Articles about Windows 7

Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson today has announced its newest mobile broadband module, which offers promising wireless features built specifically for upcoming Windows 7 devices.

Ericsson's Vice President of Mobile Broadband Modules, Mats Norin, told Betanews that the F3607gw module consumes half the battery of its predecessor. With this decreased battery consumption, the module's HSPA/GPRS/EDGE radios can remain connected even when the equipped device (notebook, netbook, MID, etc) is asleep.

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In an update published yesterday on the Windows 7 design team's efforts at standardizing its touch and gesture recognition methods, Microsoft revealed that it has made some of those ergonomic design choices that were up in the air when Win7 was first unveiled last October.

For example, what's the difference between a "drag" and a "scroll?" Think about it; with a mouse, the distinction is clear. There's an on-screen device for scrolling windows, but with a drag, the pointer target is the item being dragged. With touch, the expectation is that the target is the same: To drag a document or to scroll a document, you start by touching the document. So how does the system distinguish the differences?

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In its first statement in response to Microsoft's decision announced over the weekend to enable Windows 7 users to deactivate and/or uninstall Internet Explorer 8 after the operating system's setup installs it, a spokesperson for Google, which makes the Chrome browser, told Betanews overnight that not only should Windows users be given the option to choose their browsers during setup, but to do so every time they turn their machines on.

"We have not yet been able to see the planned new features of Internet Explorer but are looking forward to examining them when they are released. The Internet was founded on choice and openness and this requires a level playing field with multiple options for accessing it. From the moment a computer is turned on, people should be able to access a range of browsers easily and quickly," the spokesperson stated.

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Once again, comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer during an analysts' briefing two weeks ago are being bandied about by the press as "confirmation" that the company plans to produce a slimmed-down, netbook-ready SKU of Windows 7. However, a complete read of Ballmer's comments, as transcribed by Microsoft (Word document available here), indicate that this isn't what Ballmer said at all. In fact, he seemed intentionally vague on the topic, making clear the company was certainly thinking about the prospect of a netbook Win7 SKU, but confirming nothing.

"I think we have an opportunity when we ship Windows 7, which will fit on a netbook, we have an opportunity to rethink the product lineup for netbooks, product lineup and price lineup, and we get a chance to engage in that dialogue, both with the OEM, and potentially with the OEM and the end user," stated Ballmer last Tuesday, in response to a question from a J.P. Morgan analyst. "Today when you buy a netbook with XP you don't really get a full XP version, you get some restrictions on XP. Some people might say, hey, look, I'm happy with the restrictions, some people might want Windows 7 instead of XP, some might be happy with the restrictions, some end users might not be happy with the same restrictions.

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A Microsoft Windows 7 group product manager confirmed in an announcement dated last Friday, though which is only making its premiere appearance over the weekend, that in the latest private beta build, users will be able to "turn off" -- to use his own phrase for it -- a greater number of standard Windows features including Internet Explorer 8.

"If a feature is deselected, it is not available for use. This means the files (binaries and data) are not loaded by the operating system (for security-conscious customers) and not available to users on the computer," writes Microsoft's Jack Mayo. "These same files are staged so that the features can easily be added back to the running OS without additional media."

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While Microsoft continues to maintain that Windows 7 will launch "3 years from Vista," or early 2010, a Microsoft ODM partner says otherwise. The president of Compal, a Taiwanese manufacturer that builds laptops for HP and Acer, told Bloomberg that Microsoft may begin shipping Windows 7 in late September or early October of this year.

Ray Chen made the statement at an investors' conference in Taipei on Wednesday, adding that he hoped Windows 7 would help boost sagging PC sales due to the global economic crisis. Microsoft, for its part, didn't say Chen was incorrect, but repeated its January 2010 timeframe to Bloomberg. Who to believe? It's hard to say, although some signs have pointed to Microsoft fast-forwarding its release roadmap.

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The first release candidate for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, released last month, addressed a number of technical behavioral issues that, according to IE8 Program Manager Herman Ng yesterday, included some serious crashes and system hangs. That's normal for even a public beta like IE8 Beta 2, and the new Crash Recovery feature in RC1 addresses 94% of these "reliability problems," Ng said, albeit with what could be for many testers a very well-used safety net.

