Entries tagged with windows 7 - Channel 10

Family Pack is Back!

Sarah Perez — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:07:00 GMT

Microsoft is reintroducing the Windows 7 Family Pack, a discounted pack of multiple Windows 7 operating system licenses for use in homes that have more than one computer. Starting October 3rd in the U.S., you’ll be able to get 3 upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for $149.99. On October 22nd, a discount will also be available to shoppers in Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Australia and others, a date which also happens to be Windows 7’s one-year anniversary.

If you’ve been waiting around to upgrade your home’s computers, this is a good time to buy. To see if your PC can run Windows 7, check out the Upgrade Advisor here.

(via the Windows Team)

Sick of Landscapes? Tons of New Artistic Themes Added to Windows 7 Gallery

Sarah Perez — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:40:00 GMT

While I’ve personally been enjoying the new Bing themes (especially the RSS-enabled one!), not everyone is interested in setting a tranquil landscape, cityscape or nature-inspired photo as their desktop background. If you would rather have something a bit more artistic to look at, you’ll be pleased to find that the Windows 7 Personalization Gallery has recently been updated with a big selection of new themes, all with a more artistic focus.

Here’s what’s new:

26 Creative – This theme features “cheerful florals” and “patchwork characters” from artist Chang, Fan-Hsuan.
Imagination – A gently surreal theme from artist Yeh, Hsin-Hung.
Bake House – A theme made up of cartoonish breads and pastry characters by Wang, Hsueh-Shih.
Girls Rock – An anime-esque theme featuring girl rockers.
An Hsin Pu Tzu – A dreamy, romantic theme featuring cartoon characters relaxing in nature.
Gears of War 3 – not necessarily an “artistic” theme, but worth a mention – this one features portraits of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago and Anya Stroud from Gears of War 3, due to arrive on Xbox in April 2011.

Students: Get Windows 7 for $30

Sarah Perez — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:33:00 GMT

Wow, I just came across a handy link you’ll want to share with any college students (or parents of college students) you know: Windows 7 is only $29.99 for those enrolled in a U.S.-based educational institution. To qualify, the student must be taking at least 0.5 course credits and have either an @EDU.com email address or attend one of the institutions listed here. If so, the deal available here, will let them grab the Windows 7 Professional Upgrade edition for digital download. Backup media can be optionally added to the order, too, if desired.

The deal is currently being featured on www.microsoft.com/student, which is a valuable resource for finding great deals on Microsoft software, with links to Office 2010 for $79.95, all the student deals on the Microsoft Store site, all the free downloads from Dreamspark (professional development tools), and more. This almost makes me want to go back to school myself. Well, almost.

Gorgeous Galaxies in New NASA Theme

Sarah Perez — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:27:00 GMT

A new NASA Windows 7 theme is now being featured on the Windows 7 personalization gallery website. This site, for those that don't know, is a great resource for finding new ways to personalize your PC, including free themes, backgrounds and gadgets.

Recent additions to the themes gallery have included a handful of "Bing's Best" themes, including a very cool one – and one of my new favorites - featuring images from Japan (See: Bing’s Best: Japan here).

The new NASA theme ("Spacescapes") is an excellent follow-up to the earlier one showcasing imagery revealed by the infrared system of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spacescapes theme offers gorgeous imagery of galaxies, dying stars and more. You can grab it here.

Windows 7 Greener than XP

Sarah Perez — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:27:00 GMT

A recent Ars Technica article points to a recent study from Mindteck which analyzed the “greenness” of Windows 7 as compared to Windows XP. The company looked at power consumption in various scenarios (sleep, idle, low and high use, etc.) to determine how much better Windows 7 did (or did not) fare when compared to its predecessor.

The results showed that Windows 7 improved upon XP in every case, even out-of-the-box, prior to updated drivers, for instance. For businesses with XP desktops considering an upgrade to Windows 7, the improvements mean major cost savings, even thousands of dollars as this chart shows.

The full report is available as free download from Ars’ website.

WEI Share: Share your Windows 7 Experience Index

Larry Larsen — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:56:00 GMT

WEI Share ("We Share") is a Coding4Fun code sample that takes your Windows Experience Index score and shares it with the world (anonymously) to an Azure website with a Silverlight front end and lets you post your WEI score to Facebook for bragging rights.

Why would you want to share your WEI score with the world? First, this gives us a place to compare WEI scores across a wide range of hardware and even see how many touch points a multitouch computer may give you. Second, a computer's speed is dependent on the efficiency of the drivers. Sometimes WEI scores go up, sometimes they go down. This will allow you to judge the score that various versions of a driver may give you.

