- Important Reminder Regarding Expiration of the Windows 7 Release Candidate
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From the Windows Team Blog:
On February 15th, people still running the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will receive a notification reminding them that starting March 1st, 2010, their PC will begin experiencing bi-hourly shutdowns. These shutdowns will continue through June 1st, 2010.
On June 1st, 2010, a non-genuine experience is triggered where your wallpaper is removed and “This copy of Windows is not genuine” will be displayed in the lower right corner above the taskbar. This means your PC will no longer be able to obtain optional updates or downloads that require genuine Windows validation.
To avoid any data loss, I suggest making plans to move to a released version of Windows 7 before the automatic shutdowns start. During these shutdowns, your work will not be saved.
Remember, pre-release versions of Windows are unsupported. For more information on the expiration of the Windows 7 RC, see this KB article.
To move to a released version of Windows 7, you’ll need to do a custom (clean) install to replace the installation of the Windows 7 RC. I suggest checking out this Help & How-To page on Windows.com which covers all kinds of installation scenarios.
Do you need more time to test your application and hardware compatibility in Windows 7? If so, the Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial provides a great opportunity for IT Pros to finish critical testing with a full version of Windows 7 Enterprise.
If you’re an IT Pro ready to move to Windows 7, I suggest visiting the Springboard Series on TechNet which provides the latest tools, whitepapers, walkthroughs and tips and tricks to help you with your Windows 7 Deployment. On the Springboard Series on TechNet, you’ll find resources such as Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z and Installing Windows 7 on an Existing XP PC. You can visit the Window 7 TechNet Forum for more information as well!
- New HP and Microsoft Agreement to Simplify Technology Environments
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For those who haven’t heard, HP and Microsoft Corp. announced an agreement to invest $250 million over the next three years to significantly simplify technology environments for businesses of all sizes. This agreement represents the industry’s most comprehensive technology stack integration to date — from infrastructure to application — and is intended to substantially improve the customer experience for developing, deploying and managing IT environments. You can learn more about it here.
More info from the Server and Tools News Byte Blog:
By now, you have likely seen the news that Microsoft and HP are expanding their 25 year partnership. Over the next three years, the companies will invest $250 million to help customers and partners substantially improve the customer experience for developing, deploying and managing today’s IT environments, and building next generation cloud applications.
Customers will see this investment spent in three key efforts:
· Joint engineering roadmap and set of technology offerings.
· Joint sales and marketing to help educate customers and arm the channel.
· Joint professional services to aid customers in getting the most out of their investments.
As part of its joint engineering roadmap and joint offerings, Microsoft and HP will collaborate on:
1. Virtualization:
· Microsoft is now a preferred provider of virtualization solutions for HP, which will make it easier for a broader set of customers to deploy virtualization solutions that can improve server utilization by as much as 10x and reduce provisioning ties from months to minutes.
· Microsoft and HP will deliver ‘Smart Bundles’ for small and medium businesses. These are a combination of hardware and software, including HP server, storage and networking solutions, coupled with Windows Server Hyper-V and HP Insight software, delivered in a single, cost-effective package.
2. Management:
· HP now has the rights to resell and ship System Center as part of HP’s solutions. This solution will be tuned, integrated and ready for customers.
· And coming soon, HP’s Insight Software and Business Technology Optimization solutions will begin to integrate and interoperate with Microsoft’s System Center suite of products. This means that customers with heterogeneous computing environments will be able to more easily and more cost-effectively manage hardware and software from Microsoft and non-Microsoft operating systems and applications.
3. Business Applications :
· The companies will deliver a set of pre-packaged and pre-configured data management and email solutions (‘machines’) that will deliver data warehousing, business intelligence, online transaction processing (OLTP) and messaging solutions.
4. The Cloud:
· HP and Microsoft will collaborate on the Windows Azure platform, with HP offering services, and Microsoft continuing to include HP hardware for Windows Azure infrastructure.
Microsoft and HP detailed plans to increase opportunities for its 32,000 HP and Microsoft Frontline channel partners through extensive joint sales and marketing programs.
These plans include a 10x increase of investment by both companies to help partners modernize their customers’ environments through a combination of software and hardware packages and services. Just a few of the benefits partners will receive include:
· Simplified sales cycles resulting from Smart Bundles and all-inclusive packages will increase time-to-revenue and create add-on application and service sales opportunities.
· Flexible financing options through HP Financial Services, will enable resellers to make technology solutions more accessible and easy to acquire.
· Support from dedicated field resources will help with pre-sales initiatives and partner training.
· Jointly funded worldwide marketing campaigns, lead generation programs and sales tools, available at www.hpmspartners.com.