But what about Windows 7 beta testers? The IE8 release candidates currently available are for Windows Vista and Windows XP, separately. Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to address their concerns as well, so yesterday, it begain issuing a "reliability update" for its version of IE8. This doesn't make its IE8 a "release candidate for Win7," though it does roll up the various fixes implemented in the Vista and XP RC versions.

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It shouldn't surprise many testers that Microsoft has shrewdly closed the upgrade channel for users who will -- probably sooner this year than later -- be making the switch to Windows 7. Many who had chosen to steer clear of Windows Vista and hang on to Windows XP -- by all rights, a decent operating system, at least for Service Pack 3 users -- are pondering the nightmare scenario of having to upgrade to and validate (which usually means, pay for) both Vista and Windows 7, if it so happens that Windows 7 proves to be desirable or simply necessary.

This led us to thinking: Windows Vista can run without being purchased and activated, albeit for a limited time (usually 30 days). During that time, it behaves as though it were a fully operational trial edition (except for the Ultimate SKU, where several of the "Extras" aren't available except after validating). But it doesn't take a month to install an operating system; so what if a valid XP user could simply borrow the promotional edition of Vista, if you will, to make the skip over to Windows 7?

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After Microsoft ended the Windows 7 Beta 1 downloads this week, reports of the appearance of a new leaked build quickly began to roll in. Users who didn't get a chance to download Beta 1 are now turning to BitTorrent sites to get the newer, leaked release.

Though reportedly "nothing major," the 7022 build is dated January 15, and includes Internet Explorer 8 RC 1. Windows 7 Beta 1 was build 7000.

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In Microsoft's ongoing effort to alleviate users' discomfort with Windows Vista's security nags, the company may be re-introducing a potential powder keg of new problems, as researchers continue to discover.

In his continuing investigation of the UAC bypasses being tested for Windows 7, developer Rafael Rivera points out another potentially serious problem: As developer Leo Davidson noted in a recent blog post, some binaries in Windows 7 are given the ability to present XML-based manifests of themselves that give themselves a privilege called autoelevate.

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A number of key details surrounding Microsoft's announcement yesterday on Windows 7 versions were left up in the air, and now spokespersons are working to bring them down to earth.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that Windows 7 Home Basic -- the version of the operating system that would have reduced "experience" features, comparable to Vista Home Basic -- will not be available to retail customers in the US, Canada, and Western Europe. But Win7 Starter Edition -- which was at one time touted as the company's emerging markets version -- will be available through retail channels.

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There will be a client version of Windows 7 geared for everyday consumers, and another client version for businesses other than those that would normally purchase volume licenses. The reasons why are growing fewer in number.

The official explanation for Microsoft's choice of product SKUs for Windows 7 later this year -- which follows an almost identical pattern to the current breakdown for Windows Vista -- could be more befuddling than the existing explanation for Vista. Yesterday's prepared Q&A with Windows General Manager Mike Ybarra states in great detail that his company's choices give consumers a broad array of choices, while at the same time acknowledging that there's only one choice they should make anyway.

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In what appears to be a deadly serious effort to expedite the rollout of its next operating systems, Microsoft has opened some of its developer support tools to a broader audience of partners.

One of the major shortcomings of Windows Vista that Microsoft has quietly, though plainly, acknowledged in recent months concerned the company's relative inability to engage partners in the development process. With a respectably long development cycle, there were too many third parties that complained that they couldn't get their drivers to work right, well after the operating system had already launched.

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Though the fellows sounding the warning today are the best in the business, it didn't take a lot of know-how to develop a proof-of-concept that the new User Access Control panel can be disabled by VBScript.

Windows 7 is still in the public beta process, and will be for some months to come. The purpose of true beta testing is to isolate and identify serious problems (we should know). So it's to any researcher's credit that a potentially threatening problem be brought into the open prior to Microsoft finalizing the code for everyday use.

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Download Windows 7 Beta from Fileforum now (or at least try).

Huge public turnout online for a beta package that flirts with the 3 GB mark, forced Microsoft Friday afternoon to suspend distribution of its Windows 7 beta.

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