organize it the way you want it (The crowd applauses)

Open windows can now snap to either side of the desktop simply by dragging the window to the side – makes opening up side by side windows very easy.

They’re now talking about the changes to Windows Explorer.

First off, there’s a new feature called Libraries which are collections of digital content – whether it’s on your PC, across other PCs or network devices. You can have multiple libraries which you can then import and have accessible from a single location. You can browse and search for content through Windows Explorer.

Improvements to Windows Networking – All Windows 7 PCs can automatically find each other in a home network and automatically configure devices. Plug a PC or notebook into the home network and the right printers will get attached immediately.

There’s a new HomeGroup feature. All printers, wireless devices, documents, music etc are made automatically available once you connect to the HomeGroup network. This makes it easy for a PC to connect to one another.

HomeGroup also ties in nicely with the Libraries feature – you can easily find, access, and control content – whether it’s on your PC or some other device on the network. You can search for songs on your PC or search within the HomeGroup and see if a song exists on other PCs. Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, and Windows Explorer all share the same Libraries technology.

Speaking of Windows Media Player, there’s a new version coming out – they demo a feature where WMP controls a Sonos media player by directing a file that is located on a different PC to be played through a Sonos music player. This is all done on a separate remote PC. Basically control content playback on different devices from different PCs

There’s a new Windows 7 feature called “Device Stage” which shows capabilities of devices. Here’s a picture of a Motorola handset and all the things you can do with the device once it’s connected to your PC:

Nice feature of Windows 7 – especially for work/home laptop users. You can now automatically switch printers depending on whether you are at work or at home (more applause). Go to work and Windows 7 will automatically select the work printer. Go home and the OS will select the home printer – all done automatically..

Personalization Time – Change themes and preview them by going to the lower right corner of the desktop.

System Tray time – The system tray is FINALLY customizable (again more applause). You can control and customize notifications from the system tray (those darn balloon messages stink)

There’s a new “Action Center” which brings together security and maintenance into a single view.

Windows 7 has been retooled with major touch enhancements

Finger presses can bring up items within the Jump List – There’s also 25 % more space between items for easier navigation.

All your familiar mouse commands have been retooled and repowered with touch support – which means even if your application isn’t touch enabled you can still use it using your finger gestures.

There’s a new on-screen keyboard with predictive touch. Internet Explorer supports zooming and flicks and gestures for easier navigation.

Windows Explorer and Microsoft Paint have been retooled for touch. Now a joke about how once every 15 years, Microsoft updates tools in Windows Yes Paint has a new ribbon – hahahhaha

Now they’re talking about Windows Live.

Windows Live services extends your experience from the PC to the web – it’s of course optional and downloadable. Bring your content and sync it to Live services which you can then access via the web. Windows Live Essentials now available in Beta.

And now.. Microsoft wants to talk about the transition from Windows Vista. First, what did Microsoft learn from Vista (laughs from the audience) Yes.. they acknowledge that the company received some feedback from various sources including vendors, some blogs (snickering in the audience), from users, and oh yes.. even some commercials here and there (much more laughter here).

Now as a result of the feedback, Microsoft went back and wanted to improve the performance and reliability of Vista resulting in SP1. They’re certainly happy with SP1 but more work could be done,

Some key lessons learned from Windows Vista:

• Readiness of the ecosystem – The ecosystem is the elements that bring a PC to life – from hardware to software vendors. Vista changed a lot of things that required a lot of work from the ecosystem,. Microsoft really wasn’t ready at launch when Vista came out,. They needed to do a better job with Windows 7 hence it has the same kernel as Vista and 2008 which means no changes need to be done for the ecosystem
• Standards –Developers want Microsoft to support standards. Microsoft is aiming for better standards support in Windows 7 – it shows up in IE8 with better CSS support and of course trying to pass those acid tests. Wordpad has even been updated to support XML – again – more tools updates!
• Compatibility – Changes in Vista made compatibility challenging to say the least. The best example is the UAC (which people laugh at again). They acknowledge that they probably went a little too far with UAC. Despite the changes introduced, Windows is more secure than ever before for users
• Scenarios  – Microsoft needs to do a great job in delivering a better end to end experience. They’ve always seem to miss that “last mile” to making Windows just right. Windows 7 hopefully changes all of that.

New features for developers to play with

• Ribbon User Interface
• Jump Lists –the little menus on the task and start menu
• Libraries – brings together search and content across multiple PCs
• Multi-touch, Ink, Speech – ways to augment the user experience.
• DirectX family – extended to 2d, animation and text

And now a demo from AutoDesk to show how the Touch APIs have been integrated into their application.

Microsoft now switches to talking about “Fundamentals” which encompasses compatibility, security, reliability, performance

Thing they are trying to decrease include memory usage (reduce the memory and disk footprint of a core Windows 7 installation), disk I/O (less registry reads and indexer), and power usage (increase DVD playback, panel, reduce resolution of timers which greatly increase power efficiency)

Things they’re trying to make faster include speed (faster boot, device ready etc), responsiveness in the start menu, task bar, and scale of Windows (up to 256 processors).

Another demo of Windows 7 development – hey shows off the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook,

Other improvements coming to Windows 7 include:

• Bitlocker encryption comes to memory sticks

• You can create native virtual hard drives (VHDs) within Windows now – dynamic and fixed sizes. You can natively boot from a VHD! – great for developers, Mount and boot from the same VHD.

