Windows 7 Articles

Possible October Release for Windows 7

2009-05-01T04:28:48Z

After months of debate about the release date of the Microsoft Corporation’s Windows 7, yet another rumor surfaced today. Chris Hall over at Pocket-lint first reported that Acer’s United Kingdom Marketing Director, Bobby Watkins, leaked that the “23rd October is the date the Windows 7 will be available. There is a 30 day upgrade time so that customers don’t wait to buy a new computer, so if you buy during that 30 day period, you’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7.”

He also confirmed that Vista users will have a free upgrade to Windows 7. And according to Pocket-lint, “Talking about their new all-in-one model, the Z5600 PC, specifically designed for Windows 7, the company revealed that the Asus Eee Top rival, will actually be shipping at the end of September to be in stores for people to ‘touch and feel’.”

This news regarding an earlier than expected release of the new operating system should prove to boost Microsoft in the coming holiday season. The Redmond company should be able to take advantage of some high school seniors shipping off to college as well as Christmas computer shoppers.

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Windows 7 - Windows XP Mode

2009-04-26T00:48:37Z

To download seventeen screenshots of the new feature (in a .zip), from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, click here.

This week, through the leak of the Windows 7 Release Candidate (build 7100), Paul Thurrott and Rafael Rivera have teamed up to provide astonishing new information about one of the new features in Windows 7 called Windows XP Mode.

The project, which has remained a secret until now, was titled Virtual Windows XP but later changed to its current name. According to Rivera, “XPM is built on the next generation Microsoft Virtual PC 7 product line, which requires processor-based virtualization support (Intel and AMD) to be present and enabled on the underlying PC, much like Hyper-V, Microsoft’s server-side virtualization platform.” Windows XP Mode will be made available for free to Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate users. However, the add-on does not come in the Windows 7 box. It will be downloadable off of the Microsoft website. With Windows XP Mode, users can run XP Mode applications side by side with Windows 7 applications (see Figure 1).

The new feature should prove to be a huge bonus for Windows XP holdouts who aren’t quite sold on the idea of moving to Windows 7. Now, Microsoft can boast about near 100% compatibility with XP applications.

Figure #1: A Windows XP application, Office 2003, running side by side with a Windows 7 application, Office 2007.

To download seventeen screenshots of the new feature (in a .zip), from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows, click here.

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Windows 7 Release Candidate Leaked

2009-04-25T22:04:18Z

To download fifty screenshots of the new build, from Windows 7 News, click here.

After months of beta testing and development by the Microsoft team, the moment has finally arrived. The Windows 7 Release Candidate was leaked today following the release of dozens of builds of the operating system up to that point. Torrent websites are flaunting the new leak, labeled 7100.0.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700 or build 7100. By the build string, we can assume the Release Candidate was compiled on April 21st at 5:00 PM.

This leak comes only days before its speculated May 5th official release on the Microsoft website for developers and testers. According to ITavisen.no, the build “installs in 20 minutes on most machines (including virtual), it is responsive, has a driver database, no other OS can provide both cosmetic changes and new features that are very crazy (translation by Google).” Apparently, since the RC escrow leak, only bugs have been fixed and no UI changes have been made.

Here are some of the details:
Build String: 7100.0.winmain_win7rc.090421-1700
File Name: 7100.0.090421-1700_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULFRER_EN_DVD.iso
Size: 2.36GB // 3.04 GB
MD5 Hash: 8867C13330F56A93944BCD46DCD73590 (x86 only)
CRC32: E8A1C394
SHA-1: 7D1F486CA569EFFFFB719CFB48355BB7BF499712
Torrent Hash: C738F422D 6C36C36A 655BEFB3 21E51E4A 2C84B7EE // A4835C20 4C7FC504 704C9376 73A8762A B9F2E761

Windows 7 - Release Candidate

To download fifty screenshots of the new build, from Windows 7 News, click here.

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Build 7070 Screenshots

2009-03-30T20:52:40Z

Only days after the leak of build 7068 on torrent websites, screenshots of build 7070 have appeared. 7070 has the string 6.1.7070.0.winmain.090324-1853 and was compiled on March 24, 2009 at 6:53 PM. The screenshots were leaked at Facepunch forums.

According to the leaker’s post:

“I just came back from Microsoft, since my Dad works there. He works for in the SQL server division and here are some screenshots I took about the new build 7070.I don’t know if there is anything new to this build, but they installed it yesterday, so it probably will be leaked soon. They said it was a major update; maybe not to the user interface but more to the Kernel. Just letting you guys know :P”

According to ArsTechnica, the latest build strings since the leaked 7068 are:

6.1.7069.0.winmain.090323-1630
6.1.7070.0.winmain.090324-1853
6.1.7071.0.winmain.090326-1750
6.1.7072.0.winmain.090327-1845

Here are the screenshots:

Windows 7 Build 7070 Screenshot

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Windows 7 - Build 7068 Leaked! The same Japanese blogger who released screenshots of build 7068...

Windows 7 - Build 7068 Leaked!

2009-03-28T22:10:57Z

Rumor has it the same man who leaked the build 7068 screenshots has now leaked the official highest build on the download market. Build 7068 is now available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on torrent websites. The build string is 7068.winmain.090321-1322. It was compiled on March 21, 2009 at 1:22 PM.

Build 7068 screenshot...

Another Build 7068 Screenshot...

