Top 10 Windows 7 Features #8: Automated third-party troubleshooting
Among the stronger and more flourishing cottage industries that have sprouted forth as a result of Microsoft Windows has been documenting all of its problems. One of the most successful of these efforts has been Annoyances.org, which sprouted forth from "Windows Annoyances" -- much of what Internet publishers have learned today about search engine optimization comes from revelations directly gleaned from the trailblazing work of Annoyances.org. Imagine, if you will, if the instructions that Annoyances.org painstakingly gives its readers for how to eradicate those little changes that Microsoft makes without your permission, were encoded not in English but instead in a language that Windows could actually execute on the user's behalf.
Windows 7 is actually making such an environment -- a system where, if you trust someone else other than Microsoft to make corrections to your system, you can accept that someone into your circle of trust and put him to work in Troubleshooting. Can't make that Wi-Fi connection? How do you test for the presence of other interfering signals? Streaming media suddenly get slow, or running in fits and starts? Maybe there's an excess of browser-related processes clogging up memory and resources. Did something you just install cause Flash not to work in your browser? Maybe you don't have time to check the 36 or so places in the Registry where that something altered your file associations.
How to really test the Windows 7 Release Candidate
Top 10 Windows 7 Features #9: Native PowerShell 2.0
Ever since the command-line tool code-named Monad escaped by the skin of its fingernails from Microsoft's laboratories in 2006, there has been debate and dispute over whether the company has finally, once and for all, replaced DOS. Since that time, we've seen the arrival of an entirely new generation of Windows users who believe "DOS" is an acronym for "denial of service," and who are baffled as to the reasons why anyone would want to command or control an operating system using text.
It isn't so much that text or command-line syntax is the "old" way of working and that Microsoft Management Console is the "new" way. As Microsoft discovered, to the delight of some in its employ and the dismay of others, using the command line as the fundamental basis for Exchange Server improved its usability and efficiency immensely. The graphical environment simply does not translate well -- or to be fairer, not effectively -- to the task of administration.
Europe: Get the US and other countries out of Internet governance
In the boldest statement yet from European government leaders on the need for globalization of Internet authority, Commissioner Viviane Reding called specifically upon President Obama to allow the US' oversight of the world's domain name authority to lapse after this September, but then to allow the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to become a fully privatized entity. Such an entity, the Commissioner said, would be answerable mainly to the global community of users, represented -- as she foresees it -- by an international tribunal.
"To continue reaping the benefits of the online world, the Internet must evolve on a solid and democratic base," stated Comm. Reding in her weekly address (PDF of full transcript available here). "ICANN is a private not-for profit corporation established in California. Since it was created more than 10 years ago, ICANN has been working under an agreement with the US Department of Commerce. At the moment, the US government is the only body exercising some oversight over ICANN. I believe that the US, so far, done this in a reasonable manner. However, I also believe that the Clinton administration's decision to progressively privatize the internet's domain name and addressing system is the right one. In the long run, it is not defendable that the government department of only one country has oversight of an Internet function which is used by hundreds of millions of people in countries all over the world."
Is 'XP Mode' in Windows 7 something you'd want to use?
Since Microsoft's acquisition of SoftGrid application virtualization two years ago, the company's engineers have known that this technology could present an attractive and even preferable shortcut to the perennial problem of downward compatibility. If you set aside the problem of affordability for a moment, the other key reason businesses remain hesitant to adopt Windows Vista at present is because of the uncertainty that existing business applications will be seamlessly portable into the new environment.
This is much more of a problem for businesses than consumers, although a lot of the excitement around what Microsoft's calling "XP mode" in Windows 7 (whose first and probably only Release Candidate should be available to the general public tomorrow) came from everyday users who perceived the company's move as a nod toward the efficiencies of the past, as opposed to the planned obsolescence of the future. The fact is, businesses continue to invest in software up front with the expectation that it will pay off in the long term, depreciating it like an asset rather than supporting and nurturing it like a resource. And it is for those businesses that Microsoft must ensure that it facilitates and ensures the same general infrastructure over time.