• Supports setting custom DPI settings
• Enhanced multimonitor support

• Improved magnifier – great for UI developers

• New Windows ‘P’ shortcut – hold down and P to select monitors and projectors. Remote desktop supports multi-monitor too!

Multimonitor across two presentation screens

• Customize shutdown button – change location of task bars – change sizes and buutton sizes etc

• Complete control of messages from various apps etc. Added a slider to control how much the UAC will interact with you.

Now the road to RTM

• Everyone here at PDC gets a copy of pre-beta Windows 7 (this is the M3 build) – a build that meets the design criteria from Microsoft and which is currently running internally within Microsoft, Not all feature complete – the UI is not all there yet.
• Read the E7 blog
• The Beta will be feature complete – no performance benchmarking though but it is the complete product. Beta will be delivered early next year. Beta will also be opened to a broader audience
• There will be a new Feedback Tool in the beta with a link in every window. Doubleclick it, and add comments etc to provide direct feedback back to Microsoft,.
• Customer Experience Improvement Data (CEID) – turn it on to allow Microsoft to see what is and is not working – as well as performance information.
• Release Candidate to RTM phase – No info on when the product will come out. Sticking to three years of when Vista comes out generally

Developer Action Items

• Install and use the prebeta of Windows 7
• Microsoft wants you to write 64 bits
• Focus on fundamentals in code
• Integrate with Windows 7 desktop
• Evaluate the new APIs in Windows 7
• Code to web standards in IE8
• Download Windows Live Beta

NOTE – the following will be edited later on in the day- I have to run to classes now.

Introducing Scott Guthrie now – tools and platforms

Windows 7 Client Development

You can take advantage of Windows 7 regardless of what programming language you use. Bring together

Win32 and C++

• New Windows 7 APIs – ribbon, jump lists, libraries, multtouch etc
• MFC for Windows 7
• Visual Studio 2010 – IDE support for large code bases and multicore development

Windows apps with .NET

• .NET 3.5 SP1 improvements
• Built into Windows 7

Now a demo of writing code using WPF

A new WPF release being announced today – new DataGrid, DatePicker, Calendar, Ribbon controls.

Now talking about .NET 4

* New WPF improvements like multitouch, deep zoom etc.

* Fundamentals and interoperability – build better apps – client and server – Load CLR2 and CLR4 in the same process/address space. Making it easier to integrate managed and native code

* Improved tooling with Visual Studio 2010 – multi—monitor support and VS2010 will be built on WPF

– write tests first and then design classes from them

- PDC folks will get CTP version of VS2010 – new visualizer code in IDE

- VS 2010 extensibility

Now talking about WPF and .NET client momentum

* demo from Tesco.com – they;re entirely powered in .NET,. These guys are the largest grocery shopping vendor in the country

ah yes – an integrated bar code reader so you can read it from a webcam within the tesco application and then add it to a shopping basket.

Now back to .NET programming.. I’ll just show you slides. Also – Silverlight is going to be coming to the desktop – not just the web.

David Treadwell comes out to talk about Windows Live Services. Again – here are digital stills of the slides being shown.

And now, we have information about Office 14 and what’s in store for Office for the web. The key talking points about Office 14 for the web:

• There will be Office web app versions for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote
• Seamless collaboration of documents between online and offline versions – with changes automatically synchronized within the same document opened by different users
• Office Live will be usable in IE, Firefox and Safari. Silverlight will enhance the experience of Office Live

Wow.. this was one long keynote – in fact it ran overtime and into the other keynote address which I probably will not be attending now. Time to clean this up and post it up on the web (also need to recharge the netbook!)

Technorati Tags: Microsoft PDC, Day two, Windows 7, microsoft

The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Over the years, we have taken different approaches to naming Windows.  We’ve used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or “aspirational” monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista.  And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense.  Likewise, coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows.

Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore “Windows 7″ just makes sense.

Now after the announcement was made, the web was abuzz as to whether this really was the seventh version of Windows. People began counting the different version of Windows that’s appeared over the years and the seven just didn’t add up. Of course it’s rather amusing that NO ONE thought about this earlier when everyone in the world knew the next version was codenamed “Windows 7’ – but whatever. I suppose news has been slow recently eh? (BTW.. has reporting on CNET’s News.com gotten worse or is it just me?)

So people asked.. and good ol Mike decided to write another posting yesterday to answer this very topic. Here’s some snippets from the posting:

“I’ll say up front, that there are many ways to count the releases of Windows and it’s been both a trip down memory lane and quite amusing to read all the different theories about how we got to the number “7.”

Anyway, the numbering we used is quite simple.  The very first release of Windows was Windows 1.0, the second was Windows 2.0, the third Windows 3.0.

Here’s where things get a little more complicated.  Following Windows 3.0 was Windows NT which was code versioned as Windows 3.1. Then came Windows 95, which was code versioned as Windows 4.0.  Then, Windows 98, 98 SE and Windows Millennium each shipped as 4.0.1998, 4.10.2222, and 4.90.3000, respectively. So we’re counting all 9x versions as being 4.0.

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn’t’ want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0.  So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7^th in the family of Windows releases.””

So there you have it folks.. Windows 7 is the next version and folks attending the PDC and WinHEC will get a chance to see a version of it. Hope to attend PDC.. we’ll see (since I do have jury duty).

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, Mike Nash,