Finally, Microsoft and HP detailed plans to provide an integrated portfolio of joint professional services. Through more than 11,000 Microsoft-certified HP professionals worldwide, HP Services organizations, in partnership with Microsoft Services, will support the integrated hardware and software solutions from simple implementations to the most critical enterprise infrastructure. Just some of the service offerings include:
· Strategy workshops, ROI and business value services.
· Architecture, design, pilot, global implementation, support for server virtualization and management solutions, client virtualization, data management, and cloud computing.
· Per-seat fixed price Microsoft Exchange Server upgrade/migration services.
· Assistance for customers who seek to run their technology on-premises, outsourced or via the cloud.
To sum it up, this agreement represents the industry’s most comprehensive end-to-end integrated technology stack across hardware and software -- from infrastructure to application. Through this long term partnership, Microsoft and HP are helping customers reduce costs and get the most of their investments today, as they prepare for a future of business computing in the cloud.
- Microsoft Celebrates Christmas with Windows 7 Family Pack Limited Pilot in Australia
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From the Windows 7 Australia Blog
Microsoft Celebrates Christmas with Windows 7 Family Pack Limited Pilot in Australia
Microsoft is making available limited stock of Family Pack in Australia – entitling consumers to three upgrade licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium for $249 (RRP)
Sydney, Australia, 30 November, 2009 - Microsoft is making Christmas shopping for the family easier this year with a limited pilot of Windows 7 Family Pack beginning 1 December 2009, only while stocks last. The Family Pack provides three licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade in 32-bit or 64-bit for a recommended retail price (RRP) of AUD$249*.
“We listened to the feedback from our customers and we are very pleased to announce that we are piloting Family Pack in Australia as part of our Christmas offers,” said Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead, Microsoft Australia. “Windows 7 makes it easier for people to do the things they want on their PC, so we’re excited to make it even easier for our customers to upgrade their PC’s at home to Windows 7 by providing this fantastic offer.”
Windows 7 Home Premium provides a great entertainment experience on your PC. Customers will find easier ways to connect to other PCs and devices, all in a visually rich environment that makes everyday use simpler and more engaging.
Glenn O’Neil, Head of Buying and Marketing, Dick Smith Australian and New Zealand said, “Family Pack offers a new level of value and we’re delighted to be part of the limited pilot – we feel our customers will respond well to the offer. Because Family Pack lets you upgrade three home PCs to Windows 7 Home Premium, customers will be able to unlock the easier networking features of Windows 7 and move the family to the latest Microsoft technology, while also getting a great deal.”
With Windows 7 Home Premium you can create a HomeGroup to share all of your favourite photos, videos and music with other PCs running Windows 7. Through HomeGroup, PCs running Windows 7 can automatically identify and connect with each other. Once a HomeGroup is established, sharing devices and media throughout your home is easy. For example, the printer in your study is shared automatically with the other PCs in your home, and digital photos stored on a computer in your family room can be easily accessed from a laptop anywhere in your home.
In addition, Windows 7 Home Premium features advanced window navigation and personalisation with several new improvements to Microsoft Aero® desktop. Finally, customers will benefit from Remote Media Streaming and improved options for different media formats.
Microsoft is also announcing a limited offer for customers who may have already purchased three upgrade licenses to Windows 7 Home Premium prior to 30 November. Eligible customers will qualify for three complimentary Wireless Comfort Desktops, each featuring a wireless keyboard and mouse set. To see if they qualify**, customers should contact Microsoft Customer Service on 13 20 58.
Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack will only be available at the following participating Australian retailers, while stocks last: Betta Electrical, Bing Lee, David Jones, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman, JB Hi Fi, Myer, Officeworks, Retravision, The Good Guys, WOW Sight and Sound.
Jeff Putt, Windows Consumer Lead, Microsoft Australia
* Recommended Retail Price. Actual retail price is set by the retailer.
**Acceptable proof of purchase to qualify for the three complimentary Wireless Comfort Desktops will be a single receipt showing the purchase of three Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade licenses in a single transaction or up to three receipts showing the purchase of separate Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade licenses that were transacted on the same credit card. Receipts must be dated prior to November 30, 2009.
- Windows Server 2008 R2 : New Power Management Features
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Windows Server 2008 R2 (i.e. "Windows 7 Server") introduced significant advancements in Server Power Management capabilities. You may never win a Nobel prize for building an application that plays well with Server Power Management policies nor by configuring a power-optimized data-center, but you'll gain lots of respect for returning real green cash savings for your customers. We think that makes lots of of sense for both Developers and IT Professionals.