You can run WEI Share at www.WEIShare.net and download the source code at WEIShare.codeplex.com (coming later this week).

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Arrives Next Month

Sarah Perez — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:54:00 GMT

At this week’s TechEd 2010 conference, Microsoft officially announced the impending arrival of Windows 7 Service Pack 1. The update, expected to arrive in July, includes a combination of updates available now through Windows Update and additional hotfixes based on customer and partner feedback. However, there will be no new features added to the OS itself.

But in my mind, this is one of those “no news is good news” kind of things. Windows 7 is the best Windows operating system I’ve ever used and there’s no need to make any radical changes at this point. And since I have Windows Update set to install automatically, I doubt I’ll see any major differences in my day-to-day computing either after the Service Pack is installed.

Still, if you’re one of those “I’ll wait for the Service Pack” holdouts who likes to see a new OS get its first big patch before you buy, then get ready – your time is almost here.

I.T. admins, on the other hand, do have some exciting features to look forward to next month in the Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack, arriving at the same time as the Windows 7 one. Most notably, there will be additional capabilities to aid in virtualization. These include Microsoft RemoteFX, a remote desktop feature that provides full fidelity of users’ workspaces over remote connections and Dynamic Memory, an enhancement to Windows Server Hyper-V which allows the server to dynamically allocate memory to virtual machines.

Alternate Reality Windows!

Sarah Perez — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:06:00 GMT

Looks like I’m not the only one to have spotted Windows’ appearance in one of my favorite TV shows. In the season finale of Fringe, the sci-fi show which features parallel universes that are similar, but slightly different, the OS appeared in the “alternate reality” several times. One shot shows what looks like a normal Windows 7 installation, but another shows a version that has a “slightly different” Explorer function. A third shot shows a version of Windows that you access by pressing your hand into what appears to be a touch-sensitive table. (Images are here).

This isn’t the only show to feature Windows product placements, it seems. I’ve noticed the logo popping up here and there in what used to be the very Apple-centric TV land. I always found it funny to see Apple PCs in scenes where you know Windows would exist in real life - like in corporations, hospitals, police stations, etc., for example.

Product placement is a touchy subject though. Because we’ve been conditioned over the years to expect to see the Apple logo on users’ computers, when you see a Windows logo, you notice it even more. Make it too obvious, and it can detract from the action.

However, I think the Fringe placement was handled well. Not too obvious, but definitely caught some tech geeks’ eyes.

Still, my all-time favorite product placement/mention has to be this quip from Sheldon on CBS’s "The Big Bang Theory": “Windows 7 is much more user-friendly than Vista.” Pause, continues typing. “I don’t like that.”

New from Microsoft: Surreal Terrority Windows 7 Theme

Sarah Perez — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:01:00 GMT

I love that Microsoft keeps updating their collection of themes for Windows 7 because - I have to admit - I quickly grow bored with my desktop background and color schemes. I like to switch it up pretty often and the themes feature in Windows 7 lets me do that easily. With themes, my wallpaper isn’t static – it rotates through a series of images on an interval I specify.

The latest theme to grace my desktop is the gorgeous, brightly-hued creation from artist Chuck Anderson called “Surreal Territory.” The theme includes a few different images of landscapes and sky but with a twist. Instead of the natural colors found in nature, the sky is colorized with rainbow-colored tones. Just lovely.

But if that’s not your thing (too girly?) there are plenty of other new themes to choose from including one with images from NASA , for instance, which shows off the infrared imaging of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. And who doesn’t love a good space theme?

Windows Touch Pack Now Available

Larry Larsen — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:02:00 GMT

One of the more common question we've seen flying around lately is "Where can I download the Touch Pack for Windows 7?" That's been a difficult one because it was created for OEMs and wasn't meant to be a MS Download. That changed tonight, you can now download the Touch Pack from the Microsoft Download Center. The Touch Pack features three games and three apps including the Microsoft Surface Globe, MS Collage, MS Surface Lagoon, MS Blackboard, MS Rebound, and MS Garden Pond.

Jumplist Launcher for Windows 7

Sarah Perez — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:02:00 GMT

I just discovered an app called Jumplist Launcher via a post on Freeware Genius about apps that work well in the Windows 7 taskbar. This program definitely sounds handy!

Instead of accessing the jump list for an individual program, the app lets you pin a jump list for a combination of programs, files and other shortcuts into one single launcher. In other words: multiple programs, one button.

