Windows 7 to launch October 22

Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday that it is planning for Windows 7 to hit retail shelves and start showing up on new PCs on October 22.To reach that milestone, Microsoft plans to wrap up development of the operating system by the middle or end of next month, Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said in an interview.

“The feedback from the release candidate has been good,” Veghte said.

Microsoft made the near-final release candidate version available last month. Shortly after its release, Microsoft finally confirmed that it was aiming Windows 7 for a holiday 2009 release, something that was widely anticipated, but not confirmed by those in Redmond.

In an interview, Phil McKinney, chief technology officer of Hewlett-Packard’s computer unit, said that he feels good about Microsoft’s launch date.

“We’re locked and loaded for the launch,” McKinney said. “The quality of code is just absolutely stellar.”

The software maker also confirmed, without giving details, that it plans to offer some sort of “technology guarantee” giving those who buy Vista machines close to the Windows 7 launch a free or discounted copy of the new operating system. As with past similar programs, details on pricing will be up to individual computer makers, although Microsoft did say the upgrade program will apply to Vista Home Premium and higher-priced editions (meaning not Windows Vista Basic).

The tech guarantee program is not beginning immediately, but Microsoft did raise the possibility it will offer some sort of lower-cost upgrade to those who are already using Windows Vista.

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails suggesting Microsoft do something along those lines, but its comments this week were the first time I had heard it acknowledge that it was considering such a move.

As for the technology guarantee program, it likely means that Microsoft will do some deferring of Vista-related revenue, though Microsoft again did not spell out details.

“Depending on when we do it there will be the associated accounting for it,” Veghte said.

Microsoft has said that Windows 7 will come in five different editions in most markets–Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. A “Windows 7 Basic” will also be sold in emerging markets, Microsoft said.

The software maker has yet to announce pricing for the product

Source: cnet

Microsoft tweaks antipiracy tech for Windows 7

With Windows 7, Microsoft is making some subtle changes to the ways it tries to thwart piracy. As has been the case for some time, Microsoft’s strategy hinges on requiring a user to electronically verify their copy of the software, a process known as activation, and then the software also periodically validates that a copy of Windows is genuine.

In Windows Vista, if a user does not activate their software immediately, they get a warning that they still need to do so. The dialog box offers two options, to activate immediately or to do so later. However, the activate later box cannot be checked for 15 seconds.

Microsoft decided this was a bit too annoying. With Windows 7, users can click activate later immediately, but then get a dialog box touting the benefits of activation.

It’s the latest effort by Microsoft to scale back the intrusiveness of its technology while still aiming to deter piracy. With the first service pack to Vista, Microsoft made the software significantly more usable to those whose versions of Windows are determined not to be genuine. Before that, Vista systems entered a nearly unusable “reduced functionality mode” once they were deemed to be non-genuine.

“We think we’ve gotten it to a pretty good place where it strikes an effective balance,” said Alex Kochis, director of product management for Microsoft’s Genuine Windows unit. “We’re committed to the program for the long term because it works.”

Microsoft said in December 2007 that it was seeing Windows Vista pirated at only half the rate of Windows XP. Kochis said that general trend has continued.

With Windows 7, Microsoft is also changing the name of its antipiracy technology, from Windows Genuine Advantage to Windows Activation Technologies. The Windows Genuine name took some beatings in the Windows XP time frame, so probably a good move from a PR standpoint.

The software maker is also adding technology designed to make it easier for businesses to activate multiple machines as well as manage activation for virtual machines.

Source: cnet

Vista and Windows 7 more secure than Linux and Mac OS X

Operating system security is always a hotly contended subject, and last week Microsoft amped up the hype by claiming that Windows Vista and the soon-to-be-released 7 is the world’s most secure OS, beating both Linux and Mac OS X.

