Gartner: Windows 7 is 'all but inevitable'

ZDNET is a great source of information and Mary-Jo Foley comes up with some great news and insights. In this article she discusses Gartner’s opinion and the support of that opinion that we need to begin working towards the “inevitable” new desktop operating system, Windows 7.

Gartner: Windows 7 is 'all but inevitable'

Gartner Group analysts are telling business users that they should look at Windows 7 as an "all but inevitable" Windows release. Here's what else Gartner is advising corporate users, regarding when, how and if to move to Microsoft's latest Windows release. Read more

HP Rebate available

This offer may not be combined with any discount offers or special pricing such as government/education pricing, big deal pricing or volume discounts. Offer not valid with other HP offers unless otherwise specified by those offers. Resellers cannot claim this rebate on behalf of customers. Please include rebate offer code: OB10 in all correspondence.

Click Here to download Rebate Form

Claim document must be postmarked within 30 days of the invoice date. Purchase limit of 5 rebates per end user individual or company, business address, location and/or household:

HP Office 2007 $70 Mail-in Rebate

Offer valid on purchases made between

July 20, 2009 – October 31, 2009

Purchase:

1. Any HP Commercial Office Ready desktop, notebook or workstation
2. Also purchase Microsoft Office 2007 Small Business Edition OR Office 2007 Professional
3. And order the Windows 7 upgrade coupon found at www.hp.com/go/windows7upgrade

Windows 7 Upgrade Options from HP

HP has a site to guide you through the eligibility and upgrade process for you to upgrade your HP computer that you purchased (June 26,2009 – Jan 31, 2009). Check your model eligibility, and if you qualify you can order the Win7 Upgrade Kit. If you don’t meet HP’s eligibility requirements, you may be able to upgrade to Windows 7 upon public availability. Click on the more info link to see what will be involved.

Read Before you Order

HP has contracted with a third party company to fulfill the Windows® 7 Upgrade Option Program from HP. Orders will be accepted June 26, 2009 until February 15, 2010. Proof of purchase must be submitted and postmarked no later than March 1, 2010. You will receive your Windows ® 7 Upgrade Kit after Windows ® 7 becomes publicly available October 22, 2009. For additional information, please read Know Before You Upgrade

If eligibility requirements are not met, you may be able to upgrade to Windows ® 7 upon public availability.

Windows 7 Search Features

When asked for some compelling reasons for moving to Window 7 one of the newer features that has vastly expanded in Windows 7 over Vista is the search capabilities. In Vista I loved how the search indexed all your documents, files and Outlook items to make it easy to search for information on your system. I am a hoarder when it comes to programs and data so it is important for me to be able to easily find and access data everyday. I use a lot of these features constantly and once you watch the video below you will see why you want to spend a little extra time updating the metadata on your pictures, videos and music files as well.

http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/4/0/3/5/3/4/Windows7FindSearchOrganize_ch9.mp4

A new feature in WIndows 7 called Federated Search gives you the ability to search external sources as well. This can be within your organization with data found on different servers or different SharePoint searches. But there are scripts that you can install for accessing much more. These are put together using search connectors that you can download.

There are already few search connectors available for download:

• Neowin Connector (Created by -Hiroshi-, more information)
• Flickr Search Connector
• YouTube Search Connector
• Google News Search Connector
• Google Blogs Search Connector
• Twitter Search Connector
• MSN Search
• Deviant Art Search

In Part 2 of Search and Find this video shows and talks about how this works.

http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/1/8/4/5/3/4/FindOrganizePart2_ch9.mp4

Windows 7 Taskbar Features

ZDNET is a great source for tech news and How To functions that help me learn how to use different features of applications that I use everyday. Ed Bott has been running a short series of Windows 7 functions that when you take them as a whole will give you some good reasons for wanting to move into and start using this new operating system. I know that I have fallen in love with it and I would have to be dragged kicking and screaming to go back to any of the earlier versions of Windows now. Watch the video above to get a feel for what the new taskbar features provide you in this new interface.

Microsoft plans monster Patch Tuesday next week

The magic number this time around is 13 patches. The first patch for Windows 7 is included in the group. What is being covered? All the Windows operating systems, Internet Explorer, Office, SQL Server and some developer tools and Forefront Security client software. Eight are listed as critical. For more details click on the link below.

