The Windows Blog

Try Your Hand At A Home Server Haiku (ie. A contest ;-)

Mark Pendergrast — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:45:23 GMT

Feeling literary? Creative? Or maybe just passionate for the latest generation of Windows Home Server devices hitting the market? Either way, here’s your chance to win a Home Server and host of other great prizes including Zune HD players and 1 TB hard drives to help expand your storage.

Through December 11^th, Intel and Microsoft are co-sponsoring A Home Server Haiku contest. To enter, simply write a haiku about how a home server would help bring peace of mind to your life—or simply why you really want one. Your name will be entered in a contest to win one of three new home servers, one of ten Zune digital audio players, or one of ten 1TB hard drives.

If you’re like me, a handy English class refresher on Haikus can be found here, courtesy of Wikipedia (simply put, it’s a poem made up of three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, with thankfully no rhyming needed). :-)

More details – and the entry form - are up on the website www.winahomeserver.com.

So here’s my attempt:

Each day it helps me

From its perch in my basement

My little server

I’m sure you can do better…Give it a try, and spread the word!

- Mark

Fishbowl for Facebook Using the Windows 7 Taskbar for Extra Spice

Yochay Kiriaty — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:41:00 GMT

During Wednesday’s keynote, Brian Goldfarb demoed an amazing Silverlight 4 client for Facebook. Beyond its amazing looks, this Silverlight 4 demo provides a full and complete desktop client application for Windows (and Mac). SilverFace is built on top of Silverlight 4 – also announced during the keynote. If you want a cool Facebook client application to work on from your Windows desktop, you should take a look at the Fishbowl for Facebook Preview. Fishbowl is a great WPF application that you can install and enjoy as a user, and at the same time it is a great code sample for developers whom are looking to write WPF applications that use Windows 7 features. If you are interested, you can download the source code for Fishbowl.

In today's world, the client’s experience is more important than ever before. Your application doesn’t just have to be fun and interesting; it has to be good looking, polished, and functional, providing a “natural” user experience that just works. As a developer, you need to push the envelope and use any available technical tool that the OS provides or any other available means (if installed on mobile devices) to provide a superior user experience, or users will switch to the next guy. In such a competitive scenario, using the Windows 7 Taskbar to shave a few seconds from day-to-day tasks looks like a very obvious choice.

Both Silverlight 4 demo and Fishbowl applications each provide a great UX and enhance user productivity. Scott Guthrie also announced the Facebook SDK for managed code applications that combines the latest in Web and Client platform innovations with leading Social technologies (services) to help developers plug into Facebook. But, beside the new Facebook SDK and beside the great looks, the Fishbowl application is a great WPF (3.5) example that demonstrates how to write applications that produce amazing experiences on Windows 7.

As a WPF application, Fishbowl runs on multiple Windows versions, including Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and it integrates with the Windows 7 Taskbar and Multitouch. One of the main ideas behind the Taskbar is to provide users with quick and easy access to their content and help them accomplish tasks and navigate between windows easier and with more confidence. For example, JumpList provides a great tool for surfacing common work items and tasks. If you have a task that you perform once or twice a day, taking two or three clicks to perform the task is not that bad. However, if you have a task that you perform 10, 20, or even 30 more times, using JumpList tasks or items in the recent category list goes a long way. Facebook users often check their wall, write notifications and messages, view friends' pictures, and so on. Therefore, in some scenarios, the Taskbar JumpList tasks, icon notification, thumbnail buttons, and other functionality become major tools in the application.

Fishbowl uses the taskbar to provide a quick, easy, and seamless integration with Facebook functionality directly from your Taskbar. Let’s review some of the user functionality before jumping into code behind.

The Fishbowl taskbar offers a few tasks even before you start your application. You can go to Facebook.com, or you can actually “jump” directly and see your wall, friend's picture, and more, as the following image shows.
One of the amazing things in Fishbowl for Facebook is that it changes it functionality between the different modes of the application. Being able to use the taskbar differently for

different scenarios provides an amazing user experience in heavily used application like Fishbowl.

When Fishbowl runs in normal mode, the Taskbar JumpList reflects items and tasks that you can actually perform in the context of a running application, like viewing the last few notifications and messages that you received without opening the application, as shown by the following image.

