Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"It's been over a week since the Windows 7 Beta was released to the public. You've read our initial impressions and even followed our guide to installing the OS using a USB key. So what now? Microsoft's post-Vista Windows experience is more than the obvious Taskbar and user interface updates; there are plenty of hidden features and shortcuts that haven't been advertised. But fear not: we've compiled a list of every known Windows 7 tweak and secret. Follow these 20 tricks to make the most out of this beta and become a Windows 7 power user."

I have not had time to play with the Windows 7 beta yet, but looking forward to giving it a whirl. If you've already given it a go, check out these tips to get even more Windows 7 goodness.

"I've now had my hands on Windows 7 beta 1 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400 (the build that is widely expected to be made available to beta testers by Microsoft early in January) and have had some time to compose my thoughts and feelings about this latest release."

Over on ZDNet there's a short review of the Windows 7 build that's expected to be widely available for public beta. It sounds like Microsoft has a great product on their hands. I'm looking forward to the beta and have a machine I'm ready to install it on, when the time comes. I'll just need to make sure and be careful when using Windows Media Player 12.

"Several reports from users testing the latest leaked build of Windows 7 indicate a potential data corruption issue using Microsoft's Windows Media Player 12. Windows 7 beta 1 build 7000 leaked over the Christmas holidays and a Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed that there is a bug which affects the leaked build. Approximately 2-3 seconds will get shaved off the beginning of MP3s if you have set your Windows Media Player 12 settings to retrieve information from the internet and update files. The default configuration for WMP12 sets this if you use the "express" option during setup."

I've beta tested a lot of software over the years, including Windows operating systems, and I'd never have hesitated to use it to play back my media. Sure, you don't use the beta OS for mission-critical stuff, but I'd certainly test out the media player...but now I'm sure going to be cautious about Windows 7 until they fix this bug! Apparently the problem is triggered if the header is more than 16 KB in size on the MP3...and since I embed high-res album art in all my MP3s, the headers are definitely bigger than 16 KB. As always, when testing beta software, assume that things are going to go wrong.

"Mark Croft and Brian Yee from the Windows Product Management team presented Windows 7 to us. I've had some experience with an early technology preview (as in, pre-beta) of Windows 7, and I really liked what I saw. They had a slide called "Windows Has Changed" that had an interesting point - it said that they were focusing on quality over timeline, and timeline over features. Deconstructing that, you get a focus on quality first and foremost, followed by timely releases (no more five year waits), and features last. Features last? That's an interesting departure, because Microsoft has traditionally been fairly feature-focused, to the point where trying to implement features drive back product release dates. Microsoft has three main goals with Windows 7: making it work the way you want, making everyday tasks faster and easier, and making new things possible. All laudable goals, but so much depends on the hardware partners and the "d" word": drivers."

Normally there's not much at the mobility-focused Mobius conference, but we were given a presentation on Windows 7 that I think Digital Home Thoughts readers will be quite interested in. Check it out!

"Curious as to what else was under Microsoft's elaborate lock, key, and duct-tape protection scheme mentioned earlier, I had my friend Chris Holmes run a scan of his 7 system, as I'm still babying my laptop's SSD drive. What we found were ties into system files littered across the entire operating system. Post-analysis revealed another feature tucked away in the corner - Say hello to (what I think should be called) Desktop Slideshow. If your memory is sharp, you'll remember Long Zheng found mention of this very feature on MSDN first, of which was quickly sanitized by Sinofsky's secret police."

As someone who enjoys vibrant and colourful desktop backgrounds, and who changes them on a regular basis, I'm excited about this feature - essentially it allows you to select multiple deskop backgrounds and have them rotate on a timed basis. More importantly, it's not just limited to backgrounds on your computer - you can subscribe to RSS feeds and use these feeds as photos sources. With most photo sites providing feeds, it wouldn't be hard to imagine a scenario where you could have a constant stream of images flowing to your desktop from a variety of sources - especially if you got creative with merged feeds with Feedburner. Want grandma and grandpa to have desktop backgrounds of your family photos? Looks like it will be easy with Windows 7!