Top 10 Windows 7 Features #10: Homegroup networking
Beginning now, Betanews is going to get a lot more intimate with technology than you've seen us before, particularly with Microsoft Windows 7 now that it's becoming a reality. Next Tuesday, the first and probably only Release Candidate of the operating system will become available for free download.
It's probably not so much a testing exercise as a colossal promotional giveaway, a way to get Windows 7 out in the field very fast...and use that leverage to push Vista out of the way of history. So much of what you'll see in the Release Candidate in terms of underlying technology is finalized; any tweaks that will be done between now and the general release date (which PC manufacturer Acer blabbed last night will be October 23) will likely be in the looks department.
XP Mode is for real: First 'Windows Virtual PC' beta accompanies Windows 7 RC
Validating the news we received last week of the existence of a virtualization layer, Microsoft this morning unveiled for MSDN and TechNet subscribers the first beta a new and special edition of its virtualization software specifically for Windows 7. Its first release candidate went live to those subscribers also this morning, and will be available to the general public next Tuesday.
Windows Virtual PC already has its own Web site. It's the next edition in the chain whose current version is called "Virtual PC 2007," although this time, the software is specifically geared for Windows 7, and for computers with virtualization support in hardware. That covers nearly all modern CPUs anyway, but specifically Intel-brand CPUs with Intel-VT and AMD-brand CPUs with AMD-V.
Windows 7 RC now being distributed to MSDN, TechNet subscribers
The first "real" copies of Build 7100, the Windows 7 Release Candidate -- quite likely, the only one there will be -- were officially distributed to subscribers to Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet subscribers at 11:00 am EDT / 8:00 am PDT Thursday morning. Included in this morning's distribution are the 32- and 64-bit editions of the Ultimate SKU of the operating system, plus the all-new Windows Driver Kit Release 7 for those who'll be building device drivers for the new OS using the revised driver model; the Automated Installation Kit for remote deployments using servers; and the updated Windows 7 SDK RC in x86, x64, and Itanium editions.
11:15 am EDT April 30, 2009 - Almost immediately upon the RC's public release, the response time for Microsoft's Web services became extremely slow. It's a good sign for the company in one respect: Not all of Microsoft's developers took the bait and downloaded one of last week's leaks.
Time Warner may or may not spin off AOL, says SEC filing
Early morning news reports told readers that Time Warner has begun the process of spinning off its AOL division into a separate entity. The earliest versions of those reports did not this time cite unnamed or anonymous sources, or wireless microphones attached to rats traversing the air ducts of the headquarters building, but instead this morning's regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
As it turns out, that's not exactly what the filing says at all. A Time Warner analysts' briefing this morning will likely lay out the details, but here is what we know based on the source that was actually cited: Time Warner's board of directors has not reached a decision with regard to whether it wants to spin off the AOL unit to TW's shareholders or to anyone else, although the "Company" (read: executives) believe that such a move is probable. However, everyone acknowledges that there may be other possibilities in the works.
Here is the complete passage in question:
Microsoft's browser-tying case may or may not be heard by the EC
This morning, Microsoft issued its formal, sealed response to the European Commission's January Statement of Objections, which was the EC's first step toward formally charging the software maker with objectionable conduct by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. But in a correction of press accounts early this morning, both Microsoft and the European Commission confirmed to Betanews today that the company only issued a request for a hearing before the EC in order to preserve its right to be heard at a later date, and that Microsoft has not decided whether it actually will present its case orally.
"Parties responding to a [Statement of Objections] are required to indicate by that response whether they will request a hearing or preserve their right to one," Microsoft corporate spokesperson Jack Evans told Betanews. "That doesn't mean Microsoft will ultimately press for a hearing...The company has requested a hearing to preserve its right to have one at a later date, but has not yet made that determination."
Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 beats IE8 in Microsoft's own load times test
Last month, Microsoft published a white paper suggesting that, as first adopters installed the final build of Internet Explorer 8, they judge the real performance of the new browser based on what they feel when they use it. Specifically, the authors of the paper (PDF available here) advised users to load their favorite Web sites and feel how much less time it takes to see results. But since many Web sites take only microseconds to load anyway -- perhaps beyond the range of everyday human feeling -- they went on to suggest that folks take videos of their Web sites loading, and use the time index cues to tell the story of whether they should feel pages loading faster or not.
Betanews took Microsoft up on its suggestion...kind of. No, we didn't set up a video camera. But we did set up a clean virtual machine with an adaptation of WebMonkey's Browser Load Time Stopwatch, to see just how many microseconds we should be feeling if our feelers felt that sensitively. At the time, our tests concluded that the latest edition of Mozilla's production release of Firefox available at that time, version 3.0.7, could load 25 selected pages from comScore's Top 50 Web sites (plus Betanews thrown in for good measure) 13% faster on average than the final IE8, and Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 loaded those pages 31% faster than IE8.
Service Pack 2 for Vista and WS2K8 released to manufacturing
In what's turning out to be a busy week for Microsoft, the company announced last night that the code has been finalized for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 -- a unified code base that upgrades both operating systems. This after the only release candidate for SP2 was released for final testing on March 4.
In a Betanews check Wednesday morning, SP2 was not yet being distributed to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, although we can probably expect to see it turn up there in the next few days.
AMD: We didn't say anything about Nvidia licensing
Last week, after AMD's conference to reporters last Wednesday updating its roadmap for server CPUs, we reported that the licensing situation for Nvidia and Broadcom chipsets for use in AMD-based servers looked bleak. This afternoon, AMD spokesperson Phil Hughes contacted Betanews to say that the company made no comment with regard to licensing, and continues to make no comment.
"We haven't made any comment with regard to licensing," stated Hughes. He reiterated Server Business Unit Vice President Pat Patla's comment that AMD has only made a decision to go with AMD-branded chipsets for use in motherboards built for new Opteron processors. But when we asked Hughes whether licensing played any role in AMD's decision to only use AMD chipsets and not extend licenses to Nvidia or Broadcom, Hughes repeated that the company has made no comment with regard to licensing, only that it has chosen to use AMD chips for this purpose.
Office 2007 SP2 is released, can indeed save ODF by default
Download Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 from Fileforum now.
Now all Office users will have the option to load and save OpenDocument files, with today's distribution of Service Pack 2 of Office 2007. In something of a surprise -- contrary to what many at Microsoft led us to believe -- upon installing SP2 on our test systems, we immediately located an option for saving files in ODF by default. That means you don't have to "Save As" and export to ODF if you don't ever want to use Microsoft's OOXML or Office 2003 "compatibility mode;" you can at least try to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as substitutes for OpenOffice.
IE8 now being delivered as 'Important Update' for Vista, 'High Priority' for XP
A few weeks ago, Microsoft made indications that it would be delivering Office 2007 Service Pack 2 and Internet Explorer 8 as important automatic updates to Windows users on the same day. That day ended up being today, and now many Windows users are being prompted for the first time to install IE8 as an update to their operating system. Since the product's release last month, upgrades have only been voluntary.
Though two-thirds of the world's Web traffic is attributable to browsers identifying themselves as Internet Explorer, according to the latest up-to-the-minute data from analytics firm NetApplications, under 5% of that traffic comes from IE8. In fact, only in the last week has IE8 traffic by NetApplications' measure eclipsed HTTP requests hailing from Apple Safari version 3.2, which runs on Mac, iPod Touch, and iPhone. Requests from Mozilla Firefox 3 accounts for nearly one-fifth of analyzed traffic; but now, with IE8 becoming an "in-your-face" update for the very first time, Internet Explorer traffic in total may experience a bump.
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