Microsoft plans monster Patch Tuesday next week

Windows 7 Now in Distribution

We finally are seeing product hitting our distribution points. SO… if you are interested let me know. Here are the different version with a cross reference of their features. Upgrades and Retail boxes only. OEM isn’t out yet, darn, so we aren’t building yet.

Windows 7 in action: A smarter way to manage windows | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

Here is a video segment put together by Ed Bott and ZDNet.com. This will give you some easy control techniques for working with window in Windows 7.

Windows 7 in action: A smarter way to manage windows | Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com

Installing Windows 7 Using a USB Flash Drive – Part 1 – Prepping the Flash Drive

I decided to document the process that I need to go through to install Windows 7 onto a new Netbook that I am prepping for my father. I decided to try to do this without using an external USB DVD drive.I needed a 4GB drive which I didn’t have one free so I decided to use one of my SD Flash cards I use with my camera. I have previously reviewed the Mizco SD Reader that I use to read my SD Flash Memory Cards. It turns any SD Flash Memory Card into a USB Flash Drive.

So the first thing that you need to do is to set the memory card as a bootable USB Drive. I am doing this from my Windows 7 Desktop and the procedure is as follows:

Step #1: Format the Drive

The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility. [Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive. Be careful.]

1. Plug in your USB Flash Drive
2. Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”
3. Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window:
   diskpart
   list disk
   The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.  I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 2.
4. Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “2” with the number of your disk below.
   select disk 2
   clean
   create partition primary
   select partition
   active
   format fs=NTFS
   assign
   exit
   When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable.

Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable 
Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable. I am using an ISO file formatted file for my Win7 install disk and since I have the new version of WINZIP that can access an ISO file directly I am accessing the files in that manner. However, you will probably have a Win7 install CD and I will document accessing in that manner as well. I dropped the contents of my ISO file into a folder on my desktop and that’s how I gained access to the files the same way that you would to your CD.

(Turns out that WinZip was missing files when I performed the above procedure. I eventually burned a DVD and copied the files across as stated below. That worked like a charm. I have had great success running WinZip on ISO files and installing directly from there. That seems to work just fine.)

In the same command window that you were using in Step 1:

1. Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive.
2. Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives:
   d:
   cd d:\boot
3. Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image. I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer:
   bootsect /nt60 G:
4. You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here.

Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive
The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive.  After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB
This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option. On most Acer notebooks/Netbooks you will be pressing F2 to jump into the Bios setup when booting your system. Go to the Bios page that controls the boot device order and make your USB device the topmost choice in the boot sequence.

Note: As it turned out, I wasn’t able to complete the install of Windows 7 on this machine this past weekend because the controller couldn’t take being loaded from a USB Flash Drive. Whoops. So we stuck a USB DVD drive on the Netbook and installation went just fine. So much for trying to be inventive to work around not having a portable USB DVD drive.

Laurel Mountain Post September-October Issue

I have a great article in the LMP this month discussing the upcoming release of Windows 7 and the differences between each of the versions. This issue is the LMP’s final FREE distribution. They are moving to a paid subscription model with the next issue. There is so much good local information in the magazine that I hope they will be able to sustain it with this new venue.

This is obviously the Halloween issue but I didn’t keep with that theme. Next issue I will again approach with gadget gift buying for the upcoming Holiday Season. It’s September and I am thinking of Christmas already!

Hope you all enjoy the article and find it useful in making your decision to move into Windows 7 or not and which version would be best for you. If you are still confused don’t hesitate stopping buy and talking to us about it.

When upgrading and PC, It pays to do a little prep work to make it a smooth transition…

I have gone through seven system reloads in the past four months and with the last one it was made clear to me that you can never be too prepared for your transition from the old to the new. There are a few things that you need to think about, find and have ready at hand before you start the procedure.

