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TechBlog is an RSS-enabled, annotated and expanded edition of the TechNet What's New page.
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Looking for a fast, free antivirus program that's easy to install and use? Microsoft Security Essentials employs practices like active memory swapping and CPU throttling to limit the impact on your PC performance, even on older or less powerful PCs. Get the official release version of this hassle-free antivirus protection for your home PC now at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ or read more about it at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center.
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The Microsoft Answers Web site ( http://answers.microsoft.com) has been updated with new forums, providing expert answers -- from MVPs, MSFT employees and other tech gurus from the community -- to common Windows- and Microsoft-related questions. New Forums cover the gamut from Windows 7 installations to repair, device drivers, security, sound, video, and much more.
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As you may have heard, the Windows 7 Reelease Candidate is now available to MSDN, MSDNAA and TechNet Subscribers, and the general public.
Some things to be aware of with the Windows 7 Release Candidate:
- You must do a clean install of this release.
- Please plan ahead for Windows 7 Beta and Windows 7 RC expiration dates. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to rebuild your test machine using a genuine version of Windows 7 before the software expires. Windows will remind you when the expiration process is beginning; two weeks after this notification your PC will begin shutting down every two hours.
- Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1, 2009, and bi-hourly shutdowns will begin July 1, 2009.
- Windows 7 RC will expire June 1, 2010, and the bi-hourly shutdowns will begin on March 1, 2010.
See the Springboard Blog for more information.
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TechBlog has been whiling away the hours lately testing virtualization solutions, including Microsoft's freely available Virtual PC 2007. Why? Well, I just got this new computer, see -- and it came with a 64-bit OS....
A few random thoughts:
1) Windows 7 runs great in two gigs of virtual memory under VPC. (And yes, the RC is coming very soon.)
2) Virtualization is a great way to work around compatibility problems (like this one).
3) Virtual PC 2007 SP1 complained that my 64-bit Windows Vista SP1 host wasn't a "supported operating system," but seems to run it just fine.
4) This chart of malware distribution across operating systems makes me wonder why anyone is still running the RTM release of Windows XP.
5) Right-clicking the Recording Devices window in Windows Vista's sound control panel presents some interesting options I had never seen before....
If you want to give Virtual PC 2007 a try, be sure to go for the newest SP1 release. It's freely downloadable here.
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From the Things-we-didn't-expect-to-see Dept.: It's oh-so-amusing to see that the "Hero Hack Pack" and "More Heroes" links on the {Open Source} Heroes Happen Here page don't work in Internet Explorer 8 RC (native mode), but open as expected when using Mozilla Firefox and every other non-Microsoft browser we tried. Now *that's* a commitment to open source, eh, fellas? Port 25 has additional information about the open source community at Microsoft.
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The Windows Live team notes a new way to get Hotmail on your phone. The POP3 option is now available to Hotmail users in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. If you don’t see your country or region in this list, never fear, Microsoft says it will be rolling POP3 out to more parts of the world later this year.
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This attractive 25.5 x 33 printable poster defines eleven key solution patterns found in today’s IT environments. IT managers can easily see the relative relationships of the solution patterns to each other as well as learn how these patterns contribute to the success of their IT infrastructure.
Get it on the Platform Solution and Planning page.
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It will be officially announced on January 12th, but it's live now: a brand-new IT Management site on TechNet. Here you'll find resources for IT Managers and their teams, platform solutions guidance, links to local dialogue (for UK, Canadian, Brasilian, and U.S.-based IT managers), industry news, and more.
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The TechNet page that briefly provided links to the public beta release of Windows 7 before "server too busy" errors took the site down finally returned, but not until, well, just about everybody began circulating direct links to Windows 7 downloads. Unfortunately, these direct links no longer work, and the public beta program has now ended. However, if you're a TechNet or MSDN subscriber, you can still download the beta via this link. If your download was interrupted, you can still finish it. And, you can still register for a product key or look up the key you’ve already gotten.
Here's how to get a Product Key.
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The number of feeds on MSDN and TechNet sites that are driven by social bookmarking (community members tagging relevant URLs) just keeps growing. The latest adopter is the System Center TechCenter, which has just put “links from the community” front and center. Dave Morehouse, System Center Product Manager, blogs here about why and has some great questions for the System Center community.
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Check out Mark Russinovich’s latest blog post on virtual-memory-related limits in Windows, including information on how to track down virtual memory hogs and how to size the paging file.
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