If you hover with the mouse above the Fishbowl control, you see the thumbnail preview provided by Windows 7 taskbar. However, Fishbowl uses the thumbnail button again allowing you to both view a preview of the application and act immediately upon the thumbnail preview as shown in the following image.

(And thank you Raman for writing so many PDC tweets J)

Fishbowl also has a mini-mode operation mode. This mode shows just one message in a small window. As you can see in the following image, a small arrow allows you to switch between messages. When you hover over Fishbowl taskbar icon, you can see the preview but you can also control the message, again using the taskbar thumbnail preview.

Besides great Taskbar integration, Fishbowl offers a great Multitouch experience, allowing you to scroll between messages using your finger to touch the touch screen. It is a little hard to illustrate Multitouch with screen capture so you will have to trust me on this one.

We've covered most of the Fishbowl features unique to Windows 7, and in the next post I will dive into the API that enabled these Taskbar and Multitouch features. If you are interested, you can download the source code for Fishbowl.

The Windows Platform, Silverlight 4, and Facebook

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:02:33 GMT

Last week, we announced the availability of the Facebook SDK for .NET developers. The SDK supports coding for both Silverlight and the Windows Platform (WPF, etc.). Yesterday, Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, took the stage for his part of the Day 2 Keynote at PDC09 where he announced Silverlight 4.

During the keynote, an out-of-browser Silverlight 4 application called SilverFace was demonstrated. SilverFace was developed using the Facebook SDK we announced last week.

SilverFace lets you do all kinds of things on Facebook directly from your Windows desktop such as update your status, upload photos, view friend’s photos and videos, and much more. This application is meant to serve as a proof point for the capabilities of Silverlight 4 in combination with the Facebook SDK and is not an actual product. You can think of this as more of a “technology showcase” and a demo of what the technology can do.

For those of you wanting to try out physical code (and is pretty cool), I’ve got something just for you.

Today, we’re making available an application for Windows 7 called Fishbowl for Facebook. This application is a sample application created by UXLabs@Microsoft that showcases the Windows Platform (when I say Windows Platform = .NET Platform) and takes advantage of key Windows 7 features.

Download: Fishbowl for Facebook Preview

Fishbowl for Facebook lets you quickly post a Status Update to Facebook, watch your Facebook News Feed, post comments, browse your friends and their photos and upload photos directly from their Windows 7 desktop. Let me take you through a few key areas of the app. I’ll start with the Windows 7 integration.

When running, Fishbowl for Facebook takes advantage of new Windows 7 features such Taskbar Previews and Jump Lists.

For example, when moving your mouse over the Fishbowl for Facebook icon on your Windows Taskbar, you get a Taskbar Preview. This allows you to quickly navigate quickly between Home (you’re News Feed), your friends list, your profile, and photos. You can also quickly go to Facebook’s homepage too.

If you right-click on the Fishbowl for Facebook, you get a Jump List that lets you see your most recent notifications. It also lets you switch to “mini-mode”.

You can upload photos to Facebook using Fishbowl for Facebook – simply by drag-and-drop!

Just put a title in, choose the album you want to add the photo to (or create a new album), and hit upload! Here I am dragging a panoramic photo I created in Windows Live Photo Gallery from my visit in September to the U.S.S. Hornet in Oakland, CA.

See the red lines under the “U.S.S.” and “SFO” text? Yeah, that’s spell check. Fishbowl for Facebook comes with spell check to help ensure you don’t accidently spell important words wrong that your friends can make fun of you for the rest of your life with. Trust me, it happens ;-)

While browsing a photo album, you can view the album in a slideshow, save photos, print photos, and zoom in and out.

And Fishbowl for Facebook supports Windows Touch too.

Ok, one last thing – when browsing your friends in Fishbowl for Facebook, you are given several ways of sorting through your friends. You can sort by name (display name or family), last Status Update, Upcoming Birthdays, or Interest Level. And you can also adjust Interest Level of individual friends by simply clicking on a friend and viewing their profile. Interest Levels let you control how much of that friend’s stuff hits your News Feed. If you have an annoying friend, just turn the Interest Level way down.

