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Get it here: FileHippo.com

Never officially shown and you can see why.

How is the latest Windows 7 beta shaping up? Well in tests ran by ZDNet it appears to be outperforming both Vista and XP in just about every test ran. This is extremely satisfying news to see Microsoft take some of their code that is well established and optimize it so that it works better and faster than previous generations. It also shows that Microsoft is getting serious as its market share is being pushed around by Apple’s OS X. I have not gotten a chance to play with the latest Windows 7 beta but hopefully I will get to in the coming months. Check out the ZDNet site for the results of its tests.

Full Article: ZDNet

Microsoft ran through a demo of their latest OS, Windows 7, today at the PDC Keynote. The OS apparently is aimed to run anything from netbooks to very powerful computers being able to utilize up to 256 CPUs. Here are some of the key features included as of the pre-beta:

• New taskbar with icons instead of text with application options available through right clicking. When you hover over an icon in the taskbar, the other applications on the screen go transparent allowing you to see that application.
• The sidebar is gone and now gadget can appear any place on the screen. This will help out mobile users who do not have that much screen real estate in the first place. This can be combined with the above ‘peek’ feature to render all windows transparent and just view the desktop with gadgets.
• Automatic window resizing: drop a window to the top to maximize to 100% or to the edges for 50% and restore when pulling it down from the top.
• UAC has been tamed down and allowing settings for each program.
• Demoed the improved multitouch features including a start menu which is 25% larger when touch screen is enabled to improve controlability.
• Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky showcased his netbook with 1GHz processor (presumably a VIA Nano) and 1GB of RAM running Windows 7 and saying about half the RAM was still available after boot. It is probably a special netbook version, but still impressive.
• As I said before, scaling up to 256 CPUs. I doubt any consumer computer would need this ability in Windows 7’s lifetime, but it is probably a function embedded in the kernel code for compute clusters.
• Improved multi monitor management and setting up projectors. Remote Desktop Connection will be able to be used with multiple monitors.
• Improved UI for Media Center resembling the Zune Interface.

All in all a pretty decent amount of improvements in the last year or so that work has been done with Windows 7. Microsoft has said before they want to keep changes to a minimum and focus on making the OS provide a better experience for the customer. The dramatic change from XP to Vista is probably what gave a lot of users a hard time so keeping the UI similar but better looking and more intuitive helps. No release date has been set yet, just hopefully Microsoft gets it done correctly before pushing it out of the door. Below are some more relevant links if you are craving more screenshots and information. I will try to keep as up to date with the Windows 7 developments as I can. I also hope to write more about Microsoft’s other big project, Windows Azure, the cloud OS.

Windows 7 First Look: Ars Technica

Keynote Videos: Microsoft

Windows 7 Media Center: We Got Served

Microsoft has made it clear that they aren’t throwing in the towel with Vista and prepping their next OS, Windows 7 instead. Vista SP1 came out this past spring with surprising success and they have released what we can expect from SP2 out whenever the beta trials have sufficient quality for wide release. This is probably a better release criteria rather than setting a date and hoping they can get the quality of the product to a sufficient level in order to be on time. However, it will be out before Windows 7 arrives. So here is what we can expect:

• Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches
• Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack supporting the most recent specification for Bluetooth Technology
• Ability to record to Blu-Ray discs natively built into Vista
• Windows Connect Now (WCN) to simplify Wi-Fi Configuration
• exFAT file system to provide UTC  timestamps for accurate file synchronization

In the meantime, Microsoft recommends users to use Vista SP1 as it is the best platform currently available from Microsoft. As a user of Vista for nearly two years now, I could not agree any more. A lot of flack of Vista came before its SP1 and since then it has been rock solid and does not deserve such a sour reputation.

Full Article: Microsoft Vista Blog

The latest screenshots of Windows 7 in Milestone 3 have come out, but there is not that much new to see. This version of the OS has been focusing mostly on under the hood changes leaving the GUI mostly untouched. They are putting the Ribbon interface into more applications and GUI changes will be seen later on as it gets ready for beta release.

Full Article: Engadget

Videos: Think Next

Microsoft is incubating a componentized non-Windows operating system known as Midori, which is being architected from the ground up to tackle challenges that Redmond has determined cannot be met by simply evolving its existing technology.

SD Times has viewed internal Microsoft documents that outline Midori’s proposed design, which is Internet-centric and predicated on the prevalence of connected systems.

Midori is an offshoot of Microsoft Research’s Singularity operating system, the tools and libraries of which are completely managed code. Midori is designed to run directly on native hardware (x86, x64 and ARM), be hosted on the Windows Hyper-V hypervisor, or even be hosted by a Windows process.

According to published reports, Eric Rudder, senior vice president for technical strategy at Microsoft and an alumnus of Bill Gates’ technical staff, is heading up the effort. Rudder served as senior vice president of Microsoft’s Servers and Tools group until 2005. A Microsoft spokesperson refused comment.

…

Building Midori from the ground up to be connected underscores how much computing has changed since Microsoft’s engineers first designed Windows; there was no Internet as we understand it today, the PC was the user’s sole device and concurrency was a research topic.

