Windows 8 Center is now up!!!

Windows 8 Center is live!!!

We’re not sure if you have been paying attention in the forums or our Twitter feed, but Windows 8 Center is officially up (has been for a while), and reporting on Windows 8 news daily.

Make sure to tell all your friends, update your bookmarks, follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to our Facebook page. And of course, we have a new forum up with a brand new design.

If you have any comments, please feel free to make them below and I will be here to answer all of them. Thank you everyone for your long-term support!

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is out

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is out. Simply run Windows Update and you should be able to see this item available for download. You can also choose to download it straight from the Microsoft website at this link.

As well, if you were wondering why there haven’t been too many updates lately, we have moved our resources over to Windows 8 Center, where we will be providing timely updates just as we have had for Windows 7 Center – but for Windows 8. Thank you for everyone’s support since Day 1!

Microsoft extends Windows 7 Trial Edition

In case you did not already realize you can download a full trial copy of Windows 7 Enterprise edition for a 90 day trial from Microsoft. Windows 7 Enterprise Edition is a full version and is virtual the same as Windows 7 Ultimate edition therefore it has all the feature you could possibly want. This is a really good way to check out Windows 7 features before committing to buying copy. Well the the good new is that Microsoft have now extended the trial period.

”This means you now have till Dec 31st, 2010 to download and evaluate the trial version.”

The trial version of Windows 7 is limited to 90 days at the end of which it will start the hourly reboot (spiral of death).

You can Download you free copy of Windows 7 Enterprise Trial edition from here Springboard Series on TechNet right now.

Source: The Windows Enterprise 90 Day Trial Has Been Extended – Springboard Series Blog – The Windows Blog

Alan Burchill
Web site: http://www.grouppolicy.biz

Microsoft removes Windows 7 XP Mode restrictions

Windows XP Mode was a fantastic feature that Microsoft introduced in Windows 7 that allowed users to run their legacy application that were not compatible with Windows 7. XP Mode is the term given to running a full copy of the Windows OS (normally XP) in Windows 7 and then redirecting the screen out put of just the running application to the Windows 7 desktop. This give the user the experience of the application running on Windows 7 even thought it is running inside separate virtual copy Windows XP. For many people this has removed the barrier from upgrading away from Windows XP and also is partly the reason why so many business small and large are now looking at rolling out Windows 7. For more information about Windows XP Mode see our other post about it here Windows XP Mode (XPM) – Everything you need to know

One of the requirements of Windows XP Mode was you had to have a CPU that supported hardware assisted virtualisation instruction set and while all AMD CPU’s supported this feature only some Intel CPU’s supported this feature. The main advantage of the hardware assistance was the performance boost it gave virtual computer as it passed through some of the memory instructions to the host computer therefore reducing some a lot of duplicate workload. The lack of consistent support in the Intel CPU’s however lead to lots of confusion as some of the more recent CPU’s did not support the hardware assistance (or Intel VT as they called it) where some of the older model’s did. Let the confusion rain…

Well Microsoft has heard people’s pain and they have now released an update to Windows Virtual PC and XP Mode that removes the requirement of hardware-assisted virtualisation. Keep in mind however that this updated does not get around the fact that running a virtual PC on a computer without the hardware assistance will still run really slow. So while you might be able to run XP Mode now… it ain’t going to be fast.

None the less this is a really great move by Microsoft as now people can run their legacy application on their computer (all be it slowly) no mater what CPU they are using.

TIP: If you are already running Windows XP Mode on another computer and you are going to copy your virtual PC across to a new computer you must also remember to upgrade the Integration Components otherwise you will find your Virtual PC will have MAJOR performance issues.

You can download the updates right now:

• For x86 host operating systems: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=837f12aa-1d37-464e-ae59-20c9ecbebaf6
• For x64 host operating systems: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e70dd043-e262-43c0-a002-446567f1e2b4

You can read the Microsoft support article here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977206

Windows.Next after Windows 7

A recent blog post from the product manager of the Windows Update team might have given us some incite into what to expect in the next versions of Windows. In his blog post (that has now be withdrawn) he make some interesting comments.

next version will be something completly different from what folks usually expect

The article also goes on to say that internally at Microsoft they are NOT refereeing to the next version of windows as Windows 8 but instead they call it

Windows.Next

This could be the best indication so far that the next version of Windows will be based on the Midori OS project that Microsoft have been working on since 2003. Midori has a completely re-written kernel from the ground up that is suppose to be a written almost entirely in managed code.