There are a lot of neat experiences you can have with Fishbowl for Facebook so give the app a spin yourself! Remember, you can download it here.

Fishbowl for Facebook will run on Windows XP and Windows Vista but requires .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to be installed (this is not needed if you’re on Windows 7 as it’s built in). For the best experience with Fishbowl for Facebook, it is recommended you use Windows 7 to take advantage of all its features. Fishbowl for Facebook with automatically update when updates are available as well so when we make updated available, you’ll get them! But please note that Fishbowl for Facebook is meant as a sample application showing what developers can do with the Windows Platform and the Facebook SDK. This is NOT an officially supported product.

Stay tuned, Yochay from the Windows 7 for Developers Blog will be posting some behind-the-scenes geeky developer stuff shortly. For you developers out there, this will be a must-read. I can’t wait to see more applications like this for the Windows Platform.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 available November 24th includes enhancements for Windows 7-based computers

Mark Pendergrast — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:13:32 GMT

The Windows Home Server Team is pleased to announce that Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24^th, 2009. Power Pack 3 will be made available to existing users via Windows Update. Users need to have Windows Home Server with Power Pack 2 already installed on their home server. Power Pack 3 will automatically install as part of Windows Update if Automatic Updates is enabled on the home server.

As we’ve communicated in a past post, Power Pack 3 improves the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center by providing new features like: backup and restore of computers running Windows 7, Windows 7 Libraries integration, enhancements for Windows Media Center, and better support for netbook computers. Power Pack 3 will enable the most optimal experience for Windows 7 users on a Windows Home Server network.

“If you've recently upgraded to Windows 7, Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 is an essential download providing enhanced integration between the two platforms and a number of cool new features. Combine library support with enhanced features for Windows Media Center, and we're really starting to see Microsoft bring together the Windows Home Server and Windows 7 client experience so that your media can be stored on your home server and enjoyed seamlessly on TV, PC and Mobile devices with little effort from the user. The bad old days of copy, paste, convert and transcode may well be behind us,” says Microsoft Most Valued Professional (MVP) Terry Walsh of We Got Served.

Microsoft MVP Alex Kuretz of MediaSmartServer.net says “Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 makes storing and accessing your media easier by bringing all the content contained on your Home Server smoothly into your Windows 7 libraries. TV Archive is also a very nice feature that has allowed me to record TV shows and move them to my Home Server to be watched at a later time.”

Here are some details on what’s new:

Windows 7 Libraries integration

When you install the Windows Home Server Connector and log on a computer running Windows 7, you can access the Windows Home Server shared folders from the Windows 7 libraries.

Windows 7 Action Center backup warning suppression

After you install the Windows Home Server Connector to enable the home server backup for your computer running Windows 7, you can suppress the Action Center warning reminding you that Windows Backup has not been set up.

Windows 7 power settings

You can configure your computer running Windows 7 to wake up at a scheduled backup time and then go back to sleep after the backup finishes.

 Console support for Windows 7

Windows 7 is properly displayed as the operating system shown in the Computers & Backup tab.

Windows Search

Windows Search 4 is included to improve query search times, indexing times, and reliability. Extended Remote Discovery increases the efficiency of searching across all your libraries running Windows Search 4. Files encrypted with EFS are now supported.

TV archive

Windows Home Server can automatically archive recorded TV by moving your recordings from a Windows Media Center computer to your home server in the format of your choice. This enables playback in the correct format for your home computers and/or portable devices.

Console view

You can view information about your home server’s storage space, hard drives, backup status, and more from Windows Media Center.

Complete details are available in the Power Pack 3 Release Documentation.

We want to thank our community for all of their testing and feedback over these past months with the Power Pack 3 Beta. You validated that Power Pack 3 was ready for release. We like to think that we are building this product together – as a passionate community.

- The Windows Home Server Team

New Windows API Code Pack Version

Yochay Kiriaty — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:02:42 GMT

I am glad to announce that today we shipped a new version of the Windows API Code Pack – version 1.0.1. This is not a major version with a lot of new features, but rather a minor version focused on fixing bugs, improving performance, adding demos and few features updates (new wrappers…)

But before we dive into this new version of the Windows Code Pack let’s better understand what this Windows API Code Pack is all about.