Today, users move across multiple devices, consume and share resources remotely, and the applications that they use are a composite of local and remote components and services. To that end, Midori will focus on concurrency, both for distributed applications and local ones.

According to the documentation, Midori will be built with an asynchronous-only architecture that is built for task concurrency and parallel use of local and distributed resources, with a distributed component-based and data-driven application model, and dynamic management of power and other resources.

Midori’s design treats concurrency as a core principle, beyond what even the Microsoft Robotics Group is trying to accomplish, said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group.

The Midori documents foresee applications running across a multitude of topologies, ranging from client-server and multi-tier deployments to peer-to-peer at the edge, and in the cloud data center. Those topologies form a heterogeneous mesh where capabilities can exist at separate places.

Full Article: SDTimes

If you have been following Microsoft’s foray into the data center market, than you will realize this plan makes perfect sense. Microsoft has been busy building up data centers all over the country mostly with the modular container data centers. There has been a push to get Office applications on the web and a big push with the Live Internet services. So, it just makes sense that they want to stick the OS in the clouds too. If this plan is going to work, there will need to be some serious work done with the infrastructure in the United States when it comes to broadband. For cloud computing to really take off, idealistically everyone will need fiber connections where you have access to high bandwidth and low latency. I will admit, it should be an interesting time seeing how this all develops.

Asustek Computer Inc. on Friday confirmed that it will launch the Eee PC 900 in the U.S. on May 12, and will set $549 as the list price for the new ultralight notebook.

The Eee PC 900, which the Taipei-based computer maker unveiled last Tuesday, can be configured with either Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP Home or the open-source Linux. The price for both configurations, said an Asustek spokesman, is identical: $549.

But there are differences. Users who purchase an Eee PC 900 with Linux, however, receive a laptop that boasts 20GB of flash memory-based storage space. Customers who opt for Windows XP, meanwhile, end up with a machine equipped with only 12GB of solid-state storage.

When asked why the two models pack different quantities of storage space — and whether the lesser amount was stuck in the XP version because of the licensing fees Asustek must pay to Microsoft — Asustek spokesman Charlton Ho called it a “strategic decision.”

“Cost would be one of the reasons, but not the main one,” Ho said in an e-mail. He then proceeded to trumpet the Linux-based system. “Also, [the] Linux version is our main Eee PC model with our unique interface, so the consumer not only can get the great and easy-to-use interface on the Linux version but extra storage space,” Ho added.

Both Windows and Linux models pack an 8.9-in. screen, 1GB of system memory, a 1.3-megapixel camera and an Apple MacBook Air-style multi-touch trackpad.

This is the second ultralight line from Asustek that offers XP as an option; it currently sells a Eee PC with a 7-in. display in the U.S. for $399.

Window XP, which is to disappear as an option on most new computers after June 30, was granted a reprieve of sorts two weeks ago, when Microsoft said it would allow OEMs building what it called ultra low-cost PC (ULCPC) laptops to pre-install XP Home until the end of June 2010.

Source: Computer World

It’s nice to see this version of the Eee PC have the option of Windows installed from the get-go. The previous Eee PC supported XP, but you had to get it on there yourself, but this way you won’t have to have an external optical drive to install the OS of choice. It’s also interesting that there is an incentive to go with the Linux variety because it has more storage space. The price is a bit high for the spec offered, but this is definitely an ultra portable machine and it is difficult to cram a lot in there. The race should become more interesting this summer as Intel releases its Atom processor for ultra portable machines and Dell and HP are expected to begin releasing their ultra portable versions.

For the second time in two weeks, Microsoft Corp. has released a new build of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to its invitation-only group of approximately 15,000 testers, giving weight to recent speculation that the final code is close.

The newest version, dubbed Vista SP1 Release Candidate (RC) Refresh 2, was released to testers yesterday, Microsoft confirmed today. “This group includes corporate customers, consumer enthusiasts, software and hardware vendors, and others,” a company spokeswoman said. “The code is not available for public download.”

Microsoft made the same claim two weeks ago, when on Jan. 11 it unveiled SP1 RC Refresh, saying then that it would keep the build private. Two days later, however, it posted the refresh to the Windows Update service.

Microsoft has repeatedly said it has slated the release of Vista SP1, the long-anticipated first major update to its newest operating system, for the first quarter of the year. This week, however, fueled by a report out of Taiwan that claimed Feb. 15 would be SP1’s day, talk intensified of the service pack’s imminent release. When asked about the rumors, the Microsoft spokeswoman answered: “The final release date is based on quality, so we will continue to track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date.”

Source: ComputerWorld.com

I’ve been using Vista for just over a year without any problems. I’ve used Windows XP on the same system and I would say Vista is noticeably faster. I know Vista has been knocked around quite a bit by critics over the past year, but I think SP1 will change the opinions of those who doubt it. Loose ends will be tied up in the release and a few quirks that have prevents people from upgrading will be mended. I’ll be looking out for Vista SP1.