Windows 7 USB ISO Tool

The Microsoft Store released a tool to allow you to place a Windows 7 ISO on a USB flash drive and boot directly from the usb drive to do your Windows install. Very useful for installing on systems without DVD drives, e.g. Netbook or people like me who use up both internal bays for hard drives.

More info here

Launch day !!! Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2 released

Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 both went to public release today (GA), both operating systems have been available via Volume License, MSDN & Technet previously. You will start to see some very cool hardware coming your way from the various OEMs, including laptops with multipoint touch and of course as I've mentioned on my blog before, Netbooks with Windows 7.

Try and attend an event (perhaps you saw me at AMC 25 launch in NYC) or attend one virtually.

Check the www.Windows.com (includes some discounts and options for your upgrades) and www.Windows.com/social (for all your twitter/facebook/rss/social 7 needs)

Free Windows 7 Ebook

Deploying Windows® 7 Essential Guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine

Brief Description

Zune software

If you read my blog, you know I'm a Zune user (surprise on a microsoft blog). However I honestly believe that subscription music models do change the way that you listen to your music, instead of carefully deciding (especially in present economic conditions) if you really want to buy a CD, you change that to a model where any music you have an interest in or hear about you download and listen to.

Zune does this through the Zune Marketplace, there is a subsciption option with the ZunePass, sub $15 a month and you get to keep 10 songs permanently each month. One of the nice suprises with the ZuneHD release was the upgrade to the Zune 4.0 software and some really nice features.

Some of the really nice features are the SmartDJ (that makes a mix based on some of your music pics) as well as the ability to stream your music to a browser login (Zune Software actually not required)

More Xbox integration coming soon as well

Security Essentials (Morro)

Microsoft released the free consumer oriented Anti Virus solution (previously code named Morro).

Official take ->

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple.

Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times.

Info and download here

Windows 7 & XPM

Despite running Windows 7 for almost a year now, and the OS going to RTM sometime ago, Windows 7 only goes GA (general availability, i.e. on the shelf) on Thursday 22nd this week. Hopefully everyone has taken a look at this point, really good improvement, and especially if you are looking at low end PCs like netbooks (my S10 & NC10's are doing well at this point).

There has been a lot of talk about Windows 7 XP mode and the ability to run an underlying XP/Vista VM so you can run applications (like IE 6) that won't run under 7. It does require a 64bit OS and hardware that supports virtualization. More info here

One interesting piece that no one I've seen mentioned is Sysinternals (Sysinternals is now owned by Microsoft) has a P2V Tool for free that would allow you to P2V your previous desktop (or Server), you then could do a fresh install of Windows 7, and load your previous OS under XPMode and either access previous apps or the entire desktop as required.

P2V Tool here

Zune HD

Hopefully you have heard about Zune HD, the next version of Zune player from Microsoft (see earlier post for some pics), and you know beyond being a great device, it offers a subscription service for music, monthly fee under $15 for all the music you can consume on up to 3 devices.

The next generation devices are being sold for pre order on most of major online retailers with the upcoming september release date. However this week-end (Saturday & Sunday 22nd/23rd August) Best Buy is showing off the ZuneHD in certain stores around the US, if you feel up to seeing, locations and schedules here

Home Group

I've been posting some articles about how we share/carry our information around in the new world of multiple devices and form factors. Most of us today have some form of smartphone, probably a laptop/netbook and perhaps one or two more machines at home or the office with which we interact, not to mention those who have media centers or more ambitious uses of PCs.

A good place to start is really with something like Windows Home Server to have that central place for storage, our photos and media, automatic backup and recovery. Live Mesh provides a good way to sync that data between your multiple devices so you never get somewhere and find the files you need/want are elsewhere. I covered those in two of my previous posts, so want to cover two additional features Windows 7 brings to the table to make that connected lifestyle simpler.

First is Home Group, we often have multiple machines, but they may not be all in the same workgroup, some may belong to office domains, home do we get them to act together, share things like printers, give me access to my data without making life difficult or creating a new home IT project? Take a look here at how Home Group can help

The other feature is a really small one that I think makes life a lot simpler, the ability to set a default printer per network, so your default printer for work is different than your default printer at home. Check Jennifer Marsman's blog here for her take on it.

Live Mesh

One of the most underated free services ever, if you have not seen or used Live Mesh yet ... go do it ... now!