In fact, you can now add up to 60 programs into this app and you can even configure it to launch one default program when you left click on it. And you can group the programs as you see fit. For example, you could create a group called “Office” which lists all the Microsoft Office programs and another called “tools” which holds all your utilities.

The program has been revised seven times so far, so if you encountered bugs early on in its life cycle, you may want to try it again.

Jumplist Launcher is available for free download here.

Go Retro: Get XP Themes for Windows 7

Sarah Perez — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:59:00 GMT

Remember Royale Blue, Luna, Luna Silver and even the Zune XP desktop themes? Those feeling nostalgic for XP’s old-school looks may be interested to know that all of these have been ported, unofficially of course, to the Windows 7 platform. Over on the independent design community DeviantArt, a user by the name of “Satukoro” has been hard at work delivering versions of these themes to Windows 7 in both Aero and Basic formats.

Once installed, you’ll be presented with the same bubbly, shiny toolbars and window stylings you remember from days past. I’ll admit that this isn’t something I’d do – I happen to like Windows 7’s themes – but some of you may think otherwise. Plus sometimes it’s fun to do this kind of stuff just because you can.

Note that installing these themes requires a bit of file hacking – details are here. The links to each of these themes is listed below:

Add AeroSnap to XP, Vista

Sarah Perez — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:46:00 GMT

The How-to Geek just uncovered an app that brings Windows 7’s AeroSnap feature to older operating systems including Windows XP and Vista. This feature, a popular new option in the Windows 7 OS, automatically resizes your windows when you move them from one side of the screen to the other. For example, if you want to compare two Word documents side-by-side, you can use AeroSnap to do so without having to manually drag the corners of the windows around to resize the windows.

With the third-party application, AeroSnap for Windows Vista & XP, you can configure your windows to behave similarly to how they would by default if on Windows 7. You can also customize its interactions, including turning on or off “Snap Preview,” disabling the splash screen, removing the system tray icon, setting its auto-start option, or enabling hotkeys. If you want to get even more precise, you can turn on or off left, right and top snapping or set snapping to function by hotkey only.

It looks like this app has been around for some time – the last update was in summer 2008. But if you hadn’t come across yet and still have XP on your netbook, for example, it may be worth checking out. The app is available as a free download here.

Windows 7 Compatible TVs

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:53:00 GMT

Engadget has the scoop on the first HDTV sets to earn the Windows 7 compatible label: the Toshiba UX600 series. So what does it mean for a TV to be Window 7 compatible? It means they’ve received an official Microsoft certification for the DLNA support via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. What it means to you is that you can use Windows 7’s “Play To” feature to stream music, pictures and video over your home network directly to your TV.

At the moment there are three different models available:

55UX600U: 54.6" diagonal 1080p HD LED TV with ClearFrame™ 120Hz and Net TV™
46UX600U: 46.0" diagonal 1080p HD LED TV with ClearFrame™ 120Hz and Net TV™
40UX600U: 40.0" diagonal 1080p HD LED TV with ClearFrame™ 120Hz and Net TV™

You’ll be able to identify these and any future compatible TVs by the “Compatible with Windows 7” logo that will be displayed on the box or (hopefully not) the bezel.

Gorgeous Metro UI-Inspired Windows 7 Theme

Sarah Perez — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:15:00 GMT

There’s a new Windows 7 theme in the works over on DeviantArt and it’s inspired by the new metro UI featured in the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series devices. Created by DeviantArt member, fediaFedia, the theme is designed for use in Rainmeter, a desktop customization platform for Windows. With Rainmeter, you can skin Windows, add gadgets, and even embed data streams like email, RSS, Twitter, etc into your theme. And it appears that the new Windows Phone theme will do just that – the screenshots show feeds and Twitter posts within the theme’s background in addition to tiles like those you’d see on a WP7S device. And the tiles work, too! According to the theme’s description, there are “nearly 30 interactive panels” included with the theme and 24+ different colored skins, including glass.

This theme is still in the works, though – you can’t download it just yet. But keep an eye on this page for updates.

Add Spaces to your Taskbar

Sarah Perez — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:38:00 GMT

Over on the (unofficial) SevenForums site, one user has come up with a way to insert spaces into your Windows 7 taskbar so you can create separated icon groups. The trick involves creating some blank shortcuts that lead to a fake program and pinning those shortcuts to the taskbar.

To facilitate the process, he provided a zip file containing multiple “blank shortcuts” and blank.exe files. (Don’t worry – we scanned them with Microsoft Security Essentials – they’re safe. Other forum users tested them too).

