If your are using Firefox, the Microsoft Search Team have developed an add-in to allow you to make your default search engine Bing.

You can download it from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10434

The add-on has already over 488’000 downloads!

You can assess your existing PC hardware compatibility with Windows 7 requirements and do this network-wide with the free Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 4.0 for Windows 7.

More information here and the same toolkit can do Server readiness for Windows Server 2008 R2 too.

The Security of our Customers and Partners is important to Microsoft . The be able to efficiently operate your IT Infrastructure, Microsoft will issue an Out-of-Band Security Update today, 28 July, at about 19:00 Central European Time. Products covered are all currently supported versions of Internet Explorer and Visual Studio.

Pre-Alert Information: Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for July 2009 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-jul-ans.mspx)

Technical WebCast, 28 July, 22:00 (CET): “TechNet Webcast: Information About Microsoft’s July 2009 Out-of-Band Security Bulletin Release (Level 200)”: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032422339&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

The receive pre-alerts for this, and other security alerts, you can subscribe to the “Microsoft Technical Security Notifications” http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/notify.mspx

Windows 7 release to manufacturing (RTM) means that it’s time for our OEM partners to get their PCs ready, for software development partners to test their new applications, and for hardware vendors to ready their hardware. Find out what it means for you as an IT professional—and learn how and when you can get the final bits.

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/07/21/when-will-you-get-windows-7-rtm.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/

A document was published yesterday by Microsoft on the possible Upgrade Scenarios from older operating systems to Windows 7

The document is available here.

Something that is important to note is that Upgrades from Windows Vista to Windows 7 E are not supported (Windows 7 E is the SKU of Windows only available in Europe as per this announcement).