Windows 7 offers new features like the taskbar, libraries, and the Sensor and Location platform, to name a few. These features enable new scenarios and create new opportunities for developers to make their applications shine on Windows 7. All these great features are exposed via the Win32 native API. Currently there is no “Windows 7” namespace in the .NET Framework, and no easy way to use these features from managed code applications. To help managed code developers access them, we released version 1.0 of the Windows API Code Pack for the .NET Framework in August (just after Windows 7 RTM).

The Windows API Code Pack is a free, managed Source Code Library provided by Microsoft as is. You should consider this library as if you wrote it yourself, as if it is your own code. It is a great starting point and provides a really good and solid solution for managed code developers. It covers a lot of the new Windows 7 features as well as some more fundamental core features from the Windows Vista timeframe. You may think of the Windows API Code Pack as the closest thing to an “official” managed API for Windows. But you need to remember that it’s not a product with 24x7 technical support available from Microsoft Customer Service and Support. We believe it is a great solution, and that the codebase is very solid and high quality.

Our goal with the code pack is to enable managed code developers to take advantage of Windows APIs that are not part of the .NET Framework. We feel that as a shared source that is separate from the .NET runtime libraries, the Windows API Code Pack provides an optimal compromise between the Microsoft Win32 managed wrapper, short time-to-market -we released the Windows API Code Pack just a month after the Win7 RTM, and we ship full source code of the library.

The Windows API Code Pack includes a great deal of managed API for Windows (7). For example:

Extensive integration with the Windows Shell namespace, with support for the Windows Shell property system, providing control like explorer browser and access to Windows Libraries
A completely 100% feature parity with the native Taskbar API including (but not limited to) JumpLists, Icon Overlay, Progress bar, Thumbnail, custom switcher, Thumbnail Button, etc…
Windows Task Dialogs , other controls
Support for Direct3D 11.0 and DXGI 1.0/1.1 APIs
Support for the Sensor Platform APIs
Extended Linguistic Services APIs
Windows Restart Manager
Power APIs
And many other features

Each technology represented in the Windows API Code Pack has multiple demos and examples (including source) in C# and VB. We are planning on releasing updates to the Windows API Code Pack roughly every three months. We will be investing mainly in stability (meaning fixing bugs), fundamentals, testing and documentation, as well as new feature support (based on customer feedback).

You may ask yourself, “Why isn't the Windows API Code Pack part of the .NET Framework?”

We ship open source code that we might bring into the runtime sometime in the future, if we feel it's sufficiently core to the entire framework to be worth the size increase. Remember the .NET Framework runs on both Windows Vista and Windows XP. However, Windows 7 is here now, and we want to enable you to access this set of free, open source library sooner rather than later. We’re shipping this library in a community-supported form and, as you can see, we intend to keep updating it. While this version (1.0.1) is a minor release, we are planning on another release in the next few months. In the meantime, you get the best of both worlds in a package that you can use as a whole or in parts without restriction.

Another question you may ask is, “Will .NET 4 replace the need to use the Windows API Code pack?”

When .NET 4 ships, you will be able to use its Windows 7 features such as Taskbar and multitouch integration with WPF, DirectWrite support, and the location API via the Devices namespace. Continue to access other features such as libraries, Restart Manager, and Sensors via the Windows API Code Pack.

Last but not least, we are looking for feedback from the community – that is you the .NET developer using this library to write managed code applications for Windows 7. On the Windows API Code Pack site, you can ask questions, provide feedback, report bugs, and follow open bugs. Your input is critical for the continuation of this library, so please send us your feedback and questions.

To learn more about how to use the Windows API Code Pack check the Windows 7 Training on Channel 9

ASUS Announces TS Mini Home Server

Mark Pendergrast — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:19:03 GMT

Hot off the presses, we’re extremely pleased to report that our newest OEM, ASUS, has just announced that they’ll soon be introducing a new Home Server to the market here in the US – and in other markets across the globe. Their TS Mini Home Server, powered by a 1.66 GhZ Intel Atom chipset and running Windows Home Server, will come in two configurations:

500GB Hard Drive (with 1 empty HDD bay) @ $349 MSRP
1 TB Hard Drive (with 1 empty HDD bay) @ $529 MSRP

The form factor is pretty sleek and comes packed with 6 USB ports and an eSata port for additional external storage options. In addition to all the great features of the underlying Windows Home Server operating system, the TS Mini will also come bundled with a free year long subscription to a 500 GB online storage service, a feature that automatically synchronizes files stored on the TS Mini with external drives, and a real time system monitoring tool.

