GuildCom

I found this while looking for something else altogether, and thought I’d share.  Microsoft crafted a quality product guide for Windows 7 that discusses (in pretty good detail) many of the new features and such of Microsoft’s shiny new OS.  Quite handy if you’re new to Windows 7 and haven’t been using beta versions of it for the last 6+ months like Bishop and I have.  The overview on the download page sums it up nicely:

The Windows 7 Product Guide provides a detailed look at the many new and improved features in Windows 7. The guide is designed as an accurate source of information that can help you to understand how Windows 7 Simplifies Everyday Tasks, Works the Way You Want, and Makes New Things Possible. The guide is also designed to provide IT Professionals with information about how to Make People Productive Anywhere, Manage Risk Through Enhanced Security and Control, and Reduce Costs by Streamlining PC Management. This is not a help and how to guide. Rather, it provides an overview of the many exciting features in Windows 7 and pointers to more information. The Windows 7 Product Guide is available in both XPS and PDF formats.

About two years and nine months ago, Microsoft released the much-maligned Windows Vista.  I didn’t start using it until nearly a year after it’s release (just a couple of months before Service Pack 1 was released, in fact), and didn’t go to using it full-time until a few months after.  For the most part, Vista ran problem-free for me, and I generally liked Microsoft’s newest OS.  I did have a few problems scattered throughout my year of full-time use (and some before I started using Vista full-time).  in fact, I’ve probably written about some of them here (just checked:  I have, namely the infamous The Long Week & The Longer Post article, which detailed many days of frustration of Games for Windows Live not working…and leading me to discover my .Net Framework was borked.).  There was also the time when Service Pack 1 was first released, I couldn’t get it to install (that was finally fixed by a reformat).  And there’s always little things like video drivers going apeshit and such, but that’s not unique to Vista anyways. 

For the most part, though, I liked Windows Vista, Read more…

Sources:  http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2727
             http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1006

Despite Microsoft always claiming the target release for Windows 7 was to be “three years after Windows Vista”, which would be Jan. 2010, we all have known it would come out sometime in the second half of 2009.  It had to.  Looking back to when Windows Vista was released, Vista sales suffered from missing the always-lucrative back-to-school and holiday seasons.

Now, Microsoft is saying Windows 7 *will* release in 2009, specifically in time for the holiday season this year.  No specific dates have been given yet, not even a month of release.  And while it remains unclear of whether Windows 7 will release in time for the back-to-school crowd (August/September), having it in time for the holiday shopping season this year is a good thing.  A new version of Windows generally means increased PC sales (particularly during the holiday season), which is something that would be quite welcome in our current economic state.

Personally, I’ll be keeping an eye out for more specific release dates and details, since Windows 7 is the second thing on my computer updates list (trailing a new video card, which is sorely needed…).

As we speak, I’m browsing an (extensive) list of changes made from the beta to the release candidate. I have not been disappointed. In fact, the Windows team has addressed several complaints I’ve had regarding UI functionality since Vista’s release — mostly relating to how we deal with folders and directories, etc; Scorpio will be happy to hear this. The Oblivion-modding bastard.
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Wikipedia strikes me as a good idea gone bad. Really really bad.

Case in point: they’re currently voting on how to handle their copyrights in the future. There’s an add at the top of every page for every user that says ‘Vote now!’ It got annoying, so I clicked on it in hopes I could vote and it would go away.

Seriously, folks? …seriously? Jeezusgawd.

Please, people. Say what you mean — not what you want people to think you mean.

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

Following recent news released by Microsoft, a European judge has finally handed down a decision regarding the EU’s continuing investigations into Mike’s alleged anticompetitive practices. In an exclusive scoop, the entire text of that decision is reproduced here:

Awww, merde!

The judge in question declined to comment further.

http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/03/eu-eases-microsoft-monitoring-disbands-full-time-watchdog.ars

Update: Holy shnike, it looks like Internet Explorer actually includes the ability to save pages as a single file. Big win for Big Mike!

I know this is going to sound pathetic because I think it’s pretty bad even by my astonishingly nitpicky standards, but it’s a fact (sadly enough): the A#1 reason I don’t use Windows 7 more than I do is…

Browser tabs.

Maybe it seems impossible, but I’m dead serious. I have a tendency not to read all of a document in one sitting, so I save a little for next time every time I get up from the computer. Since there is no convenient way to save docs from one session to the next in a way that can move from one computer to the next (that I know of, at least), if I was reading something in Vista before I went to bed last night, that means I have to boot up in Vista when I want to continue.

Yes, yes, I know we’re headed toward a world in which Emperor GOOG will direct all activity and in which all data is mobile and in which we will really never really be away from our computers (I’ve long envisioned sort of a portable user account that can tap into any hardware), but we aren’t there yet and there are still special circumstances which preclude the transfer of X from A to B.

So why is it that web browsers, harbingers of all that is Tech with a Capital T, can’t figure this one out? Just let me save a list of what I’m doing that can be opened in your browser later on.

Actually, as long as I’m listing my favorite imaginary browser features, here are two more:

Google! Now that I can drag and drop your tabs, why don’t you let me select more than one tab at a time? Whoops — half of this browser is full of research and the other half is full of comics. I think I’ll drag the research into a new window… One. Tab. At. A. Time. No, this is not ideal.

EVERYBODY: Which of you retards originally thought it was a good idea to save the html file in one place and then stick a goddamn folder next to it to contain all its resources? Make it one file! Any sort of container would work. No compression required. I know no one saves websites anymore, but that doesn’t mean your feature isn’t still broken as hell.

It has been several months since the Beta 2 version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 was released.  A newer build of IE8 was included in the Windows 7 Beta, but I personally found it worsethan the IE8 Beta 2 build, especially when it came to text rendering (though Compatibility mode worked a lot better).  Well, this new IE8 build, called Release Candidate 1, is even newer, and in the hour I’ve been playing with it, I’ve seen no problems whatsoever.  It’s fast, hasn’t crashed (yet), and generally works as expected.  I’ve yet to see any of the rendering issues that plagued the Windows 7 version, or any of the misc. troubles I encountered with the Beta 2 build last year. 

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If you’ve been keeping up with your reading lately, you know that I have become increasingly and genuinely impressed by Redmond’s performance — and that I never thought I’d say that. But being impressed has to go beyond neat gadgets and cool toys (like Live Writer, which I am again using to write this post). What about the real world?

What about search?

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