Gain insight into new and future power management features and learn more about Windows system Power Management via additional resources listed at MSDN Code Gallery.
- Sydney and Melbourne Microsoft Virtualisation Unplugged Events - Telling it like it is
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We are pleased to invite you to hear from one of the founders of x86 virtualisation. Our keynote is Kenon Owens, Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Corp. He has worked in the computer industry for over 15 years as an email and virtualisation specialist. During that time, Kenon was employed by other industry virtualisation vendors for over 9 years as a corporate technical specialist.
Australia is a strong adopter of virtualisation. In this market, there is a lot of information about Microsoft virtualisation technologies and it can be hard to know what’s true and what’s not. In this session we will discuss what each of the virtualisation vendors are delivering.
You will learn about:
- The future vision of virtualisation, not just in the next generation of products, but also in what direction virtualisation is heading.
- The evolution of integration components for this multi-vendor environment.
- The functionality to manager a multi-vendor environment that many customers are adopting.
Sydney
Date: 3 December, 2009
Time: 9:30am registration, session: 10:00-11:30am
Location: Microsoft, 1 Epping Road, North Ryde NSW
Click here to register
Melbourne
Date: 4 December, 2009
Time: 9:30am registration, session: 10:00-11:30am
Location: Microsoft, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank VIC
Click here to register
- Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta and Office Web Apps Beta
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Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 empowers your people to do their best work from more places – whether they’re using a PC, phone or web browser. It can maximize existing investments and help people accomplish more by bringing server capabilities to everyone through familiar and intuitive applications. Office Professional Plus 2010 provides smart, simple, time-saving tools to help everyone do more with less.
See Microsoft Office 2010 for yourself
We are inviting IT professionals around the world to work with the Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta in your lab environments, with your secondary PCs, and with your Microsoft Office enthusiasts, in order to help ensure smooth adoption when the final product is available and to gather feedback from real-world settings.
Download the Beta here
Participate in the TechNet Office 2010 Forum
Keep up to date by reading the Office Team Blog and follow them on Twitter
Office Web Apps
Microsoft Office Web Apps are new web-based tools that extend the Microsoft Office 2010 experience to your browser. Office Web Apps enable you to view, do light editing, and share your Office documents from virtually anywhere. With these online companions to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote you’ll always have the tools you need, wherever you are. Get on the beta for Office Web Apps.
- Monthly Security Bulletin Webcast - November 2009
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The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) holds a monthly webcast to discuss the security bulletins that we released on the second Tuesday of that month. To attend live and ask questions, register at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security.
In this edition, Jerry Bryant and Adrian Stone present information about the November 2009 Security Bulletins and answer customer questions live. See the MSRC blog for a transcript of the questions and answers that were addressed during the live session: http://blogs.technet.com/msrc
For more information about the MSRC, please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/msrc/default.mspx
Make sure you subscribe to the Microsoft Security newsletter if you already haven't done so.
- TechEd Europe Keynote Recap
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Stephen Elop closed out day 1 of TechEd Europe with the announcement of General Availability of Exchange 2010. In the keynote, he talked about some of the new features in 2010, like the new protection and management capabilities.
He also talked about Cloud Computing, and how we're putting the choice in the hands of IT Pros - you can decide which parts, and how much of your environment you want to move to the cloud.
The Windows Server team also showed off some of the stuff they're doing around management and provisioning - really good stuff!
- Exchange Server 2010 is now available
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Information from the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog:
It is my distinct pleasure to announce today the global availability of Exchange Server 2010. This has been an amazing journey from conception to launch, and the team has delivered an unprecedented line up of innovations in this release. I am incredibly proud of the team and our product.
The dedication of the Exchange community working side by side with us to deliver Exchange 2010 has been inspiring for me. I want to thank you for your commitment over the past 3 years helping us develop new ideas, make product enhancements and test pre-release bits to ensure our final product is rock solid. I believe Exchange has the most impressive IT Pro and Developer community in the world today. We could not have shipped this product without you!
In return, I hope you realize the full value of everything Exchange 2010 offers. We are all working in a very challenging economic environment today. Being cost conscious has never been more important - but also helping your organizations differentiate themselves and compete effectively is just as critical. I am delighted to see how Exchange 2010 is helping early adopters accomplish these goals. I want to share just a sampling of their stories, so you can see for yourself.
Organizations are cutting costs and simplifying administration with Exchange 2010.