Not to be outdone, ASUS also points to the device’s ‘green’ credentials: it’s certified ‘Energy 5.0’ compliant and consumes on average only 24.5W.

The TS Mini is now available for pre-order at online retailers Amazon.com and NewEgg.

A hearty welcome to ASUS in joining the Home Server family!

- Mark

Technorati Tags: Windows Home Server,ASUS

Sneak Peak at the Acer Aspire 1420P

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:50:25 GMT

Today is Day 2 of PDC09, and attendees were given a nice “treat.” During this morning’s keynote, Windows and Windows Live Division President Steven Sinofsky took the stage and announced that all attendees* of this year’s PDC will be given an Acer Aspire 1420P Convertible Tablet PC. This is being done to show our gratitude for the support we received by PDC attendees in the development process of Windows 7. This PC enables developers to leverage many of the unique Windows 7 capabilities including multitouch – which I will talk about further down in this post.

This laptop promotion is the result of a collaborative effort with Acer, whom we worked closely with to have these laptops ready for PDC. This PC is not yet available in the US (Acer has not yet announced pricing and availability for this PC) so that makes this “PDC Edition” of the laptop exclusive to PDC attendees.

The Aspire 1420P PDC Edition comes with the following specs:

Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Processor: Intel Celeron CPU SU2300 @ 1.2GHz
Memory: 2GB (Supports up to 8GB)
Display: 11.6” Widescreen |1366x768 Resolution
Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Network: 10/100/1000 Ethernet | Intel Wi-Fi Link 1000 802.11b/g/Draft-N
Mobile Broadband: 3G
Storage: 250GB

For a more complete and detailed list of specs, click here.

The Aspire 1420P comes with 3 USB ports, 1 HDMI port for connecting to HDTVs and monitors, a VGA port, Ethernet port, and a headphone and microphone jack. The laptop features a unique design with a metallic textured design just above the keyboard and a metal hinge for converting the laptop into Tablet mode. Its design is essentially a small laptop with Tablet PC features. It’s slim, light, and has a small footprint – making it easy to carry around. This laptop features a CTRL+ALT+DEL button and a Flip 3D button. Also, the Aspire 1420P uses the Windows 7 Sensor and Location Platform to adjust the screen depending on which way you hold the PC (in Tablet mode). For example: if you’re holding it a landscape position, the screen will display in landscape for you. Vice versa if you hold it in a portrait position.

We worked with Acer to image the laptops with some great software – including the beta release of Office 2010.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta
Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7
Windows Live Essentials
Windows Virtual PC with Windows XP Mode
Microsoft Security Essentials
Corel Paint it! touch

Because the Aspire 1420P supports Windows Touch, we’ve included the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 as well as Corel Paint it! touch.

Corel Paint it! touch allows you to use your fingers to draw and paint. You can also turn your photos into paintings too.

One application I’ve written about recently is Amazon’s Kindle for PC. Amazon has released Kindle for PC and it works great on this laptop. You can download the beta of Kindle for PC today here. You can use multitouch gestures to move from page to page on the Kindle book you are reading. You can also zoom in and out with ease. For more on the Kindle for PC app, check out my demo video here on this post. In Tablet mode, reading books with Kindle for PC is very nice.

The Aspire 1420P also sports Mobile Broadband. With Windows 7, using Mobile Broadband is easier than ever before. Windows 7 will automatically detect if a Mobile Broadband connection is available (after inserting your SIM card).

You can choose to connect to the Mobile Broadband connection where you will be required enter subscription details from your mobile carrier. No need to mess with 3^rd party Mobile Broadband connection utilities.

Not only can you use multitouch with the Aspire 1420P, you can also use it as a Tablet. The Aspire 1420P is perfect for writing down notes using Microsoft OneNote 2010 (my favorite Office app).

