Posts with tag windows
Screenshots emerge of Tablet PC features in Windows 7 beta
Windows 7 details galore: interface tweaks, netbook builds, Media Center enhancements
by Nilay Patel, posted Oct 28th 2008 at 1:58PM 
- Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new "jump lists" of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can "peek" at the windows you're pointing at.
- Gadgets now appear on the desktop -- the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
- Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
- The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should -- everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
- User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained -- you can set them by app and by level of access.
- They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC -- it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging "what is this good for / that'll get old fast" concerns weren't really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There's also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again -- could be amazing, but we won't know until it's out in the wild.
- We've always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his "personal" laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We're guessing it was running a VIA Nano, given the announcement this morning and since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
- At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
- Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors -- it's a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
- Media Center has been tweaked as well -- it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There's also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you're playing music.
- Devs got a pre-beta today; a "pretty good" feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it'll be released to market apart from that "three years from Vista" date we've known forever.
Read - Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read - Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read - Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read - Windows 7 Media Center revealed
Microsoft details pre-beta release of Windows 7
Microsoft gets official with Windows Azure cloud OS, platform
Steve Ballmer himself first dropped word of this one earlier this month, but Microsoft has now finally gotten official about its new cloud computing operating system, and its name: Windows Azure. What's more, the OS is apparently just one component of Microsoft's larger Azure cloud computing platform, which will eventually be fully rolled out alongside Windows 7, and will encompass Microsoft's existing Live services, SQL services, and .NET services, among other things. If that's got you excited, you can find plenty more details at the link below, and even a few SDKs ready for downloading.[Via Pocket-lint]
More Windows 7 details emerge ahead of PDC
We should be getting a much bigger dose of Windows 7 details on Tuesday when Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference gets underway, but it seems that some tidbits just can't be kept under wraps, and ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley now has word of a few more features that are apparently in the forthcoming Windows 7 pre-beta. Chief among those is a so-called Device Stage, which promises to let users more easily interact with a whole range of different devices -- assuming those devices are "Device Stage-enabled' devices, that is (yes, really). Other features supposedly in store include an Action Center that promises to help you troubleshoot problems, a new animation framework to allow for custom animations (which should tie in nicely with the rumored GPU acceleration), tighter integration of the Windows taskbar, an expanded use of Microsoft's so-called "ribbon" interface and, of course, plenty of multi-touch and gesture support.
[Via Electronista]
[Via Electronista]
Microsoft signals some improvements in Windows Vista SP2, still not moist and chewy
Gateway MC7803u hands-on
Gallery: Gateway MC7803u hands-on
Vista, Server 2008 could get their SP2s before Windows 7 kicks them out of the house
Maybe you're running a six-year old pirated copy of XP because you still don't trust Vista -- "I'm waiting on one more Service Pack, just to be extra sure," you say. If that's the case, you might have to come up with a new excuse soon: Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet is reporting that a beta build of Vista Service Pack 2 is already in the hands of some software and hardware partners, and that Microsoft intends to deliver both Vista SP2 and Server 2008 SP2 before it launches Windows 7 -- err, 6.1, no wait, yeah let's go with 7 -- which it supposedly hopes to release June 3rd of next year. At present we know very little about SP2's features, but we're sure you have a few ideas.
How does MS number thy Windows? Let Mike Nash count the ways.
While we were hoping for a bit of naming intrigue for the new flavor of Windows, Microsoft has chosen to simply call it Windows 7. Fair enough, we said, but some netizens are perplexed about where that number came from and, after reading Mike Nash's explanation on the Vista blog, we are too. His numbering scheme goes like this: there were three versions of the original Windows, with NT dubbed 3.1. Then came 95 as version 4, with 98, 98SE, and ME all considered minor updates. 2000 got the next major update to 5, while XP is 5.1, Vista is 6, and this new one is labeled 7. The confusing bit is that it's actually numbered 6.1 internally, a minor version change for the sake of application compatibility. It's still a little early, since the official coming out party isn't until later this month at PDC, but if NT wasn't considered a full step above Windows 3, we're not entirely sure why this should be over Vista. We're also not sure why we care. [Thanks, Andrews S.]
Microsoft survey hints at Instant On OS concept
[Thanks, Anonymous]
Windows 7 to be officially named... Windows 7
by Nilay Patel, posted Oct 13th 2008 at 6:12PM
Windows XP downgrade deadline extended to July 31, 2009
Microsoft wasn't quite ready to comment when rumors about yet another reprieve for Windows XP first starting circulating late last week, but that now seems to have changed, with a spokesperson for the company reportedly confirming in an email to InformationWeek that it is indeed pushing the cut-off date back six months, all the way to July 31st, 2009. According to the spokesperson, that's being done to ensure that customers moving to Vista are "making that transition with confidence and that it is as smooth as possible," adding that, "providing downgrade media for a few more months is part of that commitment." Or, you know, it could have something to do with the fact that some folks don't want to move to Vista at all. Take your pick.Ballmer says "Windows Cloud" OS will debut this month
While a good chunk of this month's Professional Developers Conference will be focused on Windows 7, it looks like Microsoft has another little surprise up its sleeve, with CEO Steve Ballmer himself dropping word that the company also plans to introduce its new, tentatively-titled "Windows Cloud" OS at the conference. Of course, Ballmer isn't about to get very specific about the OS just yet, though he does seem to be dampening expectations a bit by saying, "just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud look a lot like Windows Server." He also apparently confirmed that geo-replication and other features "designed for the cloud" would be built into the OS, and he confirmed the existence of Midori, but said it was still in the incubation phase, adding that, "the guy in the office next door to somebody working on Midori is not supposed to know about Midori." We assume that also means that Windows Cloud is not Midori, but we'll know for sure once PDC gets underway on October 27th.