After extracting the files, you’ll have a folder called “Blank” and a ReadMe.txt. Before pinning the Shortcuts to the taskbar, you have to move the entire “Blank” folder to C:\Windows. Then grab a shortcut and drag it to the taskbar. Now, instead of seeing a blank (white) icon, you’ll just see a space! The zip file contains four different “blank” shortcuts and you can only use one of each.

What a great trick!

Wow, Where Did All These Themes Come From?

Sarah Perez — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:46:00 GMT

Rob Margel recently discovered a great March theme for Windows 7 users at download.live.com which features shamrocks and other spring-related imagery. I thought I’d go check out the Windows 7 Personalization gallery to grab it and whatever else was new, too. However, for some reason, the Shamrock theme isn’t there. No matter, since Rob posted the direct link for the download. However, I was surprised to see the gallery had a ton of new themes since my last visit only a couple of months ago. There are now several regional themes like Canada, Australia, Czech Spring, China, Baltic Beaches, France, India, Hungary, Germany, Italy, and a dozen or so others. Plus, there are new animal themes like “dogs in summer,” “cats everywhere,” and “Year of the Tiger.”

But lately, I have to admit that I’ve found myself addicted to Smashing Magazine’s Windows 7 theme collections which they release monthly. They offer themes made up of artistic backgrounds that come packaged as two different options – those with an embedded calendar and those without. I like to grab those without the calendar myself so I can reuse them later on when I’m ready for a change. You can grab the last collection here.

Geosense for Windows

Sarah Perez — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:23:00 GMT

Popular bloggers Long Zheng of iStartedSomething and Rafeal Rivera of Within Windows joined forces to create a Windows 7 sensor driver that connects the location platform of Windows 7 with geolocation service providers. The new tool, called Geosense for Windows, is now available for download from both of their websites (click links above).

As Zheng noted on his blog, Windows 7 offers a built-in location platform and accompanying API which allows third-party developers to build location-aware native apps. However, the way the platform was designed, it required OEMs to first ship GPS-enabled laptops before developers could take advantage of this feature. The Geosense application is essentially a workaround for that limitation as it provides a way to connection the location platform in Windows with various geolocation providers. The providers match and triangulate known cell towers and wireless access points to estimate latitude and longitude.

By offering Geosense for Windows for free, Zheng and Rivera have made Windows 7 location-aware and they hope that third-party developers will take advantage of this to create new applications for the platform.

Windows Easy Transfer Tool Tip: Back Up Windows Live Writer

Sarah Perez — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:28:00 GMT

Over the weekend, I had the fun experience of reinstalling Windows 7 – no, I’m not being sarcastic, I’m a geek, I like doing things like this. For one thing, a fresh install lets me pare down the number of applications I’ve crammed onto the machine to just the essentials. And despite my move to the cloud for many things, I’m always surprised at the number of desktop programs I still use. (For example, Windows Live tools like Messenger and Live Writer, Adobe Photoshop and Reader, FileZilla for FTP uploads, Microsoft Office, and Skype just to name a few.

Anyway, after backing up the essentials (files, photos, music, videos, and my user account) via the included Windows Easy Transfer tool, it occurred to me that I needed to back up my Windows Live Writer settings too. This led me to the free software program called Windows Live Writer Backup. I thought I had used this in the past successfully, but this time around the program just hung. It looks like the current version was released back in the summer of last year, so maybe it just needs an update? (It’s open source, guys, so have at it!).

Since I couldn’t automate the process with the tool, I took a couple of screenshots of my settings and moved on. After reinstalling Windows, re-downloading my favorite programs and re-running the Easy Transfer tool to restore my files and other settings, I launched Windows Live Writer. I was prepared to reconfigure my settings using the saved screenshots, but - low-and-behold! - they were already there! I guess the Easy Transfer tool grabbed them too. How nice!

If you’re preparing to reinstall Windows (and users of the Release Candidate like I was – this means you!), I thought you’d be grateful to know about this little tip. It certainly made my experience easier and hopefully will help you too.

An FTP App Designed with Windows 7 in Mind

Sarah Perez — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:06:00 GMT

I’ve been using FileZilla for my FTP needs in the past, but the features built into this new FTP program have me interested in taking a deeper look. The (uncreatively named) “Windows 7 FTP Application” was recently featured on the Life Rocks 2.0 blog where a couple of its specialized Windows 7 features were mentioned. Intrigued, I went directly to the program’s page over on the CodeProject site, where it states that the goal of the new software is to create a fully functional FTP program that uses “the new functions found in Windows 7.”