1. Make sure you have your data backed up. The old adage, measure twice cut once is never more true than when you are about to transition to a new operating system. If you hold to the best way to clean up a system is to wipe it clean and start fresh, then whatever you had on the machine will no longer be there when you complete the new operating system installation. There is no going back to get the data so if you forget something, and you don’t have it backed up, well, it is gone in to the wind. It is important to remember how applications work. Recently I lost a year’s worth of notes because I was too cavalier about how well I had things backed up. I had thought I had everything already moved off of a workstation and moved onto the network storage (as it should have been) and it all went up in smoke. I have readjusted the way the application data is handled now, but it is too late for all of that historical data. Take it to heart that even the ones that preach backup can be bit when they are not careful enough. At the office we backup a system to a new drive before we even start a transition. As long as someone doesn’t get in the way and state that they have taken care of the info, if you look at what you are using and where you have it, you can take the steps to protect you precious information.
2. Take inventory of all the applications that you use. This will insure that your system will be up and running with all the tools you use as quickly as possible. Gather all the disks for you applications and their keys so that you can work right down the line to get the machine up and running the way you want. Here is my list of applications that I made when I prepped to install the new Windows 7 RTM on my home systems. The first thing I did was to reload Office when I finished installing the operating system so that I had access to my checklist. If you are well prepped with all your programs and unlock codes you will be able to breeze through the installation and keep your frustration level to a minimum.
3. Make sure you have available the current versions of your programs and that they are compatible with the new operating system. If you are installing into a office situation this is much more critical then in a home environment. Realize that this is the time to trim the fat. My systems tend to get bloated with all of the software installs that I perform on weekly basis to try out new things. Curiosity of the cat and all. This is one of the prime reasons that I reinstall a system as often as I do. It is easier to just start fresh sometimes then to try to make a system come back to peak performance with tweaking. This is suggestion is another attempt at limiting your frustration with the process.
4. Make sure that you have blocked out the time to do your upgrade. You don’t want to be losing your place or forgetting some key programs because you have split your attention between different projects.

Transitioning can be as painless or as painful as you allow it to be, the best way to get through the process is pre-planning the event.

Restrictions on OpSys for Netbooks Defined

Steve Ballmer confirmed that there will be a limit on what the classification will be for Netbooks that can come preinstalled with Windows Starter Edition. OEM Manufacturers have a very tight margin on the low end units so it is very important to them to be able to available as low of a priced Operating System that they can manage to get from Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer stated a recent Microsoft-hosted day with the Wall Street analysts: "Our license tells you what a Netbook is,". "Our license says it's got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

The graphic above shows you the hardware requirements of what Microsoft machine limitations that qualifies a Netbook to use either of the two lower priced operating systems. The Windows XP Home will actually be priced less than Windows 7 Starter Edition (a premium $30-$40 price point).

We have already seen several machines axed by Microsoft’s Software Police. Dell Inspiron Mini 12 (12 inch screen), MSI Wind U115 (both SSD and Standard Harddrive combined in the System), Archos 10 (500GB HDD and 2GB RAM), Raon Everun Note (Dual-core processor) and Dell Mini 0 (2GB RAM). All of these models are hearing the Death Nell.

You will be able to upgrade your Windows 7 Starter Edition to more capable versions of Windows 7 as you wish but Microsoft’s whole guideline is based on their trying to get the right operating system on the right machine to give the user the best experience. I have been running Windows 7 Ultimate on a 2GB upgraded Acer Aspire One Netbook with no problems what so ever. The video streaming could be a little better but that is the only thing that I could ask for on this level of a machine.

Windows 7 Family Pack

Microsoft has announced the pricing for the 3 user family of Windows Home Premium, $150. However, they are also saying that this will only be a limited time offering. The package will include the media and a license that can be used to activate three workstations in a single household. The other side of the coin with this announcement is that Microsoft is planning to offer this while supplies last.

In a briefing yesterday, Microsoft Product Manager Michelle Haven confirmed that the Family Pack is “intended to be a limited-quantity offer” but added that Microsoft plans to listen to customer feedback to “find out if customers love it.”

If you want to have this offer last longer don’t hesitate contacting Microsoft to let them know.

Windows XP Mode RC - Serious improvement over beta | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

One of the keys for us to use Windows 7 in our company’s computer environment is the ability to use Windows XP Mode to access some of the applications that we are still keeping around. This article discusses the new features that have been added to the Release Candidate and the benefits that each one provides us. Good reading for all of you that have legacy applications and don’t want or can’t update to newer versions.

Windows XP Mode RC - Serious improvement over beta | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

Windows Anytime Upgrade Pricing

Microsoft has announced their Microsoft Anytime Upgrade and Family Pack Pricing. There are three version upgrades that are available.

Here is the basic pricing path from your various starting points to the more advanced versions of Windows 7.

Upgrade to ->	Home Premium	Professional	Ultimate
Starter	$80	$115	$165
Home Basic	$80	–	$165
Home Premium	–	$90	$140
Professional	–	–	$130

You will most likely come into contact with the starter edition of Windows 7 if you purchase a Netbook PC. The three main upgrades that I see that will have any significance will be taking the Starter Edition to either Home Premium or Professional and Home Premium to Professional. In most cases this will be the primary upgrade paths that most of you will be making.