Overall, this PC will be great for all the developers attending PDC to experience many of Windows 7’s new features and to be able to develop with those features in mind.

* This promotion is for full-conference attendees who are onsite at PDC. It is not available to Microsoft attendees, members of the media, government employees, staff, speakers, crew, volunteers, day pass attendees, guests, or Workshop-only attendees.

Windows 7 and the opportunity for Developers - PDC09

Mark Relph — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:49:24 GMT

Developers! Developers! Developers! Greetings from the Microsoft PDC in LA – it’s Mark Relph from the Windows Ecosystem Team. I hope everyone is enjoying PDC this year either here in person or watching the stream at microsoftpdc.com. I wanted to give you a sense of what the Windows Ecosystem team is doing at PDC and the conversations we are having with our amazing developer community at the show. I just walked out of the Day 2 keynote that featured Steven Sinofsky, President of the Windows & Windows Live Division and it was fantastic! (for a couple of big reasons)

A Hallway Discussion about Building Windows 7

Steven’s keynote began as a “hallway discussion” about how we developed Windows 7. We learned a lot from the Windows 7 development process. Steven described the engagement we had with beta testers, partners and the developer community across various channels including the “Engineering 7” blog and the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program. These programs helped us to make sure developers had the resources they needed to be ready for Windows 7. We also found that a disciplined release and disclosure cycle was invaluable. Everyone wants to get code sooner, but having API complete and feature complete code that is actionable is far more valuable. This extended to our disclosure by ensuring all information was accurate and actionable to ensure we provided the ecosystem with correct information.

One of the key highlights from Sinofsky’s keynote was the role of telemetry and research in developing Windows 7. Telemetry is the broad set of tools we use to assess the engineering “integrity” of the Windows platform and how Windows is performing in the real world. This real world data has been incredibly valuable for us in enhancing the product. Without customers opting in to participate and send us real time data- we would not be able to make some of the improvements we made. Beyond the telemetry is the qualitative view—the type of research we do to gain an in depth understanding of how people use their PCs and what problems people would like to be solved. As developers we often feel “we know” what customers want. These are some of the tools that help us to remove our observer biases and to walk in the shoes of real customers.

The Windows 7 Ecosystem - Great Hardware Powered By Great Software

Steven then shifted to a focus on Developing for Windows 7. Steven’s keynote highlighted how vibrant the ecosystem around Windows 7 is. Along with Mike Angiulo, they demonstrated the opportunity developers have to take advantage of the range of hardware devices that run Windows. The ecosystem around Windows is really amazing. Think about the install base - there are more than one billion users who use Windows. Those users want great applications and there are 3 million programmers building applications around the world and 90 percent of those developers target Windows. You could also look at our telemetry from the beta cycle which shows more than 800,000 unique applications (which includes multiple versions, 32/64 bit & languages) running on Windows 7 during the beta timeframe. From packaged ISV software, shareware and custom applications the number of applications available for Windows 7 is measured in the hundreds of thousands. Only 3 weeks after the launch of Windows 7 we know that over 25,000 applications from our partners in the Microsoft Partner Program have a public statement of support for Windows. Even more partners are striving for a higher quality bar by earning the “Compatible with Windows 7” logo. Today, 1700 hardware and software companies have delivered over 9,000 logo’d products. Many partners are also coming out with public statements of support. One way to measure that is the Windows 7 Compatibility Center which provides compatibility information and upgrade path for some of the most commonly used products on the market. We have had 2 million visitors to the site since its launch on October 20^th. Today, there are over 25,000 products listed on the site with both 32-bit and 64-bit compatibility status and our database that is constantly growing. Finally if you take into account market impact, over the last several years, NPD data tells us that the top 4000 applications generated $4 billion in sales. This speaks volumes to the strength of the software ecosystem. As I post this blog, it is clear that the Windows ecosystem is growing and thriving.

Speaking Of Hardware….

Steven spent a few minutes talking about what it takes to build a laptop. The decisions about processors, memory, inputs, video and the drivers the make the experience great. He talked about working with our friends at Acer to really experience what it takes to build a great PC. Speaking of hardware, there was one really big surprise…….

For all the full conference attendees of PDC09 we giving away a “PDC Special Edition” laptop!! It’s a cool machine and Brandon will be posting a full review on the machine to this blog very soon.

Finally, Steven talked about the future of IE. I won’t cover the details here, but my colleague Dean Hachamovitch will speak to the news over on the IE Blog.

Announcing the Winners of The Code7 Contest

Another way to look at the health of the ecosystem is individual innovation. Over the last few months we gave developers around the globe the opportunity to show the world their talents in the Code7 Developer Contest. Developers across multiple countries answered the call and we had finalists from around the world join us at PDC to show off their work for the final judging. I had the pleasure of hosting the final event during the pre-PDC Windows Developer Bootcamp. I’m pleased to announce the grand prize winner is Benjamin Bondi from the Middle East & Africa for his application called “Notes Everywhere” a WPF client that enables you to manage desktop notes everywhere by leveraging Windows 7 and Windows Azure. Benjamin will receive $17,777 and the accolades of his peers in the developer community!

The momentum of the ecosystem and excitement of developers has made PDC an amazing event to be a part of. Sinofsky’s movie theater analogy from the keynote is the best way to describe it. We’ve built a great theatre with awesome sound, a great projector, good snacks, and comfortable seats - but the theatre is only as good as the movie that brings it to life. The same can be said about Windows 7 – it is a great OS supported by amazing hardware & software. If you are a developers and want to bring your application to life on the big screen then think about building the modern Windows application by building on – the Ribbon User Interface, Jump Lists & Progress Bars, Libraries, Multi-touch, Ink, Speech, DirectX®, High Definition Audio/Video, sensors and a connection to the cloud. Check out a few of the resources available to you at the Windows Developer Center and watch for the Windows specific sessions from the PDC as they become available online at microsoftpdc.com

Windows Marketplace for Mobile – a Worldwide Marketplace for Developers

Frank Prengel — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:35:00 GMT

Hello there, my name is Frank Prengel, and I’m a technical evangelist at Microsoft Germany, helping the Windows phone and Marketplace teams establish Windows Marketplace for Mobile in my country. Since I work with the German developer & ISV community, let me share with you some thoughts from a local perspective – they may help you develop for Marketplace, especially if you live outside the US.

Let’s first remember that Windows Mobile has always had a very active developer community, and that it gives you freedom in how software is developed and distributed. There are more than 20,000 Windows Mobile applications today which you can get and install from Web sites, software portals, forums, etc. – provided you are a tech savvy person, and you know how to do it. With Windows Mobile 6.5 we have begun addressing non-tech savvy consumers as well. This is exactly why we introduced Windows Marketplace for Mobile as an easy way for people to find and install additional software on their new Windows phones.

If you are a developer, this means one thing for you: an additional great opportunity to potentially reach millions of new customers. Windows Marketplace launched with commerce in 20 markets as well as developer registration support in 29 markets, more than any other app store at launch. It offers credit card as well as mobile operator billing, and self-serve refunds of certified apps. It now supports Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 and even allows for browsing and purchasing apps from the PC, with over-the-air synchronization to the user’s Windows phone. If your goal is to expand your business or the reach of your software, you should take the opportunity to join. For more information on the recent Windows Marketplace updates, including availability on 6 and 6.1, accessibility to browse and purchase apps from the PC and antipiracy protection benefits for developers, check out Todd Brix’s blog post at the Windows Mobile Developer Blog, and Eric Nelson’s post at the Windows Phone Blog.

As with every retail marketplace, there is a bit of administrative work involved. Windows Marketplace for Mobile is a new service and a fresh approach that improves frequently with feedback from the developers and ISVs we work with. We are committed to continually improving the entire experience as we learn more about developer and customer needs and behavior. (If you find that Marketplace is not the right distribution channel for your business model, after all, you can of course use any other channel, such as those mentioned above, as they continue to be available. Windows Mobile means freedom of choice.)

If you are in the US, signing up and getting apps certified should be pretty straightforward by now. In other countries there may be additional steps related to the business and financial processes involved. There also is localization work to be done when you want to submit products to several markets, as the application needs to be localized in the proper language (including the screenshots and descriptions). If there are any questions during this process, your first support resource is the Windows Marketplace help page. You can also use the contact form in your Windows Marketplace portal, and ask for help or information. Then, we have a dedicated forum where team members try to answer your questions as quick as possible.