Specifically, the software implemented the Windows 7 libraries feature within the program for easy access to your most common file stores. It also provides a login form, download form, and upload form created using Aero technology. And as you upload and download files to and from a remote site, the progress of those file transfers is shown using the thumbnail previews in the new Windows 7 taskbar. Instead of seeing a small thumbnail of the open window, for example, this FTP program actually displays a dialog box complete with informational text including file name, save path, and status as well as a progress bar.

The new FTP program is available for download along with its source code from here.

Pretty Glass Gadgets for Windows 7

Sarah Perez — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:28:00 GMT

Thanks to Into Windows, I just discovered a pretty glass gadget collection for Windows 7. Gadgets, in case you don’t know, are desktop widgets that can connect to the internet to display updated information like weather or news or connect to your computer itself to deliver stats on your PC’s resources like CPU and memory usage.

But being a bit of a desktop purist myself, I’ll admit that I’ve limited my gadgets to only two so far – one for weather and one for RSS feeds. I also limit the number of desktop icons displayed too. (And thanks to Windows 7’s superbar, the taskbar turned application launcher at the bottom of the screen, this is easier than ever).

My main complaint with gadgets is the precious screen real estate they take up – I didn’t want to cover up my beautiful wallpaper! But with this new glass gadget collection, the desktop background shines through the gadgets themselves. Gorgeous! Now I can have my gadgets and my background too.

You can download the whole pack containing all 14 glass gadgets here via the Into Windows website. The gadgets are hosted on the DeviantART community site where you can also see a preview of the gadgets in action.

(Image credit: Into Windows)

ExoPC: A Beautiful and Functional Tablet Computer

Sarah Perez — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:08:00 GMT

The ExoPC is starting to get noticed around the web as an attractive blend of both tablet computers and netbooks. This 8.9” multi-touch slate offers the touchscreen goodness of tablet computing with the guts of Windows 7 underneath. According to site jkontherun.com, the ExoPC includes an Atom N270 at 1.6GHz, 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 32GB SSD, Wi-Fi, optional 3G, Bluetooth, three USB ports, and 1.3 megapixel webcam. But most importantly, the PC supports Flash – still a critical component for viewing most web-based videos including those found on social sharing sites like YouTube, news sites like CNN, and online TV portals like Hulu.

In addition, the version of Windows on the ExoPC is Windows 7 Professional which means it also offers support for native inking.

With its user-replaceable battery and $599 price point, this new tablet computer available in March will be an attractive choice for those who are looking for the convenience of a thin slate without having to give up on the features they expect to have on their portable computers.

All About Windows XP Mode in Windows 7

Larry Larsen — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:26:00 GMT

One of the things I really like about Windows 7 is the inclusion of a virtualized Windows XP. I use this at home quite a bit for playing very old games and as a quarantine sandbox for suspect files.

Well if you ever wanted to know much more about Windows XP Mode, Ars Technica has a great in-depth look at XP Mode and covers what it is, how it works, and who it's for.

Get the Windows Experience Pack

Sarah Perez — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:02:00 GMT

Have you tried the new Windows Experience Pack yet? Released just last week this free software download lets Windows users customize their PC with new backgrounds, screensavers, and other features for Windows Live Messenger.

Designed primarily for Live Messenger users, this program offers additional personalization options including display pictures, emoticons, and Messenger scenes. You can then coordinate your Messenger avatar with your Windows 7 theme as the Experience Pack lets you create a desktop background featuring your personalized avatar against a “destination” background – like the beach, the mountains, an African safari, a hiking trial, etc.

The avatars are created using a combination of your own photo and a cartoon figure for a mashed creation a bit like those in the famous “Elf Youself” holiday animations.

While this download may seem a little silly to some of us more, err, mature users, you can bet that the kids will get a kick out of it. So go ahead and post this link to their Facebook wall: http://experience.windows.com.

A Deeper Look at Speech NUI

Larry Larsen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:14:00 GMT

Rob Chambers from the Speech at Microsoft group stopped by to show us a little more about our Speech platform and where developers can get started and a look at some of the things that are possible. What you see (and hear) today is built on the backbone of our work with the Tablet PC platform. One of the bigger changes for users is that where before we had two branches of speech recognition, one for command control and one for dictation, it's now been rolled into a single system. I've used speech in the past with my Tablet, but honestly I hadn't used it much in Windows 7, but seeing someone who knows what they're doing really got me motivated to dive back in. For instance, I'm looking at using the macro system to build some speech commands that control different functions in games. :)