Windows 7

[Kailuaboy]

Microsoft Windows 7 on track for the holiday season


by Joseph L. Flatley,
posted May 11th 2009 at 2:33PM



Well, we thought this might happen -- especially after the news that Acer's Z5600 all-in-one will be shipping with Windows 7 pre-loaded, come October 23rd of this year. And now it's official: Windows 7 is on track to be released this "holiday season." Now, this announcement may be officially vague, but it is official. Sometimes in this business (as in life) we take what we can get.

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http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/11/micr ... ay-season/

[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7: The Complete Guide (Now With RC1!)


By Wilson Rothman
10:00 AM on Sat May 23 2009



We've covered Windows 7 from rumor to release candidate, which you can currently download and install for free. Now, it's enchilada time: Here's everything of value that we learned about Win 7, packed in a complete, easy-to-read guide.


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[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7 To Be Released October 22


By Wilson Rothman
2:13 PM on Tue Jun 2 2009



Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would be "generally available" on October 22, according to a Dow Jones news report.


UPDATED

Bill Veghte, SVP of the Windows business, is quoted as saying: "We feel confident that we will deliver Windows 7 with our partners on Oct. 22." Does this mean it appears in retail PCs before it appears in boxes, or will it all hit together on the same day? Regardless, it's a pretty nice early date, definitely good for the Christmas PC-buying season, assuming there is a Christmas this year.


We have confirmed the date with Microsoft, and have received this helpful definition: "General Availability (GA) is when consumers can actually purchase the software and PCs with the software preinstalled." Also, "release to manufacturing" (RTM), when the finished software is given to computer makers to pre-load on new machines, takes place in "late July," presumably over a matter of weeks.

No word yet on pricing. [ WSJ ]



http://gizmodo.com/5275938/windows-7-to ... october-22

[madeinhawaii]

From Starter to Ultimate: What's really in each (version of) Windows 7 Edition?


http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1031&tag=nl.e589

I’ve been pestering contacts at Microsoft for an official features list for months, and they’ve politely but persistently refused every one of my requests. So, as part of the research for Windows 7 Inside Out, I did the work myself. I installed copies of each Windows 7 edition from the Release Candidate (build 7100) code on a single machine, resulting in a five-way multiboot system. Then I tallied up which features were in each edition, trying out each one to see if I could identify unexpected behavior.

--Ed Bott

Article contines at link above ...

[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7 Buyer's Guide: Which Edition is Right for You?


Posted 06/29/09 at 05:30:05 PM
by Mark Edward Soper



If you were frustrated by trying to figure out which edition of Windows Vista was the right choice ("hmm...If I use Vista Business, I don't get Windows Media Center, but if I use Vista Home Premium, I don't get image backup..."), Microsoft has done us all a favor by rethinking the feature sets for Windows 7.

Yes, there are still multiple SKUs to consider, but this time, you no longer need to worry about what's left out if you move up from one edition to another. To find out how the different US editions of Windows 7 compare in features, what Microsoft is doing to satisfy EU regulators, and what it will cost you to pre-order a Windows 7 upgrade now compared to waiting until it ships, keep reading.

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[Kailuaboy]

FAQ: Making sense of Windows 7 upgrade options


June 30, 2009 4:00 AM PDT
by Ina Fried


(Credit: Microsoft)

While it's true Windows 7 doesn't arrive on retail shelves and new PCs until October, Microsoft has announced two programs designed to give a head start to those who know they want the new operating system.

The Windows Upgrade Option, which runs through early next year, allows those buying a new Vista PC to get a free copy of Windows 7 after it hits shelves in October. The other program, which runs only through July 11, allows Windows XP and Vista users to pre-order a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for $49 or Windows 7 Professional for $99.

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[xer 21]

I stopped caring about windows 7 today. it looks like a rehash of vista with a different name to trick vista haters into ditching xp. i just read my PC World and they did a test run. windows 7 is barely faster than vista in worldbench 6. the only signifcant gains it had on vista were in nero, which i dont use. unless vista wont support DX11 when it comes, im not upgrading anytime soon. Vista works great for me.

[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7 Review: You Can Quit Complaining Now


By matt buchanan
3:01 PM on Wed Aug 5 2009



Could Windows 7 accomplish everything that's expected of it? Probably not, but it makes a damn good attempt. We've tested the gold master, the final version going out on October 22. Upgrade without trepidation, people. With excitement, even.

Windows 7 is not quite a "Vista service pack." It does share a lot of the core tech, and was clearly designed to fix nearly every bad thing anyone said about Vista. Which ironically puts the demon that it was trying to exorcise at its heart. What that means is that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been in the public eye—a solid OS with plenty of modern eye candy that mostly succeeds in taking Windows usability into the 21st century—but it doesn't daringly innovate or push boundaries or smash down walls or whatever verb meets solid object metaphor you want to use, because it had a specific set of obligations to meet, courtesy of its forebear.

