windows 7

Windows 7 turned one year old this week, and Microsoft has reason to celebrate. Two hundred and forty million reasons, to be exact, which is how many copies of Windows 7 Microsoft has sold in the past 12 months.

"I think Windows 7 has exceeded expectations," said Gavriella Schuster, general manager of Windows Product Management. "People from the very beginning have had an optimistic forecast. I actually felt in the beginning we needed to temper expectations a bit… but a year later, we’re on track. We’re right where we thought we would be. It’s been a good year – it’s a year to celebrate."

Turns out releasing such a crappy OS beforehand (Vista) created ravenous demand for an OS that actually worked as it should from Day 1.

After checking out Engadget's video review of the Joojoo tablet we were left unimpressed. It's easy to see Fushion Garage still has a good amount of work to do to catch up to Apple's iPad. When someone can at least get through a short video review without multiple glitches, then it will be a tablet to consider.  But we simply wouldn't recommend dropping five Bennys (yeah, $500!) on a glitchy tablet. 

The one thing they got going for them is that someone managed to install Windows 7 and get the touch screen working. Maybe if Fushion Garage gets around to beefing up the Joojoo a little bit, while allowing for a factory install of Windows, it will be a better option for the average consumer. If they pull that off, we'll be sure to get one in for review.

"Today during our online Desktop Virtualization Hour event, we’ll be talking a little bit about Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

For Windows Server 2008 R2, SP1 will be introducing two new desktop virtualization features: Microsoft RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory. These features are designed to meet the increasing needs of our customers as they utilize virtualization in their environments with Windows Server 2008 R2. You can read more about RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory on the Windows Server Division WebLog.

For Windows 7, SP1 includes only minor updates, among which are previous updates that are already delivered through Windows Update. SP1 for Windows 7 will, however, deliver an updated Remote Desktop client that takes advantage of RemoteFX introduced in the server-side with SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2." source

"The HP Slate will use Windows 7, but what isn't known is which chip will power the Apple iPad rival from Hewlett-Packard.

This is an important question, as there's a world of difference between an Intel Atom processor and, let's say, a low-power Core 2 or Intel's latest-and-greatest chips based on the "Nehalem" design, referred to commercially as the Core i3, i5, and i7. Atom chips (with one exception) use a single-core processor--which can struggle under moderate to heavy workloads--while the more powerful Core 2 and i series chips use two processing cores.

HP has been careful not to reveal the silicon inside. And the company has declined to answer queries about internal silicon specifics. So, let the guessing games begin." source

"Over the past week we have seen a little bit of blogosphere activity regarding Windows 7 and batteries, specifically the new Windows 7 message “Considering replacing your battery”. Since this is related to the engineering of Windows 7 we’re going to use this blog to provide an update to people. As we have talked about many times, we have a relentless focus on the quality of Windows 7 and we take seriously any reports we receive that indicate a potential problem that could result in a significant failure of the OS. In a previous post we talked about the steps we take when we receive a bug report, in particular when we start to see several reports that appear to be the same. For the past week or so we have been diligently working through these steps and more to see if there is anything in Windows 7 we need to address regarding this issue. At this time we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context." source

"Microsoft's gotta be pretty happy with its second quarter results, especially after two previous quarters of somewhat downtrodden reports. The company's posting a record $19.02 billion in revenue, a 14 percent increase year-over-year. Net income / profit was $6.66 billion. Buoyed by all that is $1.71 billion in deferred revenue for Windows 7 pre-sales, which in laymen's terms means money the company made before the fiscal quarter began but couldn't then claim it because the product (Windows 7) hadn't yet been delivered to the consumer. Speaking of the platform, Microsoft is claiming to now have "the fastest selling operating system in history" with 60 million licenses sold. A much better way for the gang in Redmond to the start the year, so now let's see how the rest of 2010 plays out." source

"Eagle-eyed bloggers who, it seems, have nothing better to do with their time then to scan Microsoft’s Windows 7 underbelly, recently discovered a Registry Key that points to service pack 1 of the operating system.

Windows 7 has only been available to consumers for less than three months, and already there is talk about when the platform’s first service pack will land.

But putting this into context, it’s unlikely that a package of updates for the OS - which has proved unsurprisingly vastly more popular than its predecessor - will rock up any time soon" source

"There are many ways to measure how Windows 7 is doing. There are reports on new PC sales, tallies of boxed copy sales, and surveys of planned enterprise adoption, to name a few.

But one of the most encouraging signs for Microsoft is the lack of phone calls it is getting from people with problems. Overall, Microsoft said the volume of calls to its support lines is half of what it expected.

'Overall we are finding our call center volume is down significantly more than we expected,' said Barbara Gordon, vice president of customer support for Microsoft.

The drop in calls isn't just due to the fact that Windows 7 appears less problem-plagued than its predecessor, though. In the weeks leading up to and following the operating system's release, Microsoft also added two new ways to get help--through an online forum called Microsoft Answers and via the Microsoft Helps feed on Twitter." source