Paul Thurott, famous Windows enthusiast, made an interesting discovery in his installation of build 7068 on his blog. This build is the first to list all of the install options: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. This is because the 7068 version is mainly for OEMs and testing.

Install Options

File Details

32-bit
File Name : 7068.0.090321-1322_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso
Size : 2.53GB
MD5 : 9dbc20dc21e09f926c530799918215a0
SHA1 : fd1f67a2727fe6aaf1c141ff34ae9af77a24a172 SHA1 = fd1f67a2727fe6aaf1c141ff34ae9af77a24a172
CRC32 : 26312514

64-bit
File Name : 7068.0.090321-1322_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso
Size : 3.23GB

Download

32-bit: Download here

64-bit: Download here

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Windows 7 Build 7068 Screenshots

2009-03-28T00:08:11Z

A Japanese blog (translated version) has released the first pictures of build 7068 or 7068.winmain.090321-1322. According to the screenshot, the build was compiled on March 21, 2009 at 1:22 PM. The pictures mostly highlight errors with some Windows 7 gadgets in the build. The blog also talks about the decreased performance with the aero interface enabled.

Here are the screenshots:

Build 7068 taskbar.

A gadget error highlighted in the article.

An expanded view of the gadget with the error.

The full screenshot of Windows 7 Build 7068.

Another full screenshot of Windows 7 Build 7068.

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Trashed Windows 7 Concepts

2009-03-23T21:49:55Z

Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7, is not even released as of yet, but it is already receiving a great deal of praise from beta testers and tech journalists. Microsoft has tried to remain open about its development of the new operating system through the Windows 7 Team Blog, through social bookmarking sites like Twitter, and through the Engineering Windows 7 blog.

In that spirit of openness, Microsoft released some of the Windows 7 concepts that were abandoned at the MIX conference in Las Vegas. TechRadar shows off the designs here.

Here are some of those trashed concepts and some of the notes from the design team:

Some of the team's notes on the icons in the taskbar.

Using different right click menus for different icons was ditched because it was too confusing for users.

An interesting idea for a visual thumbnail taskbar...

A concept previous to the Aero Peek feature that lowlights the selected window's surroundings.

Here we see the lava lamp concept for taskbar thumbnails. Theoretically, thumbnails would come into view live lava from a lava lamp?

Here are some more notes with ideas for thumbnails, some of them intriguing.

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Logon Changer for Windows 7

2009-03-22T01:10:11Z

Last week, Rafael Rivera Jr. made an important Windows 7 discovery regarding changeable login screen backgrounds in the operating system. We reported on how to change your login background in our post. While the login changing ability was found in the 7057 build on Windows 7, anyone running the operating system (build 7000+) should be able to change their login screen.

Now, Tweaks.com is making the task much simpler with an easy-to-use Logon Changer. The application is a lightweight utility that is extremely easy to use and lets the user avoid creating annoying registry values, renaming images, and dragging folders.

To use the program, simply run the application “TweaksLogon.exe” and begin. Click “Change Logon Screen” to select an image from your hard drive.

The Logon Changer will then provide an example of what your login screen may look like. You can press the “Test” button to move to your Switch User view. Don’t worry, this does not log you out of Windows.

Once you are satisfied with your login screen, simply exit the program and enjoy. Reverting back to the default login screen is as easy as clicking the “Revert to Default Logon Screen” button in Logon Changer.

The program can be downloaded here:

Download Logon Changer (Version 1.0, 242KB Zip File)

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86% of Enthusiasts Like Windows 7

2009-03-19T08:40:34Z

Since the opening of Windows 7 Info (W7Info.com), users have taken part in voting on the Windows 7 Articles blog. The title of the poll is “Rate Windows 7″ with the options of rating it “5 - Amazing, 4 - Good, 3 - Okay, 2 - Bad, 1 - Poor.” I’d like to point out the results of the poll thus far as 351 enthusiasts have cast their votes on our blog.

We first published our results after January and 75% of Windows Enthusiasts liked Windows 7. Since then, the results have been even more favorable for the new operating system. An 86% approval rating is high praise indeed from a critical market of PC users who torched Windows Vista, Microsoft’s last OS release. And, the ratings seem to be gradually getting better… from 75% to 86% in a matter of a month and a half.

We encourage users to take part in our poll, simply scroll down on the sidebar and cast your vote. Or vote here:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Our results as of 3/19/2009 at 1:23 AM:

Amazing - 201 votes (57%)
Good - 102 votes (29%)
Okay - 30 votes (9%)
Bad - 5 votes (1%)
Poor - 13 votes (4%)

Compare this to our post-January poll results:

Amazing - 31 votes (38%)
Good - 29 votes (36%)
Okay - 11 votes (14%)
Bad - 3 votes (4%)
Poor - 7 votes (9%)

75% of Enthusiasts Think Windows 7 is Good It's fair to say that Windows 7 enthusiasts think very...

Windows 7 Release Candidate Update

2009-03-18T00:33:41Z

Microsoft has updated its scheduling for the release of the Windows 7 Release Candidate. In the fourth week of April (19-25) of 2009, Microsoft plans to release internal RC-escrow builds (not the same as the public RC) to a smaller group of testers. Then, in the last week of May, Microsoft plans to make a public Release Candidate available.

In other news, the Microsoft Office 14 Beta is expecting a July release. A second beta version will be available in November. And then Office is planned to be released in early March of 2010.

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