W7 against iPad

I have been using the iPad for a few days already and while in some tasks it is perfect in other tasks is not. In another hand I have found that in some daily tasks where according to some owners Apple made it really easy it's just as easy or worse than when you use a tablet pc loaded with Windows 7. This video shows what I'm saying.

Best Windows 7 Downloads

PC World and PC Magazine were two of my favorite magazines long time ago. But both reached a moment when the amount of publicity was more than the amount of good articles. On top of that, few articles published about Tablet PCs and UMPC were enough to make me cancel my subscriptions and start reading more web materials. I went green. But in the last few days I have found some articles posted at PC World that I found very good. Later on I'll post about them but Today here is the link to the list of the Best Windows 7 Downloads.

20 tips and tweaks for W7

Computer World has updated a very good article with 20 tips and tweaks for Windows 7, if you have a browser “Popup proven” this is an article that I would recommend to read.

An earlier version of this story was written when Windows 7 was still in beta. Now that the final version has been released, we've overhauled the story, updating some tips, eliminating others that are no longer relevant, and adding seven new tips.

Windows 7 is here!

Those who beta tested W7 should have already received an email like this:

We’ve reached the final milestone in our Windows 7 release schedule—general availability! Thank you all for the feedback you have provided during the Beta and Release Candidate processes. You have helped us make this the strongest Windows client operating system to date.
For continued support for your deployment and migration processes—including resources to help you with application compatibility, security, networking, manageability, and much more—bookmark these resources:

- Guidance, tools, and demonstrations - Springboard Series for Windows 7 on TechNet

- Community advice, tips, and best practices – TechNet Windows 7 Forums

- Virtual labs, webcasts, and podcasts – Windows 7 IT Pro Events and Webcasts Portal

Also, to stay up to date on new resources, the latest guidance, and upcoming events, sign up to be a Springboard Series Insider!

Thank you for all your support!
The Springboard Series Team

Today many stores are making available many good deals including W7 for free in many of their new boxes. Do not miss this opportunity.

Mac OS X is not much better than W7

I’m not the one saying it, he is Walt Mossberg, the man behind the Personal Technology Column of The Wall Street Journal.  And here is exactly what he said:

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

Now, however, it’s much more of a toss-up between the two rivals. Windows 7 beats the Mac OS in some areas, such as better previews and navigation right from the taskbar, easier organization of open windows on the desktop and touch-screen capabilities. So Apple will have to scramble now that the gift of a flawed Vista has been replaced with a reliable, elegant version of Windows.

Since the first beta I have been saying that this version 7 is the best thing Microsoft has released in a long time so it does not surprise me to read such comment coming from Walt Mossberg. Now prepare yourself for the Mac fanboys reactions we will have a lot of fun in the next few days.

70 Windows 7 tips and tricks

At Gnoted.com I found an excellent article about 70 tips or tricks that will make your life a lot easier in Windows 7.

Windows 7… …comes with a lot of new features. Unfortunately, some of them aren’t so easy to figure out, so I created a list of the most important tips and tricks and a step-by-step guide that will help you apply all of these great tips and tricks.

W7: Upgrade vs Clean Install

This weekend I downloaded W7 RTM and decided to install it in my P1610. I had it before installed in that machine in a second partition and I installed multiple builds always starting from 0. The whole process always took me from 45 to less than 1 hour. With the RTM I decided to upgrade my first partition where I had Vista installed. I had a lot of programs installed there so I thought that the upgrade was going to be quicker than reinstalling everything. I was wrong. The upgrade process took more than 5 hours. After that I discovered that for some reason all the USB Devices were not working because the drivers for them were not installed properly, something that never happened before in my clean installs. Another 5 hours went into the process of finding what was causing the problem. PortShooter, a program created by Fujitsu to protect your laptop from people using the USB ports to copy stuff out of it was causing the issue. The worse thing, this program can’t be uninstalled if you do not go into the program typing a password and select the option for Uninstalling. Even worse, that password for some reason did not work anymore in W7. I had to uninstall manually the program editing the registry and deleting everything relative to the program and all changes made by the program in all the USB drivers configuration keys.

