Posts Tagged ‘Windows 7’

With all of the details that leaked a few months ago about Windows 8 — as well as Steve Ballmer’s recent comments about Windows 8 being Microsoft’s riskiest product currently in development — I wanted to take a moment to address the IT crowd and see what you folks have had to deal with where Windows 7 is concerned and to find out if you’re looking forward to Windows 8 at all. For those of you who have worked with Windows 7 machines, do they seem much more “healthy” than the other machines you deal with? Are there features you already know you would like to see present in Windows 8?

Where my personal experience is concerned, I only deal with XP and Windows 7 machines. Although there are a number of features I would like to see happen in Windows 8, Windows 7 definitely seems to have made an impact on the improvement of IT-related problems people still experience with Windows XP today. I am forever pushing for the company I work for to consider upgrading from XP to Windows 7 even if only for the resolution of certain issues that continue to plague them today (which equates to a LOT of money being spent on the proper individuals who maintain system health).

So, thanks to all the enterprises who *still* adopt XP (and Windows 2000, amazingly), there are plenty of individuals and companies providing IT services that won’t be going out of business any time soon! What about you, though? Are you an individual or a company who gets to be hands-on with current and past iterations of Windows? If so, what’s your opinion of Windows 7 and what are some of the features you would like to see built in Windows 8 that you think could help make your job easier? Please weigh in your opinions below as I really would like to read what those of you in the field think!

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

While taking a look around the Web earlier today, I stumbled across some kiosk maker software that got me thinking on Windows 8 — specifically, if it made any sense for Microsoft to add something like this into Windows 8. Personally, I think there could be many applications for something like this in Windows, but I’m not sure this specific functionality would be worth the cost of Windows alone.

First and foremost, there are the scenarios where businesses turn computers into single-use workstations that serve very specific functions. For instance, if you go to a Verizon store and use one of their kiosks to put your name down on a list or browse for in-store products, etc. Or how about if you go into a Borders book store or something of that nature and they have the computers which allow you to browse a store-specific version of borders.com to find something you’re looking for in-store? Even still, how about the times you go to a store like Best Buy and use one of their machines to browse in-store products? The business kiosk scenario is one I think we can all associate with in terms of having seen and/or used them, but what are some other great scenarios for utilizing functionality like this?

Well, how about schools, libraries, and publicly-accessible government establishments? I can think of plenty of task-specific workstation uses for those types of facilities! Maybe a school, publicly-accessible government establishment, or otherwise would like to make specific types of records only accessible via a single computer whereby they could log all activity and not allow any other types of tasks to be performed on that computer. Where libraries are concerned, there’s always the need to be filled for looking up books, checking their availability, etc. And we all know libraries have computers which access the internet that are made available to the public, so there are plenty of uses for having something like this built into Windows 8 provided places like public libraries actually upgraded to something like Windows 8.

Naturally, the question then becomes affordability. If your only task is to turn a workstation into a kiosk, then maybe a piece of software would be your best bet. However, if you’re like me and you have a plethora of computers where you know you will upgrade them all to Windows 8 and you have that one desktop that sits out available for any and all to use (if you have parties, family get-togethers at your place, etc.), it just might be a nifty little tool to have available to you. Oh, and it can’t go without being mentioned that there’s always the concern of privacy, but whether you’re using a public computer that’s running some sort of proprietary kiosk maker software or a rendition of Windows (like Windows 8, of course) which provides built-in kiosk maker functionality, you should always be aware of your environment.

Anyway, I just thought this would be some nifty functionality added to Windows 8 and I can’t imagine it would be too difficult for Microsoft to implement. The number of people who need something like this is probably quite low on their customer demand list, so I won’t hold my breath.

-Stephen Chapman
http://msftkitchen.com

I’m just passing along information contained in an email sent to me this morning. If you’re interested in obtaining Windows 7 certification, this may be an avenue for you to consider. ExamForce (click their name to head to their Twitter page) is offering a free Windows 7 practice test that is apparently comparable to the test that will land you a “MCTS: Windows 7, Configuration” certificate. If you’re interested, head on over to the following link and sign up:

ExamForce’s 70-680: TS: Windows 7, Configuring Exam Preparation

And, no, I am not affiliated with ExamForce at all — I just thought someone out there might be interested. If so, then best of luck!

-Stephen

This morning, I checked my email and actually took a look at a Technet newsletter I regularly receive. This particular one had the following subject: “Windows 7 Trial extended.” Windows 7 trial? I honestly had no idea this particular trial offer was available in the first place, but apparently, it has been and now it’s being extended. Here’s what the email had to say:

The availability of Windows 7 Enterprise (Eval) 90-day Trial is being extended to Dec 31, 2010. Intended primarily for IT pros, the 90-day trial is the full-featured Enterprise SKU that will enable any organization to explore, test hardware and applications, perform pilot activities, and develop deployment scenarios.