Here’s what Microsoft’s chief operating officer Kevin Turner had to say at the MidMarket CIO Summit last week:

Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we’ve ever built. It’s also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It’s the safest and most secure OS on the planet today. Everything that we’ve learned in Vista will be leveraged in Windows 7, but certainly when we broke a lot of the compatibility issues to lock down user account controls, to lock down the ability to manipulate states and all the things, that was a very painful process for us to grow through, but we had to do it. And the reason that Windows 7 will be successful is because of the pain we took on Vista. Because from a compatibility standpoint, if it works on Vista, it will work on Windows 7. If it doesn’t work on Vista, it won’t work on Windows 7.

Source: zdnet

IT survey: Not quite ready for Windows 7

Windows Vista is much-improved and the early word on Windows 7, Microsoft’s next computer operating system, is encouraging. Still, the company faces an uphill battle to get corporate users to move from its older operating system, XP to Windows 7, due out next year, according to a recent survey of more than 1,100 information technology professionals.

More than four-fifths — 84 percent — said they don’t plan to upgrade to Windows 7 when it is released. And Vista? Forget about it (Microsoft’s trying to) — 83 percent said they plan to skip Vista altogether and go directly to Windows 7 when they finally do make a change, according to Dimensional Research, which conducted the study in March.

“What is surprising is because there’s been so much positive news about Windows 7, I thought that might translate into a more open approach to migrating to it,” said Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst for Dimensional Research.

“But there’s a perception among the survey participants that Windows 7 is just another release of Windows Vista,” she said. “They think about it the same way and they’re concerned about it.”

It’s no secret that Windows 7 is being built using the code, or foundation, of Vista, which was released in early 2007. That first year was a bad one for users and for Microsoft. Vista was a memory hog, had snail-like performance and a shortage of software drivers.

Vista’s Service Pack 1, a grab-bag of fixes, came out in February 2008, and brought with it improvements that made Vista more efficient, especially for users who had newer computers with more processing oompah and memory.

Vista’s Service Pack 2 is being tested and due for release in the second quarter, according to Microsoft. Also being tested now is Windows 7, which is earning good marks so far.

Still, the Vista taint remains, and separating it from Windows 7 remains a challenge for Microsoft, which has seen its share of the operating system market decrease since Vista was launched.

Source: msn

What Windows 7 means for your notebook

Windows 7 is set apart from the previous batch of Microsoft OS upgrades by many factors. First, it’s designed to be compatible with Vista hardware and drivers. This means that, in theory at least, a laptop capable of running Vista comfortably should run Windows 7 just as happily.

Second, the public beta was made widely available and lasts up to six months. This gives the testers a long period to help iron out teething issues before the OS’s release, instead of users having to wait for important fixes to be sorted in the first service pack.

Ultimate feature-set

If you took advantage of the beta, it’s worth knowing that this was the Ultimate edition of Windows 7. It includes features that may not be present in more basic versions. It seems likely that features such as Offline Files, restricted to the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista, will also be reserved for premium versions of Windows 7.

That’s unlikely to effect the OS’s upgraded mobile features, though, which make Windows 7 more notebook-friendly. For example, the Windows Mobility Center – which enables you to turn on presentation mode, synchronise files or change power schemes – was present in Vista, but it’s much easier to find and access in Windows 7.

All you need to do is right-click the Network icon in the System Tray and select ‘Windows Mobility Center’. Likewise, clicking the Battery icon enables you to change preset power schemes or move directly to editing the options indepth. These are everyday tasks, so it’s good that they aren’t hidden away.

Power management on the whole is better than in previous versions of Windows. On a simple level, the faster boot time means that you’re spending more battery life working than waiting for your laptop to start up. However, there’s also smarter power management happening in the background that employs several tricks to squeeze a little more juice from your battery.

The processor gets stood down more frequently when not in use, as does the network adaptor. This alone could make the upgrade worthwhile, especially if you spend a lot of time running on battery power – try weighing up the eventual retail price of Windows 7 with that of a new laptop battery. As in Vista, if battery time is crucial, you can also save some more energy by choosing a non-Aero theme.

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