"Performance with large mailboxes greatly exceeds our expectations. With the growing amount of data that needs to be retained, it is not uncommon for us to have 30-gigabyte plus mailboxes, making these performance improvements crucial to our business. I have been using Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 for e-mail since June and have been extremely satisfied with the performance and the user experience. It is a robust, very stable platform. And, we found RBAC to be a huge benefit. That is something I have needed for a long time-to have more granular rights for administrators and lower-level IT staff to do targeted tasks." - Alexander Diaz, CIO, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
"The cost savings from switching from fiber channel to SATA disks is about 70 percent. The I/O system of Exchange Server 2010 is really optimized. If you look at Exchange Server 2007, it's good; but Exchange Server 2010 is really great. You can significantly reduce the disk costs when you run Exchange Server 2010." - Thomas Keck, CIO, Elabs
"We're always moving users around. We've been doing that with custom scripts in Exchange Server 2003, but we will definitely be using the Online Move Mailbox feature in 2010. Now we can move them without taking the mailbox offline." - Allan Tagg, SVP, Global Messaging Exec, Bank of America
Organizations are improving everyday productivity and meeting the expectations of a new generation of workers with Exchange 2010.
"Our salespeople need to respond quickly to dealer concerns. With Exchange Server 2010 and voice-to-text conversion, within 20 seconds after a dealer leaves a voice-mail message, our users see an e-mail preview on their cell phone. Our mobile employees might check voice mail anywhere from 5 to 10 times a day, at 5 to 10 minutes a session. By using Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and taking advantage of the voice-mail preview feature in Exchange Server 2010, they can increase their responsiveness while saving more than 15 minutes a day. From a business perspective, that's an incredibly valuable productivity increase." - George Hamin, Director of E-Business and Information Systems, Subaru Canada
"Having Conversation View on the new mobile client is really nice. It provides an extremely fast and efficient means of surveying my inbox and taking needed actions on the go." - Steven Schafer, Director of Collaboration and Network Services, Global Crossing
"By taking advantage of Outlook Web App, employees can start being productive from new locations almost immediately. As soon as they get their workstation and network connectivity, administrators can quickly provide them with access to e-mail and IM at a moment's notice without having to manage a lot of logistics. That's tremendous. Just simplifying the process of giving our remote employees access to e-mail and IM with Exchange Server 2010 will increase the productivity of our IT administrators by at least 20 to 30 percent." - Dan Evans, Manager of Messaging and Collaboration, Morgan Keegan & Company
Organizations of all sizes are better managing risk and the cost of compliance with Exchange 2010.
"With Exchange Server 2010, we can give the auditors permission to pull mail out of mailboxes themselves, rather than having me pull the data and ship it to them in a PST file. Now the nine hours a month I spend on compliance will be cut down to zero. Getting rid of PST files using Exchange Server 2010 solves a whole series of nightmares that I'm sure every Exchange Server administrator has had" - Andrew McNair, Wintel Infrastructure Manager, Cell C
"By using the compliance features in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, we can save about $400,000 in hardware and software costs. That's a big savings." - Joseph Nguyen, Systems Architect at a large U.S. university.
"With Exchange Server 2010, we can set up transport protection rules for things like social security numbers to comply with HIPAA and for voice mails to ensure that they can't be forwarded outside the company." - Thomas Dechmann, Senior Principal IT Technologist, Medtronic
I'm also particularly proud of the work the team has done delivering Exchange as a server and a service. This has been an incredible engineering endeavor that no one else in the industry comes close to delivering. Today, we've successfully scaled Exchange 2010 to more than 15 million Outlook Live accounts around the world and, moving forward, to millions more with Exchange Online. Our promise to deliver a seamless Exchange experience on premises with the server, in the cloud as a service or a combination of the two truly gives customers choice and peace of mind.
You can see more customer results from the case studies published today, read about the launch in press coverage, hear from MBD President Stephen Elop in his TechEd Europe keynote launching Exchange 2010 and this evening at the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas in my keynote.
I know many of you are already underway with your Exchange 2010 deployments and many more will be starting today. The Exchange Server 2010 bits are available for download now. As always, keep the feedback coming. Listening to customers and partners is how the team has made Exchange the premier e-mail solution across the globe and that's the way we intend to keep it.
Thank you!
- Rajesh Jha
- Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) v7
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The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) is a comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the evolving threat landscape, and addresses such topics as software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software.
Volume 7 of the Security Intelligence Report (SIR v7) covers the first half of 2009 (January through June). It includes data derived from more than 450 million computers worldwide, each running Windows. It also draws data from some of the busiest services on the Internet, such as Windows Live Hotmail and Bing.
The research is extensive and we encourage you to download the report.