To borrow from the site ->

Your work computer. Your home laptop. Your Mac. Your mobile phone. Devices live in multiple places. But the files you need—and the programs that open them—often don’t. Live Mesh changes all that.

Home Server

Windows Home Server has been around for a few years now, and has been improving steadily. For those who don't know it, it is a great product for people who typically have more than one machine at home and provides functionality such as

- Automatic backup of machines, system restore, data and computer recovery

- Centralized storage and management of your data

- Centralized storage of your photo and media files

Learn more here. There is also a large community with great add ons and plugins for Home Server, one such site here

One of the early things most people nnoticed around home server is it actually did not require much processing power to run it, the manufacturers have now taken notice and we are seeing a few home servers built off of Atom processors (usually reserved for netbooks or other mobile devices), the result? Home servers ranging from $299 - $599 in some cases including terabytes of storage.

Time to buy one? take a look at some being offered on amazon now or at HP's offerings here

Windows Mobile Software

Windows Mobile has been around for a really long time now (debut was in 2000, yes 9 years ago, long before the concept of smartphones got popular).

My latest is a Samsung Omnia (yes, I have a Samsung phone, netbook & LCD TV), actually had this one since the end of last year.

Not actually a huge fan of the Samsung interface, so I've decided to post a blog on how with a few software additions a promising (very pretty device) but flawed Windows Mobile device has been one of my better phone experiences.

Start with base Omnia and add several pieces of SPB House Software (really recommend the SPB Shell 3.0)

Get the Verizon update to unlock GPS

Get bing for mobile (includes maps, directions, places of interest) and bing tones if you would like

Windows Messenger for Mobile, check out the free extras here (ringtones, games, themes, wallpapers)

And a little Viigo

and make sure and use MyPhone to backup and protect your data for free

Windows 7 and form factor choices.

If you've read my blog before, you know I have a Samsung NC10 running Windows 7 since the early betas, I've now upgraded to RTM Ultimate and I am very happy with the results.

Netbooks are really a form factor choice, and I've always been facinated with another Samsung line, the Q1 (pic below) UMPCs. I've always felt a little price adjustment and the addition of a GPS would have me very tempted.

I am quite pleased to see that Archos is joining that particular form factor with a Windows 7 Touch based device pictured below

Really nice, price range still a bit over the average netbook. Come on Archos, just add the GPS (they do sell other devices with GPS included) and perhaps something similar to the Q1 thumb keyboard option.

If you are interested in the Archos, details here

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 & Hyper-V R2 RTM'ed !!!

So big news today, 3 major products went RTM all at the same time, there will be lots of news and more authorative blogs out there, so I'll just throw in a few pointers.

Windows 7, the next desktop OS (replaces Vista), if you haven't downloaded the beta or RC yet, I strongly encourage you to pull down one of the trial copies when they become available. Very fast, very responsive, actually runs on less resources/hardware than it's predecessor. I'm presently running my Samsung S10 Netbook (1.6 Atom Proc, comes with 1Gb Ram) with Windows 7 and Office 2010 Technical Preview (another blog post) and it's great.

Windows Server 2008 R2 (note this is what people thought would be called Win 7 Server, it's not, it's called R2). Big change here is the great new functionality in Hyper-V (Live Migration, Clustered Shared Volumes) as well as support for some great better together functionality with Win 7 (Direct Access, Branch Cache, Bitlocker to go)

Hyper-V R2, Free Hypervisor with High Availability and Live Migration capability!!!

Really good blog from the Virtualization Team detailing all the Hypervisor improvements as well as regularly updating and answering questions/statements about Microsoft Virtualization, good read here

Windows Server Team announcement here

Windows 7 Team announcement here

Bing !

 So Bing has got a fair amount of press and advertising recently and rightly so, some of us have been using it in it's previous codenamed variant for quite a while and I honestly don't use any other search engine now.

But like any tool, you get the most out of it, if you know a little bit about it's capabilities, so try it out and take a Bing Tour

I'll put up a few posts on other Bing features, but the great one to always start with is, get paid for searching/buying your stuff through Bing, the CashBack program is still there!

Download IE 8 and feed the hungry

Microsoft is working with Feeding America, if you download IE8 from this site contibutions are made to help feed the hungry in America ...

Try out a new browser and feed some needy, why not? make it happen.