"With the Microsoft PDC recently wrapping up, excitement has been building for Windows 7. I wonder, will it be able to live up to the hype? There's only one way to find out: install it and see for myself. This is by no means a complete analysis of the OS, rather my observations from the first few days of experimenting with it. The Aero interface has been refined, and it's leaner and meaner than before. Visual effects look superb and are silky smooth, even on less powerful hardware like a Celeron M520 laptop with Intel integrated graphics. Even with all the Aero Glass effects enabled, battery life didn't take a substantial hit (I noticed anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes less on a 5.5 hour battery). Need to move a full screen window? Just click the title bar and start dragging - no need to click restore first, it will automatically resize. The reverse works as well: drag a window to the top edge of your screen, and Windows will maximize it."

I'm seeing something very interesting happening here: the praise for Windows 7, even though the software is still raw and uncooked, is almost universally positive. Is the impression of Vista so negative, that Windows 7 looks great in comparison? Or has Microsoft taken the criticism on Vista seriously and really dug down deep to improve Windows 7? I suspect the latter - Microsoft doesn't always make the right decisions, but they do seem to learn from their mistakes. I'm going to try slapping my Windows 7 copy onto my HP tx2500...I have no idea what to expect, but I figure I might as well give it a try!

"My poor MSI Wind. The hard drive has to be suffering from MOSPD or Multiple OS Personality Disorder. If XP, Vista and OS X weren't enough stress for the 80 GB drive, wiping it this morning to play with Windows 7 likely put it over the top. Can anyone recommend a specialist? For the Wind, not me... I'm clearly beyond saving at this point... Like LAPTOP Magazine, I like what I see so far. The new Network Manager is indeed a more simplified and improved method of managing connectivity. On the Wind with 1GB of RAM (I removed the extra gig for now) I'm getting the same Windows Experience Index that LAPTOP sees on their Asus Eee PC 1000H: a 2.3, which is the lowest score and is for the Aero graphics. Ironically, Windows Update found a newer driver for the Intel graphics and after installing that just now, the same score dropped to 2.0. Hey, it's a test build..."

I think this bodes well for the performance of Windows 7. If a single core Atom is able to run it, my quad-core desktop should have no problems with it whatsoever. If your interest is piqued, there is additional covered, including screen shots, over at Laptop Magazine.

"If you are attending the 2008 Professional Developers Conference you received a pre-beta Windows 7 build today (6801) which contains many features the Windows Media Center team has been developing over the past year. It's my pleasure to take a few minutes to outline some of these new features for you. If you install this build do keep in mind it's considered an ‘Alpha' experience meaning some features may not be polished or work quite as well as they will in the final product AND things may change (mostly for the better we hope) between now and beta and RTM. So let's jump right in..."

Microsoft employee Charlie Owen has published a bunch of screen shots from the Windows Media Center interface inside Windows 7. Lots of improvements are shown, but the one that really caught my attention was native h.264 support, including Media Center Extenders. Finally, using h.264 inside a Microsoft ecosystem won't be quite so frustrating. There's some good stuff here!

"Windows 7 will ship with a new version of the Windows Media Player. This is somewhat surprising, given Microsoft's complete neglect of the Media Player since Vista's release and its emphasis on the Zune PC software, which has its own playback and organizational features. But apparently Microsoft has realized that native playback of digital media within Windows is too important to force people to download an application separately. This is not the case with some other applications--for instance, Windows 7 will not come with Mail/Outlook Express, Photo Gallery, or Movie Maker--instead, users will have to download Windows Live versions of these applications. (Or PC makers will have to pre-bundle them.)"

It looks like there will be a lot of good things coming related to audio and video on Windows 7. Some of the highlights? Better Bluetooth support for speakers and headsets, a new version of Windows Media Player, native support (finally!) for h.264/MPEG video files and AAC audio files, improvements in networked music, intelligent routing of the right kind of audio to the right kind of device, and more. I think Vista is quite a capable operating system when it comes to media, but I'm definitely looking forward to the features in Windows 7 that will make the experience even better.

"Today at its Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft gave the public its first peek at the Windows client release that's supposed to make up for Vista. Based on our early tests of the new client, we're impressed with Seven's speed and polish."