What the aforementioned quote *doesn’t* tell you is that the full-featured Enterprise SKU is exactly the same as the full-featured Ultimate SKU — just with different branding. So, long story short, Microsoft is essentially offering Windows 7 Ultimate free for 90 days to one and all. And when those 90 days are up, you’ve still got another 90 to go via the slmgr trick, so that’s 180 days free. After that, there are more creative ventures coming to light, but nothing I would personally endorse. And just for the record, Microsoft canned the “shutdown /s /t 315359999″ trick back in Vista, so if you thought you would trick the 1-hour shutdown deal, think again.

My only question at this point is what’s stopping anyone from simply creating a new email alias, signing up for the trial again, reinstalling it and then tacking on another 180 days for free? Maybe that’s too much to expect anyone to go through or maybe you wouldn’t even need to take it that far, but if someone is looking to keep something for free, people can get pretty creative sometimes (short of just downloading a crack and calling it done).

Download the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial: Click Here

And just in case you happen to be in the market for a particular Windows 7 ISO, I wrote guide not too long ago showing you how to use Google to find just about any Windows 7 ISO of your choice: How-to: Quickly Find a Windows 7 ISO on an HTTP Server via Google

-Stephen Chapman

http://www.msftkitchen.com

Edit: After receiving a rather harsh comment about this post, I thought I would make it clear that the point of this post was for the sake of comedy rather than to say this patch is going to screw up everyone’s computer. Having a sense of humor is okay sometimes, you know? /rant

So, just a little bit of comedy for you here. I came home, fired up my laptop which I haven’t been on in about a week, and I see Windows Update pop up and tell me I have some important updates ready to install. Now, typically, I just say, “yeah, yeah… whatever” and let them install after verifying none of them appear at first glance to be anything stupid that I don’t want on my system (i.e. language packs, drivers I don’t need, etc.). Well, just out of pure curiosity, I decided to take a look at the description of one of these updates and boy was it ever a revelation! Check out how full of reliability this update is (along with my minor observations noted):

Seriously, though. What the hell does that even mean? hahaha. Well, I decided to try to decipher that rather vague-yet-reliable description by searching for the update on Microsoft’s website. As it turns out, it provides the exact same description! So, just what in the world is update KB977074 (besides reliable, of course)? As if it wasn’t already hilarious enough, just wait until you see how ironic this gets when you find it that update KB977074 appears to be anything BUT reliable! Check out the threads started here and here.

From those links, it appears update KB977074 affects explorer.exe and causes some hang-ups and freezes for a number of users. Seeing this, I’m extremely happy that I have yet to install this update… and I almost can’t believe that of all the updates I’ve never read about, this is the one I finally decided to! Excellent. =) With all of that in mind, perhaps we can cook up a better description for update KB977074:

This is a crash/freeze update. This update creates some crash/freeze issues in Windows 7. By applying this update, you can achieve better crash/freeze in various scenarios. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

Okay, so I know that last crash/freeze didn’t fit, but it doesn’t make any less sense than the original description, so it stays as-is! Should you dare to install KB977074, you can nab it here.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkichen.com

Microsoft news website Muy Windows has just posted screen shots of a Windows 7 SP1 Demo Installer, thus bringing its completion closer to fruition. Here are a few of them, but there are more at the source, linked beneath the pictures below. I can’t help but wonder just what all they plan on fixing in SP1. Windows 7 has been absolutely fantastic for me. Are there any problems in particular any of you out there are having that you hope are fixed? Check out the shots:

Source: Muy Windows

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

I want to take a break from the typical format of my blog and share a story of mine. Saturday night, I went over to an uncle’s house for dinner and — long story short — told him he should have installed Windows 7 instead of reinstalling Windows XP after a massive crash he had a couple of weeks ago. He said he wanted to, so I decided to use one of my unused Windows 7 keys and install Home Premium for him. Things like AERO shake, thumbnail previews, and the combination of search/run generated genuine giggles of excitement out of him… and, as a Microsoft fan and blogger, that was actually really cool for me to experience.

You see, I get so used to this stuff that I actually forget there are people out there who have only maybe heard the casual mention of Windows 7 — much less ever seen it or actually messed with it! Every time I see Microsoft’s commercials where they show people being all excited about Windows 7, there’s a portion of all of that, that I wonder how much of it is all just marketing… and if anyone would really ever get that excited about Windows 7. Well, this situation with my uncle validated for me that people DO get excited about this stuff! I’m so used to the segue between versions of Windows that I have completely forgotten what it’s like to try a completely NEW OS for the first time and be excited about all the features it offers.

Something kind of random he said at one point was, “why is it that Macs don’t have any crashes or problems at all?”

Yikes.

My response to that was actually even-handed, in that I said they both have their ups and downs but the notion that Windows 7 is “just another Vista” like the Apple commercials try to peddle… that’s just all marketing, as I explained. So, out of the evening came the realization that actually seeing someone go from XP to Windows 7 can be more than just an upgrade, but an enjoyable experience! Unfortunately, I also learned that Apple’s embellished dishonesty for marketing gets through to people. At least he was never inclined to actually buy a Mac, he was just curious as to everything he’d heard. And honestly, with how much better of an OS Windows 7 is than its predecessors, for Apple to compare them and say it’s no better than the rest… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t feel bad comparing the latest OSX to the problematic issues of the past, even knowing the difference these days.

It’s just awesome to know that Windows 7 sealed the deal in the face of OSX-curious inquiry. =) Not that I have anything against OSX or those who use it — just Apple’s intellectually dishonest marketing of it vs. Windows 7.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode): A display technology for use in mobile devices such as mobile phones. OLED describes a specific type of ultra thin, ultra bright display technology which doesn’t require a backlight and Active-Matrix refers to the technology behind the addressing of pixels. AMOLED technology continues to make progress towards low-power and low-cost large size (e.g. 40-inch) for applications such as TV. -Wikipedia

Surfing around the web this morning, I just stumbled across a really cool invisible AMOLED laptop prototype pictured on Gizmodo. Check it out:

I don’t know how the translucency translates to enhanced usability, but it sure does look cool!

Source: Gizmodo

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Some of you may recall the leaking of several Windows 7 SP1 (Service Pack 1) builds prior to the final release of Windows 7. Naturally, those leaks — some as far back as June 2009 — sparked a lot of speculation as to the quality bar Windows 7 would RTM at. I mean, just prior to Windows 7′s final build, you start seeing SP1 builds and you can’t help but wonder if they’re in preparation to fix things they knew would be off-center in the final build, right? Well, sort of.

In light of an entry I recently stumbled upon on LinkedIn, I believe I’ve found the missing link which makes sense of the whole thing. And now that I’ve seen it, I can’t help but think to myself, “duh!” Okay, for starters, look at the build string in the following image:

Long story short, there were no crazy bug fixes starting to happen that Windows 7 RTM wouldn’t see. Those SP1 builds were compiled simply to test Windows 7′s service pack technologies and experience! I and so many others like me really looked waaaay too far ahead into what those builds could have possibly meant — only to miss the simplest (and most likely, I might add) of possibilities: Microsoft preparing and testing service pack technologies and processes.

In addition to the revelation above, there are farther-reaching implications this person on LinkedIn has made us privy to. To quote:

Efforts lead to an unprecedented state of servicing readiness for Windows. Windows 7 Service Pack technologies, processes & builds were ready over a year before release compared to Vista and previous OSes which did not reach that state of servicing readiness and quality for months after release.

Aside from stating the obvious, with the time it took to complete Windows 7, I suppose Windows 7 SP1 will also exceed expectations. And that’s a good thing.

Finally, there is also mention of Windows 8 planning:

Planning servicing quality goals, metrics, processes, and tools & technologies for Windows 8.

Good comedy would be to see a Windows 8 SP1 build leak prior to even a Windows 8 Milestone 1 build! At that point, I would have to say they were getting a bit *too* far ahead of the game, wouldn’t you? Anyway, I just thought I would share my findings and attempt to explain away some of the confusion created by those SP1 builds previously.

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com

Remember the ginormous burger that Burger King was serving in China in celebration of Windows 7 for that brief period of time? What about the Windows 7 cake or the awesome Windows 7 MCE custom system? Well, I just stumbled upon another oddity… a cool oddity, but an oddity none-the-less. This one comes to us via an eBay auction that’s taking place right now (so you can actually nab this thing if you’re interested)! It’s a limited-edition Windows 7 Kubrick made by C.I.Boys (whoever the heck they are) that was given out in celebration of the launch of Windows 7 at Microsoft Hong Kong.

Check it out:

(I love the graphics on the belt)

 

(I thought the Windows 7 graphic was accidentally upside down until I realized the whole belt was. Doh!)

If you’re interested in purchasing it, they’re asking for a cool $90.00… not including shipping. I like the little guy and all, but not in a $90.00 kind of way, if you know what I mean. Hey, at least the seller left the option for you to make an offer, right?

Link: The eBays

-Stephen
http://www.msftkitchen.com