- System Center Essentials (SCE) 2010 beta preview
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Adam Bomb from the TechNet Edge team recently sat down with David Mills and Edwin Yuen, who got together for a brief discussion of Microsoft’s IT management and virtualization solution for midsize businesses. With the release of public betas for System Center Essentials 2010 and Data Protection Manager 2010, customers will have the capability to easily manage, backup and restore their physical and virtual servers in an integrated way.
After discussing the benefits of using Hyper-v, SCE 2010 and DPM 2010, Edwin gives us a quick demo of SCE 2010’s integrated virtual and physical management capabilities.
Download System Center Essentials 2010 beta today
- System Center and Windows 7
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In this episode of Brad and Jeff's periodic chats about the management business at Microsoft, they talk about how System Center fits in the constellation of platform and server releases in the fall of 2009.
In part 2, Brad and Jeff talk about all the improvements in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 and R3 that make deployment and management of Windows 7 clients far more energy efficient and cost effective than ever before.
Also in this episode:
See also, for further information:
- Latest Evaluation downloads – Forefront and System Center
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The following System Center and Forefront products are available for download as evaluation.
Forefront Identity Manager 2010
Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server
![clip_image001[6]](http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/itproaustralia/WindowsLiveWriter/LatestEvaluationdownloadsForefrontandSys_8BD9/clip_image001%5B6%5D_1.jpg "clip_image001[6]")
Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010
![clip_image001[8]](http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/itproaustralia/WindowsLiveWriter/LatestEvaluationdownloadsForefrontandSys_8BD9/clip_image001%5B8%5D_1.jpg "clip_image001[8]")
System Center Essentials 2010
![clip_image001[10]](http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/itproaustralia/WindowsLiveWriter/LatestEvaluationdownloadsForefrontandSys_8BD9/clip_image001%5B10%5D_1.jpg "clip_image001[10]")
System Center Service Manager
![clip_image001[12]](http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/itproaustralia/WindowsLiveWriter/LatestEvaluationdownloadsForefrontandSys_8BD9/clip_image001%5B12%5D_1.jpg "clip_image001[12]")
- Windows 7 resources
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Windows 7 was launched last week! We had our launch event at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Media, technology enthusiasts and PC makers were present. There are some amazing looking PC’s running Windows 7 which were on display, my favourite one was the new and amazingly thin Sony Vaio X Series.
For more photos check out the Microsoft Australia Flickr Photostream
You may have already seen some of the ads on TV:
To check out more ads visit the official Windows 7 Australia youtube channel
Here are also some great TechNet Edge videos:
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit - building install media for Windows 7
Windows XP mode for Windows 7
Branch Cache in Windows 7
Check out TechNet Edge for more Windows 7 videos
Some fun facts about Windows 7
- More than a billion people around the world use Windows every day, and millions have provided input on what they want to see in an operating system. This feedback was built into the product.
- Windows 7 saw the largest beta testing program in the history of the industry, with 8 million testers worldwide.
- People from more than 113 countries downloaded the Windows 7 beta.
- We conducted more than 16,000 online interviews directly aimed at helping us identity, test and validate scenarios and features for Windows 7.
- More than 2,600 customers participated in user research and usability studies for Windows 7.
- More than 40,000 hours of Windows 7 usage was logged from external user research field trials (through our Living with Windows program in which users were recruited to provide an understanding of how they use Windows 7).
- We received product instrumentation and usage data from millions of PCs in more than 200 countries and regions around the world that help Microsoft Corp. better understand how its customers use its software. Windows 7 includes input from more than a billion user sessions.
- More than 600 new feature ideas for Windows 7 were tested through global quantitative research early in the engineering process, helping Microsoft determine the features that best address its customers’ top needs. These features were tested through extensive online research survey fielded in five global markets.
- More than 15 million people participated in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) —across Windows Vista and Windows 7 prereleases.
- Tens of thousands of people have signed up to host a Windows 7 Launch Party, a grassroots gathering of friends and family to show off the product and share their enthusiasm.
- Twenty-seven new TV ads were developed for Windows 7 across the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany and Australia.
- Weight reduction of new Genesis Windows 7 packaging versus Windows Vista Longform packaging: 56 percent
- Percent improvement in Windows 7 Ecometrics score over Windows Vista: 50 percent
- There are 50 new fonts in Windows 7.
- Number of languages that are available as of October 2009: 34
- 49 Indian-language fonts are supported in Windows 7.
- Wallpaper: 12 backgrounds, seven Windows Aero themes, six character wallpapers, six scenes and unlimited downloads
- Windows 7 is available at more than 45,000 retailers around the world.
Windows 7 Twitter’s
MSWindows
MSSpringboard
Windows7AU
Have a look at the Windows 7 Australian Pricing
- Deployment Tools, Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration
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Deployment Tools, Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration
