Newsletter Archives

• Windows 7: four versions that matter

  Posted on February 4, 2009 at 05:48 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Microsoft just lifted the news embargo on its new lineup for Windows 7 versions. There’s a good analysis on Ed Bott’s blog and an insider-sounding “interview” with Paul Thurrott.

  Microsoft did several things right:

  They limited the number of versions. If you’re choosing, you only have three choices (the fourth, Win7 Starter, is only available pre-installed on netbooks).

  They made each bigger (and more expensive) version a superset of the smaller version. Thus, when you move from Win7 Home Premium to Win7 Pro to Win7 Ultimate, you gain features and don’t lose any.

  They aren’t over-hyping Ultimate. This was the cardinal sin of Vista marketing.

  The bottom line: unless you need to connect to a corporate “domain”, you want Home Premium. If you do connect to a domain from time to time, you want Pro, unless you need BitLocker encryption for the hard drive. In that case, you need Ultimate.

  There are a few if’s and’s and but’s, but that’s about the size of it.

  Oh. Microsoft did one thing wrong. They used very confusing names for the two least-expensive versions. Windows 7 Home Basic is analogous to Vista Starter Edition (they’re both only available in emerging markets, for example). And Windows 7 Starter Edition – the netbook version – isn’t even close to Vista Starter Edition. I have no idea why they kept the names but completely revamped the contents.

  Windows News

• Windows 7 going straight to Release Candidate

  Posted on January 31, 2009 at 18:09 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I’ve been pounding the living daylights out of Windows 7, and so far I’m very impressed – not as impressed by the feature improvements (of which there are a few of note) or the glittergrade, but by the stability of the beast. The beta beast.

  I’ve frequently chided Steve Sinofsky for shipping software too early. (Going all the way back to Office XP, eh, Steve?). This time, based solely on what I’ve seen, I can’t help but cheer him on. I think Windows 7 is going to be a big hit. It might even take some steam out of the inexorable shift to open source and cloud computing – even the Mac. I never thought I’d say that about any modern version of Windows.

  Steve just blogged about the future of the Windows 7 beta. Looks like the “Beta Refresh” will, in fact, be Release Candidate 1. I expect it to arrive in late March or early April. And I doubt that RC2 will be distributed to the unwashed masses.

  There’s still a lot of work to be done between now and RTM. We still don’t have a clue as to which versions of Windows 7 will be available, how much they’ll cost, what kind of iron they’ll require, and what upgrade restrictions might be imposed. But, for the first time ever, I’m pretty confident Sinofsky and his kick-butt team will get it right.

  Many months ago I predicted that Windows 7 would be widely available in shrinkwrapped boxes on store shelves by September 1. I’m beginning to think Microsoft may actually beat that target.

  Windows News

• Windows 7 Beta available for download

  Posted on January 10, 2009 at 07:35 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Microsoft is having a hard time keeping up, but the Windows 7 beta is available for download in 32 bit (x86) and 64 bit flavors.

  I’m currently seeing download speeds of about 60 KB per second – at which rate it’ll take about 12 hours to download the entire DVD.

  If you have a spare machine, or a spare hard drive for a dual-boot setup, it’s well worth trying.

  Windows News

• Windows 7 Beta and keys on MSDN

  Posted on January 8, 2009 at 13:43 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  If you subscribe to MSDN, check the Subscriber Downloads section. You’ll find a copy of Windows 7 Beta available for download, as well as keys for validation.

  At this moment, my connection is running about 150 KB per second, but it’s bobbing up and down. Microsoft’s servers are clearly taking a hit. If you’re an MSDN subscriber, get your copy now.

  Everybody else will have to wait another 24 hours. Brandon LeBlanc has details on the Windows 7 blog.

  It looks like this is the same version – Build 7000 – that’s been circulating for the past week and a half. No word as yet on whether Microsoft has solved the Windows Media Player 12 MP3 zapping bug. [Update: The fix, KB 961367, is on the MSDN Subscriber download site.] But general consensus is that the Win 7 Beta is well worth installing, if you have a rather hefty spare computer sitting around. You can also run it dual-boot. I am. It’s easy.

  Does Microsoft have a winner in the wings? Could be. Watch here for running commentary.

  Windows News

• Windows 7 Beta 1 has leaked

  Posted on December 28, 2008 at 07:31 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  And I can see it right now on the alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.me-beta newsgroup. It’s called working.one_microsoft.windows.7.beta.1.build.7000. I can’t vouch for the file’s authenticity – make sure the copy you get has an fsum of f9dce6ebd0a63930b44d8ae802b63825 – but it sure looks like the “gold” version of Win 7 Beta 1.

  The warez sites get it before the beta testers, and Torrent traffic is undoubtedly up because of the beta. On the one hand, I bet some folks at Microsoft are furious. On the other hand, it’s a very efficient and egalitarian distribution method.

  Windows News

• The Windows 7 ship date guessing game

  Posted on December 6, 2008 at 04:56 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Paul Thurrott has weighed in with a surprising prediction for the release date of Windows 7:

  It’s pretty widely known that Microsoft will ship a beta release (and a public one at that) of Windows 7 in January. This beta will be the only beta and it will be followed by a single release candidate build, and then the final version, all in quick succession. I expect Windows 7 to be finalized by April 2009 at the latest, and to be completed simultaneously with Windows Vista/Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is also due in April. (Windows 7 and SP2 share more code than people realize as well, by the way.) Windows 7 will be made broadly available to consumers and business customers no later than June 2009.

  Many months ago, I guessed September 1 as the shrinkwrap-box-on-store-shelves date. Now I’m not so sure.

  Steve Sinofsky shipped Office XP before it was fully baked, and he still thinks he did the right thing. He has a history of shipping early on all of his products: he puts them through very rigorous internal testing, but doesn’t worry too much about testing outside of Redmond. The result is lots of incompatibilities, which he promptly patches – consumers turn into beta testers – and his sales don’t suffer. I expect he’ll do the same thing with Win7.

  The move to unlink the Live Essentials was brilliant. Many of the cantankerous Windows programs can be released four or six months after Win7 ships, with new “beta” versions every month. Sharing the code base between Vista Service Pack 2 and Windows 7 means we get more glitz with the same old plumbing – but it’s new plumbing.

  The current pre-beta of Win7 is remarkably stable. I wouldn’t be surprised if Win7 went gold in June.

  Windows News

• Got Windows 7? Enable the SuperBar

  Posted on November 3, 2008 at 08:26 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  If you were fortunate enough to attend the Professional Developer’s Conference last week, you no doubt came away with a shiny new CD packed with a pre-beta copy of Windows 7. So-called Windows 7 Build 6801 is remarkably stable, but it remains to be seen if all of the features in the build will make it into the final product.

  One of the features that MS demonstrated extensively at PDC, but doesn’t appear in Build 6801, is called the SuperBar. It’s a Mac-like version of the Windows TaskBar with several interesting twists.

  Rafael Rivera, the Windows user interface guy who runs the Within Windows site, has posted a rather convoluted sequence of steps that you can use to unlock the SuperBar. Assuming you have Windows 7 Build 6801.

  I’ve got Build 6801 up and running, and I’m marginally impressed. More details as I get more experience with the beast. If you’re curious about the next version of Windows (which I still guess will be widely available on store shelves on September 1, 2009), check out Ed Bott’s ZDNet blog, Ars Technica’s overview of the new user interface, or Paul Thurrott’s five-part preview.

  As usual, Long Zheng’s IStartedSomething blog has lots of insider details.

  Windows News

• Emergency Patches for Windows 200, XP and Server 2003

  Posted on October 23, 2008 at 21:16 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Microsoft just announced that it’s issuing a special “out of band” Security Bulletin on October 23.

  There are basically no details except the fact that MS rates the patches as “Critical” for Windows 2000, XP and 2003. They’re only rated “Important” for Vista and Windows Server 2008.

  No idea what’s happening, but the security hole must be easily exploitable. Stay tuned, and for heaven’s sake, don’t install the patch.

  UPDATE: The

  MS08-067 Security Bulletin is out and the 958644 patch has been made available. If you haven’t yet seen it offered through automatic updates, you will soon.

  According to The Register Microsoft was alerted to in-the-wild attacks using this security hole “a couple of weeks ago” but at this point nobody seems to know what or where or when.

  Although the New York Times reports that the Immunity team has a working exploit, I haven’t seen any convincing code. My colleague Susan Bradley at Windows Secrets Newsletter recommends that you install the patch immediately. Brian Livingston at Windows Secrets Newsletter published an extra edition just to cover the problem.

  I have firewalls working on all of my machines. My antivirus signatures are up-to-date. Those aren’t heroic measures, they’re just common sense. Personally, I’m going to wait a day or maybe two and see what shakes loose.

  The sky isn’t falling. Yet.

  Windows News
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