Summarizing, a clean install would have saved me time. Another thing to point. For some reason, I feel that W7 is not as responsive as when I had it in my second partition where I always did a clean install. One of the reason for this is because some of the hacks that I applied to Vista to speed up the system do not work well in W7. I have undone them but still, my upgrade still not at the level I wanted. But I’m too lazy (and I like to be challenged) so I’ll keep digging looking for what to do to make W7 as responsive as it was in a clean install.

Windows 7 - Tablet PC Handwriting recognition Updates

Tablet PC Blog has posted a nice article talking about what is different between the Handwriting recognition in Windows 7 versus the one in Vista which to many, including me, was the best recognition available for Tablet PC and UMPC owners. 

Thankfully, as Windows 7 hits the market with much better mainstream acceptance, Tablet PC users will no longer have to apologize for their choice of operating system!

There are some significant improvements in the way that Windows 7 handles recognition, even after the leap forward that we had with Vista.

The article has few videos that shows the handwriting recognition of W7 in full action.

Via Tablet PC Blog

OEMs Picking Up Windows 7 RTM Code

Yes, HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Dell and Fujitsu Siemens, all of them already have Windows 7 RTM!

a handful of OEMs arrived in Redmond to pick up their RTM code. In the past when a Windows release reaches RTM, we have traditionally given some/selected OEMs the opportunity to come to Redmond and pick up the RTM code personally.

That’s good news. This does not mean that we will see right this week PCs from this brands shipped with W7, this means that the engineers from these companies have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks to have everything ready to start shipping their PCs with W7.

Via The Windows Blog

Windows 7 Released to OEMs

This is a good news guys. The Beta is over and soon we all we have W7 in our PCs replacing the Vista Fiasco. 

As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM.

When you are going to get it, all depend of what kind of user you are. You can find some dates here. The majority will get it in October. MSDN and Technet Subscribers will get it in August.

Wow! I can not hide that I’m really excited with this release. I have been using W7 beta since it first release and being part of this process allowed me to see how it matured in what we have now in the RTM. W7 is without any doubt in my mind the best Windows ever released. Still, it’s not perfect and as usual we will see a robust OS after the first SP1 but this RTM to me is the best one that Microsoft has ever released.

Windows 7 Product Editions

If you are not so sure about what version of Windows 7 is the right one for you here is a page that will help you in this task. 

Now, with nearly fully-functional versions of each product edition available to the public, I thought I'd provide a series of tables comparing each Windows 7 product editon… …It's early yet, and things will no doubt change, so I'll be updating these tables as needed going forward. But even at this early stage, I believe these tables will help you pick which Windows 7 product edition makes the most sense for you, based on your needs and wants.

Paul Thurrott has done a very good job summarizing all the options available in each version.

W7 in October 22!

According to news at The Wall Street Journal we will have in our PCs the retail version of W7 this October.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) on Tuesday announced the date the latest version of the Windows operating system, Windows 7, will be in general commercial availability: Oct. 22.

What can I say. I have been using in my main PC W7 since the first beta was released. Why? Because since I used it for the first time I don't want to go back to XP and a lot less to Vista.

Article - WSJ.com

Windows 7 coming this year!

Microsoft has confirmed the release of Windows 7 this years according to news published at CNET. 

"We are tracking well to a Windows 7 holiday," Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said in an interview. Veghte plans to make a similar statement in a speech Monday at Microsoft's TechEd event in Los Angeles

Well, even when it was not official I think that many of us knew that. W7 RC is already a product almost ready for being released to the market and there was not any way that Microsoft would had kept W7 in RC status for 7 more months.

Windows 7 available 23 October

According to a report published at  Pocket-Lint.com W7 will be released this year, October 23rd.

"23rd October is the date the Windows 7 will be available. There is a 30 day upgrade time so that customers don't wait to buy a new computer, so if you buy during that 30 day period, you'll get a free upgrade to Windows 7", Bobby Watkins, Acer's UK MD told Pocket-lint.

Microsoft has not confirmed or denied this information which seems to me right it you take in consideration the time between the release of the Beta and the RC.