The biggest news about Windows 7? Paint is getting an overhaul! I kid, I kid. Well, no, actually Paint is getting an overhaul and an Office 2007-style ribbon control - but I'm sure there's more to Windows 7 than that! Perhaps the most promising thing I've seen so far is that according to this New York Times article, Steven Sinofsky, the guy leading the development of Windows 7, is planning on showing Windows 7 at PDC 2008 on a low-priced Lenovo computer with only 1 GB of RAM and <cough> an Intel Atom CPU. If Windows 7 has been trimmed of that much fat and can run properly on such minimal hardware, then colour me impressed. About the only time I haven't liked Vista is when I've used it on a small devices like the Samsung Q1 Ultra, or on the HP Mini-Note 2133 netbook. Vista just sucks on those types of devices. On reasonably-equipped desktop PCs, even the $599 type, Vista runs quite well.

"Microsoft has decided that Windows 7 won't include built-in programs for e-mail, photo editing, and movie making, as was done with Windows Vista, CNET News.com has learned. The software maker included Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker as part of Vista, but later chose to offer separate downloadable Windows Live programs that essentially replaced those components with versions that could connect to online services from Microsoft and others. Microsoft told CNET News late Monday that it has decided to remove those features entirely from Windows 7 and instead offer only the service-connected Windows Live versions as optional free downloads. Earlier on Monday, Microsoft had declined to say how it was handling things."

This is risky business for Microsoft. Why? Because there are a lot of Windows users that don't install extra software on thier PC - many people I know use whatever came with their computer, regardless of whether or not there's something better out there for them. Every Apple computer ships with iLife, and now every Windows 7 computer will ship with...nothing? Or perhaps we'll see every OEM select their own email, photo, and video solution - thus creating an even more fragmented PC landscape. That's not a good solution either. I have a slim hope that Microsoft will be able to encourage OEMs to bundle the complete suite of Windows Live products with each computer they ship, or perhaps offer some sort of easy download option...but I still see this as being problematic on a number of levels. What do you think?

"By now, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s working and what isn’t in Vista. Here are our recommendations for how Microsoft should proceed with Windows 7. Add Something Inspirational. Say what you like about Steve Jobs, but he stirs the Apple faithful into a frenzy with his promise of “one more thing.” Apple has done a great job of adding features, applications, and functionality to OS X that inspire its users. Some of that is just marketing mumbo jumbo, but the tight integration and the user-focused design of Apple’s integrated apps impress even the most die-hard PC user."

See the full article for the other 7, but I've really got to agree with this one. At this point, Vista is pretty good, so from here on, it is really a marketing problem. The other and possibly biggest thing they need to do is make sure Windows 7 works at release. For both XP and Vista, it has seemed to take a service pack or two before it finally worked. No matter what, Windows 7 can't be released until it is ready.

"As you may recall, Bill Gates himself mentioned a little ways back that Windows 7 could possibly be arriving as soon as next year, which prompted some quick backtracking on Microsoft's part, but that earlier-than-expected date has now cropped up yet again, this time supposedly in Microsoft's internal calendar. According to InternetNews.com, that calendar pegs the planned release date as June 3rd, 2009, which is a good deal sooner than the "early 2010" date we've been hearing all along, and quite a significant cut into Vista's planned three-year lifespan. What's more, the site also says that Microsoft will take advantage of its Professional Developer's Conference on October 27th to launch the first public beta of Windows 7, although that doesn't quite match up with earlier word that it'd only be revealing some "in-depth technical information" about the OS."

There's not a lot to go on here, but this Internetnews.com article that Engadget has linked to has a fairly logical trail of bread crumbs that leads to the June 2009 launch date. There's a certain amount of logic in Microsoft pushing hard to get Windows 7 out the door faster than they'd originally planned: they get a chance to fix the issues with Windows Vista, they get to re-position the product with new marketing campaigns, and they force Apple to re-shoot all their smart-ass commercials. ;-) I just hope Microsoft is working on a configuration of Windows 7 that's optimized for small and light devices such as UMPCs and netbooks. Vista is just too big and heavy for small devices.