While this should not mean much to end users it means that Microsoft will be able to make a complete break from the legacy code that has been in Windows for the past 2 decades. The importance for this break with legacy code recently became highlighted when Microsoft recently released a patch to fix a security issues that was 17 years old.

Previously such a big changes the OS was not possible but with the release of XP Mode and other virtualisation technologies with Windows 7 backwards compatibility may no longer be an issues.

What ever the new version of Windows will be like it is unlikely that we will get any official confirmation until Microsoft are really sure they can deliver what they promise.

See the cached version of the post here (via TheWindowsClub )

Time running out for Windows 7 Release Candidate

It has been 9 months since Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) was released and now the free ride from Microsoft is almost over.

As of February 15th 2010 Windows 7 RC will start Phase 1  “reminders” that you will have to upgrade to the final version. Doesn’t sound so bad hey… Well on March 1st 2010 Phase 2 will starts when Windows 7 RC will continue to notify users that they need to upgrade, but then their computers will also start to restart every two hours (without notice).

Then on June 1st 2010 Microsoft steps it up a notch and the desktop background will be changed to black. (Like the reboots every two hours are annoying enough.)

If you are still were one of those 1% of users worldwide that install Windows 7 RC and you are still running it then you can check out Microsoft  Install, reinstall or uninstall Windows article for more help.

Just in case you were wondering, the Windows 7 Beta expired on August 1st 2009 so needless to say you probably not running that any more.

For more information on the expiry dates check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971767

Think you got Windows 7 battery issues? Microsoft says NO

Microsoft have now responded to all the recent stories about Windows 7 damaging laptop batteries for users who have upgraded from Windows Vista and the response is:

every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement

But how can that be the case with all these reports of batteries dying when people upgraded from Vista to Windows 7?

Well, this is due to the new feature in Windows 7 that actually knows when your battery needs replacing. What it does is compares the actual full battery capacity with the original full capacity. When the actual full capacity of the battery is 40% is the original then Windows 7 will recommend that you should replace your battery (See below).

What has now become apparent is that there were a number of Windows Vista users that had already degraded batteries and didn’t realise. When they upgrade to Windows 7 they get a message that their battery is dead due the the new feature in Windows 7.

notification is new to Windows 7 and not available in Windows Vista or Windows XP.

To see Microsoft’s response from and more information about the battery issues check out http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2010/02/08/windows-7-battery-notification-messages.aspx

The romantic Windows 7 or not

Microsoft have just released a Valentines Day theme pack for Windows 7. This is ideal for that someone special in your life or if you just want to show someone your sensitive side.

Download Link Lacy Hearts

Then again if romance is not your fancy you can also pimp your desktop with the Avatar theme pack… YEAH!

Download Link Avatar

Apple finally supports Windows 7

Apple have now finally released a version of Bootcamp for OSX 10.6 to support Windows 7. Not to soon either as Apple had previously announced that they would be releasing Windows 7 support by the end of 2009.

This is good new for owners of Mac’s as they can now dual boot their Mac’s Windows 7 enabling them to run the most popular OS of all time.

The bad news is that Bootcamp only does not allow users to re-size partition safely and it is still difficult to transfer file between the OS’s due to the incompatible file systems.

Windows 8 screenshots now surfacing

A Neowin article seems to indicate that Windows 8 has got a tentative release date of July 2011 which would mean just under 2 years between releases if this was true. Certainly this seems to be a LOT quicker release schedule than we are accustom. However Microsoft did reduce the 6 year gap of Windows XP to Windows Vista down to 3 years with Windows Vista to Windows 7. So maybe a 2 year gap between Windows 7 and 8 is not going to be that unreasonable. This could mean Microsoft is going for a more incremental upgrade approach rather than the big leap approach like with Windows Vista that I am sure Microsoft does not want to repeat.

If this is the case we could well expect to see the beta of Windows 8 by the end of the year which seems more  likely as screenshots have now started to leaked of a post Windows 7 build. These screenshots appears to show that this latest version was only compiled on the 22nd January 2010 at 7pm.  .

The screenshots don’t indicate any new features and it is still sporting Internet Explorer 8 and not Internet Explorer 9 that Microsoft is has already previewed.

The really major news with this new build is that the Beta Fish is back as the default background image.

Source: WZOR (via MSFTKitchen )