Below is a chart that shows some of the main pricing differences between the versions put together by Paul Thurott and can be found on his Supersite for Windows here: Be sure to click through to this link to see a complete guide to the feature list comparing each version side by side. This will go a long way to help you determine which product is best for you.

Wheeeeee! CCI mobile phones are finally caught up to the fun stuff!

With Nick’s help I have gotten my new iPhone 3GS configured pretty close to the way I want it.

First and foremost our concern was with email. I have quite a few accounts and I am still trying to decide if I want all of them to connect to the iPhone or not. It is nice to have access and to manage the accounts from on central interface which is what this is allowing me to do. We encountered two problems, one is caused by the way I have my folders setup in Exchange, the other was with the server settings which is fixed now but required some server tweaking to do so. When we installed the Exchange mail program we lost the camera app on our phones. Turns out this is a security setting that was needed for the government. Once we fixed that the camera app came right back up and worked like a champ. My folder problem I am going to have to work on when I get a chance. Otherwise everything came right over.

The Plantronics Bluetooth ear bud was simple to install and connected without a sweat. It integrates real well with the phone.

The next test I had was with my Garmin 885T GPS unit. It has Bluetooth and that was pretty easy to connect. However, when I clicked on the phonebook icon it just sat their forever. I have a huge contacts database so what was going on was that it had to download to the device. Once it finally grabbed it the interface on the Garmin worked flawlessly with the phone. Great!

The last concern was whether or not I could get my Acer Netbook to tether to the phone and allow me to connect to our servers remotely. This process only took a few minutes and worked wonderfully. I can’t believe how cleanly everything came together. It took most of today to get me there but I have a really strong working setup now to allow a truly mobile office.

Windows 7 arrives: The time is finally ripe

Nearly three years after the debut of the botched Windows Vista, enough is right with Windows 7 to unseat an aging Windows XP

By Randall C. Kennedy | InfoWorld

If you are wondering what reasons you should think about to decide if you should move up in equipment and into the soon to be released Windows 7 operating system, read this article. Infoworld’s Randall Kennedy wrote a great piece describing the history of Windows 7, its XP and Vista beginnings, and how its new interface and functionality can benefit you in your computing experience.

Some key features that I find extremely useful:

• Search Field – The integrated search field in explorer windows and in the Start Menu is fast and extremely useful. Whether you are looking for a document, email, note or a program, just start typing some key words to search on and see what pops up. I use this feature to pull up programs that I don’t use often so don’t have on my taskbar. Once you get used to using it you will never want to go back.
• Explorer Window Breadcrumbs – we have seen this advancement in many programs. This is another one of those things that once you begin using it you don’t want to lose it, and if it is not part of a program you get angry because it is such a useful function. Each of the arrows above points to a point on the bar that I can click on to go back instantly to that folder level. Simple, fast and easy, just what we want. The points build as I am clicking into each folder so it is laying the crumbs for be to be able to follow back from whence I came from.
• Taskbar and Aero Glass – one of the Aero Glass features that has been better utilized is on the Taskbar. As you are sliding across the icons on your Taskbar you will see a representation of the applications that are currently running in each application program. Take a look at the video below to see how this works.

• Pinning – we have seen the concept of pinning items to your Start Menu before but now you are able to do this same thing with Taskbar. Simply right click on an start menu application icon and you have the choice to pin it to your taskbar. Now you have single click access to your favorite programs.This is not limited to just programs, you  can pin documents and other utilities to the Taskbar as well. In XP I made extreme use of the Quick Launch bar, this feature puts this kind of function on steroids.

One of the things that we have seen is the increase in speed when accessing some of our older applications, even over XP. Now we are attributing this to the way Windows 7 as changed the way it accesses database structure from a server but in reality all we know is that it runs like a speed demon. The tests performed by InfoWorld Labs showed greater memory use and slower speeds when compared to XP and slightly overall performance over the current releases of Vista. But in most cases, you will not be putting this program on your older equipment but moving it onto new equipment as you are refreshing. Microsoft in all their meetings with us has stated that you really want to run this program in 64-bit mode and take advantage of how inexpensive memory has become. So if you are configuring a system, don’t skimp on RAM.