Acer confirms Windows 7 available 23 October

Leaked W7 RC infected with Trojans

According to news published today at MSFN, some of the copies leaked of W7 RC are infected with Trojans, something that does not surprise me at all.

Various torrents of the Windows 7 RC have been infected with a Trojan that, if allowed to run successfully, could open a security hole in a user’s system. The affected torrents have the setup.exe install file encapsulated in a self-extracting archive, along with an installer for the Trojan itself; launching it triggers an install of both Windows 7 RC and the malware.

Sources:

Slashgear

MSFN - Leaked Windows 7 RC torrents infected with Trojan

Touch Gestures in W7

Here is one of those videos that everybody likes.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:891c68b3-a534-4159-b6b2-8e4ac56b6890&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=shared" target="_new" title="Windows 7 Touch Gestures">Video: Windows 7 Touch Gestures</a>

So far, there is not any other Computer Operating System out there with better support for touch. 

Windows 7 Taskbar vs Mac OS X's Dock

I'm not a Mac user so I can't give a fair opinion on this one but apparently Gizmodo Australia can ad they say that the task bar from Windows 7 is a lot better than MacOS's Dock.

The challenge of learning a totally new Windows behaviour is the cost of getting this huge step forward in UI. The superbar makes Windows way more conducive to running tons of applications, since it's actually possible to find apps and precisely the window you want in a second, no matter how bad the shitstorm on your desktop is. In this sense, it's a better application manager than the Dock, from which, generally speaking, you can't do much more than jump to open applications or close them.

Giz Explains: Why the Windows 7 Taskbar Beats Mac OS X's Dock - Gizmodo Australia

Windows 7 RC1 on February 27?

According to a note published today at MSFN, Microsoft finalized the beta stage for Windows 7 and is currently working in the Release Candidate 1. According to the same note we could probably see the RC1 released as soon as February 27. 

The build string is indeed "7048.winmain_win7rc1.090211-1625," and it tells us much more than just than the fact that it was compiled on February 11, at 4:25PM (a week ago). What makes this build significant is not only that it's the first build (that we know of) compiled in February, or that it's the first 704x build we can confirm, but the inclusion of "rc1" in the string. This suggests that Microsoft has finished with beta builds and is now working on the RC1 branch builds.

I really don’t know up to what point all this is real but I can say that Microsoft has been working in W7 with a speed that I never have seen before. So it would not surprise me at all if we begin March testing the RC1 and have by the end of June the RTM released.  

More about the TDX.sys BSOD in W7

According to the tickets filled by beta testers on this issue, Microsoft has fixed this issue. So that means that when the RC candidate is released we should not see this problem anymore.

For now what I’m doing is not to map a network drive in my home network. I still copy files using the full path to those share folders when I need them.

W7 in my P1610 – Update

The tdx.sys BSOD that I was getting after installing any AntiVirus went away after installing build 7022. Now the system is working stable so far. The tdx.sys BSOD continues. I found that it happens if I have a network drive mapped and an Antivirus installed.

The automatic screen rotation is not working and the auto turn on when you open the PC is not working. All the rest is working.

About the alignment of the touch screen. Right after the installation you will find that the pen is off for a few millimeters close to the borders. Go to Windows Update, download the latest Intel Graphic Drivers. Once they are installed, do a reboot. After that go to Control Panel/Tablet PC Settings and use the calibration button in there.

After the installation I prepared a folder with all the drivers for Vista. I went to my Device Manager and there where two unknown devices. One of them was the Authentec Fingerprint reader. I installed the driver for Vista and W7 detected an error, after checking for a solution in the web it pointed me to this W7 Beta Driver. After that I did a right click in the second unknown device when to update driver and selected the option to search in my HDD, pointing the search to that folder where I had all my Vista drivers. The search ended with a Fujitsu driver installed.

I also imported this registry file to add 4 point rotation to Intel Drivers but I have to confess that I did not check if it was needed or not.

One bad news. Readyboost is not longer working in my SDHC. I’ll have to spend a little more time on this point tonight.

So I’m a happy camper again with W7 in my P1610.