I'm exceedingly disappointed to see the word "Ultimate" in the above screen shots. I really hope Microsoft doesn't repeat the same mistake they made with Windows Vista by having four different versions available at retail. I distinctly remember having rather heated discussions with Microsoft people about how bad it was going to be that they were fragmenting the product line and making it more confusing for users, but those complaints fell on deaf ears. I was cautiously optimistic about Windows Vista Ultimate when I first heard about it, but seeing as how the "Ultimate Extras" turned out to be a huge disappointment, the words "Windows Vista Ultimate" are now synonymous with wasted money.

"A lot of the problems that Vista has today running on notebooks and other mobile computers can be traced back to the hefty hardware requirements Vista needs to run well. There's no point in burying your head in the sand and ignoring this as it's a cold, hard fact and you have to make sure that Windows 7 doesn't require such muscle to run acceptably. Sure, it's cool to be able to claim that Win7 will run on the latest and greatest dedicated graphics and quad-core processors but these don't play a significant role in the mobile PC space, a space that will be huge by the time Win7 ships. It's not just a matter of OEMs wanting to keep costs down, which of course plays a role, but it's realizing that this muscle is just not needed in most notebooks the way consumers use them. Rather than trying to deny that, it makes far more sense to accept it and optimize Win7 to run well with lower spec processors, less RAM, slower hard drives and integrated graphics. This is the real world and that's the world you will be playing in with Win7."

Kendrick's write-up is mobility-focused, and hits on some key points. It's definitely worth the read.

"Since taking over the Windows development reins from Jim Allchin, Steven Sinofsky has chosen to fall almost completely off the public radar...Well, Sinofsky is breaking his public silence, slightly, to offer a few important details about 7 (he reiterated that it is coming by January 2010) and to explain why he is saying so little publicly. In an exclusive interview with CNET News.com last week, Sinofsky talked about how the new version of Windows is designed to build on top of Vista's architectural changes without adding things like new driver models that can increase compatibility challenges. Below is the edited, but still rather lengthy transcript, of our conversation."

This is an interesting interview, in some ways because of what isn't said rather than what is said. You can tell that Sinofsky is very aware of the dangers of naming specific features that Windows 7 will have - we all remember how the feature list for Windows Vista started out long, and got shorter and shorter as it came closer to launch. Anyone remember WinFS? Ina Fried from C|NET does his best to get specifics out of Sinofsky, and near the end it gets kind of uncomfortable, but Sinofsky manages to say a lot without revealing much. What I take away from this article is that Windows 7 is underway, the teams are working hard on it, but no one is ready to talk about specifics yet - and I think that's fine. Vista still feels quite new in the overall ecosystem, and I'm certainly continuing to learn things about it (not all of them good mind you).

I think the concept that Microsoft should be talking about Windows 7, in detail, two years before it arrives to be slightly ridiculous - when was the last time Apple gave the world a two-year peek into its operating system plans? As usual, there's a double-standard that is applied to Microsoft, and there's no good reason for it. If Fried interviews Steve Jobs next, I hope he'll ask the same types of questions.

"The old idea where Microsoft bases an operating system on central pillars? It’s back, and with a complete refocus of priorities. Looking back, the original pillars of Longhorn were Avalon (WPF), Indigo (WCF), and WinFS, as well as the pseudo-pillar which was referred to as “Fundamentals.” No longer does Microsoft’s basis for an operating system focus on key architectural developments such as the various frameworks of yore. Now, it seems, pillars are at least tentatively being redefined as design and usability concepts upon which to build the operating system. Over the next five days, I’m going to spend some time on AeroXP presenting to you the separate pillars upon which the Windows 7 experience (and indeed, Windows 7 as a whole) will be built. What you'll see are the five pillars of Windows 7 and the specific scenarios which the Windows team plans to enhance. Wherever possible, I'll enhance the scenario depictions with visual aids (read: screenshots). The first pillar is after the jump."

This looks to be an interesting series for those who would like to see the high-level, basic concepts that go into designing an operating system, specifically Windows 7. It is also a good look at some of the changes we can expect to see a few years down the line.