Hardware compatibility – having been built from the Vista kernel, Windows 7 doesn’t have the lack of hardware drivers that gave Vista such a black eye when it first came out. Two years after Vista’s initial release hardware vendors have caught up with drives that support both Vista and Windows 7 quite adequately. In one of my previous articles I mentioned how when installing Windows 7 on my Netbook I didn’t have to go out and search for a single driver to get all of the hardware components functioning. It was great. So this is now pretty much a non-issue.

Third Party Application Compatibility – Microsoft has finally recognized that Windows XP is still the Gold Standard for application compatibility and stability. While we saw many programs failing in the Vista environment, Windows 7’s application support has been much improved. Windows 7 key is VXP or Virtual Windows XP Mode which provides a virtualized WXP image for running applications in their native environment. So if an application doesn’t work right in XP compatibility mode then you can virtualize it. “Still, VXP is compelling in that it provides a fully licensed copy of Windows XP that you can run alongside your Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate license. And it's free.”

Going back to hardware. With the new norm in systems being multi-core (dual and quad for now and more coming down the road) and much larger standard memory configurations, you will want in employ an operating system that uses the these and many more hardware configurations. Windows 7 takes advantage of multi-core systems better than XP with its base architecture. You will be better leveraged for the future applications taking full advantage of these capabilities.

We all loved XP but once you begin to work with Windows 7 I think you will be won over.

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Industry partners are finalizing new products in time for the worldwide launch.

Yesterday I blogged that this was anticipated, today it is a reality. Here is Microsoft’s PressPass News Release  post yesterday. This press release includes links to other Microsoft sites that will you further insight into these releases. If you browse to the Windows Team Blog page you will get many more links to different aspects of Windows 7. You can find the actual Windows 7 Team Announcement here.(Note: My IE8 errors out on the media reader when this page loads. However, FireFox loads the page just fine.)  All of these blogs they have setup are brand new so there is very little content in them as of yet. They might be worth visiting again in a week or so to see how they begin to flesh out.

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Industry partners are finalizing new products in time for the worldwide launch.

Windows 7 – RTM related dates

Today will probably be the day that Microsoft announces Window 7 has reached the next status level, “release to manufacturing”, RTM. If this continues to hold true, the following dates will have importance to us in regards to this product. Note that if the software is moved to RTM status today, Microsoft will have successfully met their projected deadline for this release.

• OEM’s should have their copies though 2 days after the announcement meaning this Friday if it is announced today.
• Aug 6- Developers and IT Professionals who subscribe to MSDN and TechNet will become available for download
• August 7 – Volume Licensing customers with Software Assurance Plans
• August 16 or 23 – Microsoft’s hardware and software partners will receive their copies of RTM.
• Sept 1 – Volume Licensing customers without Software Assurance Plans
• Oct 22 – Consumers and other customers will have Windows 7 available for purchase at retail

That’s all we have for now. Will add updates as they come along.

Hey Bob, can you or one of your tech people answer this question about win 7 working with the VPN?

It’s working fine with the VPN tunnels we are using. I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t in the released version that is coming out in October.

I have Win7 running on every computer I have at home and love it. I have only one program giving me grief and it is because it does things that are underhanded in the programming world and I have no doubt that in Oct when the final product is released this company will have an update in its product as well. I spend between 15-20 hours connected from home per week right now and don’t have any glitches at all… none. We are running test systems internally and even with our legacy applications that don’t work well with XP or Vista, Work extremely will with Win7. Some have had an enormous speed increase in reporting functions as well. We are very happy with what we see so far. If you are buying a notebook with thought of using Win7, be sure that you have a decent processor, one that supports the virtual bit technology, and will work with 64bit. You will want as much RAM in it as possible to take advantage of the 64bit operating system and later on the virtual desktop. These are all features that will greatly enhance the use of the machine. So the comment below “I doubt anything will work with Win7” is totally erroneous. It’s a great product that we wish Vista was when it came out. I even have it running on a Netbook with 2gb ram, and an atom N270 processor. I wouldn’t use it as my main system but it does just fine for word processing, email and research purposes that I use it for. It is much faster than with XP that it came with and saw all the hardware components on the netbook without having to search and load any drivers. The applications I have loaded include: Office Enterprise 2007, Live Writer, LightRoom, our service program called Connectwise, Live Writer (blogging software), Skype, JungleDisk Backup Software, LiveMesh, Camtasia Studio, Zune and Jing. We use Astaro for our router and its VPN client is installed. All of this on a lowly Atom Processor based Netbook running Win7.