That said, if you're coming from Windows XP, Windows 7 will totally feel like a revelation from the glossy future. If you're coming from Vista, you'll definitely go "Hey, this is much better!" the first time you touch Aero Peek. If you're coming from a Mac, you'll—-hahahahaha. But seriously, even the Mactards will have to tone down their nasal David Spadian snide, at least a little bit.


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[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7 Review, Part 2: The Best Features and Tips


By Jason Chen
3:00 PM on Wed Aug 5 2009



You've read our final verdict, but since there's a ton of new stuff in Windows 7, we've rounded it all up here, in one easy list, with a little bonus opinionating.


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[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7: 64-bit to go prime time


August 10, 2009 1:30 PM PDT
by Dong Ngo



Windows 7 64-bit will soon take over desktop computers.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)


Consumers have had the option of 64-bit Windows computing since the release of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition in May 2005, four years after the release of Windows XP 32-bit. At the end of 2006, Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit versions were released simultaneously. Yet chances are you're currently using a machine that runs the 32-bit version of Windows.

This is about to change. Windows 64-bit has started to gain a significant foothold in the past two years as more systems ship with 3GB or more of memory. However, with Windows 7, 64-bit computing is likely to become even more common.

What's the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit computing? In a nutshell, the numbers refer to the amount of bits a computer can process in one computation. They also translate into the amount of random access memory (RAM) a computer can address. A 32-bit Windows computer can address a maximum of 4GB of RAM, while a 64-bit Windows machine can address up to 128GB and even more (64-bit applications can address theoretically up to 16 billion gigabytes of memory). So the higher number of bit means better computing, both in terms of precision and capability.


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[Kailuaboy]

How-To: Install Windows 7 and live to tell about it


by Tim Stevens
Aug 11th 2009 at 6:40PM



So you're thinking about going to Windows 7, eh? Chances are your head is swimming in a sea of TLAs and confusing charts -- enough to have the most adamant Microsoft defender reaching for a something with an Option key. Fear not, noble purchaser of legal software. Though XP users have been punished for skipping Vista by not being able to directly upgrade now, the process of backing up your data, formatting and installing Windows, and then restoring your goods again has never been easier -- even if you're on a netbook with less storage than your smartphone. Vista users have even less to worry about. We'll have our full impressions of the finally finalized OS later this week, but for now let's journey hand in hand down the gently sloped path of the upgrade process.


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[Kailuaboy]

Windows 7 Review: XP vs Vista vs 7 in 80+ Benchmarks


Posted 08/12/09
1:00:00 PM by Will Smith



Finally, Microsoft releases a successor worthy of Windows XP


For the Windows faithful, it’s been a tough eight years. With the launch of Windows XP in 2001, we thought we were poised on a brink of a new world of NT-based goodness—but two years and uncountable exploits later, the future of Windows was grim. Facing a never-ending torrent of new ‘sploits, worms, and trojans, Microsoft fired back with the single greatest operating system update of all time—Service Pack 2. In the single fell swoop of SP2, Windows XP went from Swiss cheese to secure, and once again we were poised to enter the promised land with… (wait for it)… Vista.

Of course, we all know how Vista turned out. Haunted by poor performance in everything from games to disk access to networking, Vista is widely considered to be Microsoft’s biggest failure. Nonetheless, Vista laid the groundwork for a host of new technologies, all absolutely vital to pushing Windows into the 21st century. Vista’s new, modern driver architecture was designed to move core functionality from the kernel (where any instability can bring down the whole system) to user space—an absolutely necessary development. Likewise, Vista’s proper enforcement of permissions for both users and applications enhanced security, even though UAC remains very annoying. And once vendors fixed their driver flaws and Microsoft squashed some underlying bugs, Vista morphed into an entirely workable operating system, even if we still wouldn’t describe it as “good.”


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[madeinhawaii]

Anybody running this on their computer, yet?

I'm tempted.

[ubercow]

Anybody running this on their computer, yet?

I'm tempted.

I've been running the RC version since they went public with it. I'd have to say that I like it better than xp/vista, all my apps and games run fine and I'll probably buy it when its released.

[madeinhawaii]

Anybody running this on their computer, yet?

I'm tempted.

I've been running the RC version since they went public with it. I'd have to say that I like it better than xp/vista, all my apps and games run fine and I'll probably buy it when its released.

I'm looking into getting that "family pack" good for three machines in a household. Just hope they have one for the 64-bit release, though.