Beyond all that, in some countries there are additional dedicated resources that you should know – let me take Germany here as an example: We have a dedicated Windows phone blog with news and a contact form for questions, we have our local Windows Mobile Developer Center on MSDN, a Twitter channel, a comprehensive introductory document on Windows Mobile development, a webcast series – we even have an exciting local developer contest which complements the global one!

You see, there are a lot of great resources that should help you get started with Marketplace. Don’t miss this great opportunity to expand your mobile business. Good luck!

Frank

How Do They Do That?: Ferrari GT on Windows phone

Gian Wilson — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:42:59 GMT

Hi, I'm Gian Wilson – Gaming Product Manager in Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business. I plan to keep you up to date with what is going on in the world of Gaming on Windows phone, and from time to time I'll have some guest bloggers write some stuff as well.

This installment is from our good friends over at Gameloft. This is the first in the "How Do They Do That?" series and explains how Ferrari GT made its way on to Windows phone!

Enjoy!

Who hasn't dreamed of driving a Ferrari car? They are the benchmark when it comes to outstanding vehicles, and here at Gameloft, we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to drive one in the most realistic mobile game possible. Anytime and anywhere, all you have to do is use your Windows mobile phone to enter the world of the most famous car brand.

To create a 100% Ferrari game we worked close with Ferrari's engineers. Every car in the game is a Ferrari, even the traffic cars you pass on the road are in fact Ferrari 412s, a model from 1985.

Our game designers went to various locations such as Rome, Madrid, Los Angeles and New York City to accurately recreate these famous settings for each race, bringing you fully detailed environments.

You may think that small details are not needed when remodeling a car for a phone-sized screen, but the truth is that every car in the game has been modeled in complete high-definition 3D rendering before being re-sized to fit on your screen. Every car model was then individually submitted to the Ferrari engineer that created it, and was reworked until the engineer was satisfied with the virtual appearance of his creation.

For example, take a look at these 3D models for the Ferrari Testarossa:

Nice isn't it? Well, that's where the Testarossa you play in the game comes from!

Finally, we succeeded in creating the most realistic Ferrari game, but the spirit was still missing. What makes Ferrari is its heart and its history. So, we spoke to our contacts at Ferrari and obtained authorization to use the original Ferrari encyclopedia to add facts and information to every loading screen, bringing you the real story of the prancing horse company.

And all of this is now available for you on Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Windows 7 & Saks Fifth Avenue Working Together to Bring Holiday Cheer

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:35:36 GMT

This holiday, Saks Fifth Avenue and Windows 7 are working together to bring the magic of the season to life. For the first time, the legendary Saks Fifth Avenue’s holiday windows will be powered by Windows 7. Additionally, Saks customers will have the opportunity to interact with the newly launched Windows 7 in store through PC lounges.

While this may seem an unusual pairing, the best holiday traditions are the simple ones. Windows and Saks are bringing a 60 year holiday tradition to life and celebrating the simple things that make this time of year special, spending time with family, connecting with friends and sharing good cheer. In addition, fashion and technology are hot items this holiday season and consumers today want their personal technology, like their fashion, to be as unique as they are. Just as Saks Fifth Avenue enables customers to find their personal style, Windows 7 gives customers the ability to customize their PC experience.

Saks’ holiday windows have always been about telling a heart-warming story. Windows 7 will help tell this year’s story, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Flake, with greater detail and excitement, as customers will find holiday windows enhanced through technology. Together, the two companies will share holiday cheer while entertaining New Yorkers and tourists alike in a new and captivating way. The Center 6 windows on 5th Avenue will showcase several of the book’s vibrant scenes and bring Twinkle’s world to life before shoppers’ very eyes.

In the store, customers will experience Windows 7 PCs first hand and ask Microsoft experts questions about both the hardware and software featured.

New Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals

Stephen L Rose — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:32:00 GMT

Until now there were a couple of ways to determine if your applications were compatible with Windows 7 – you can test everything, look them up one-by-one in the Windows Compatibility Center, or inventory your production machines using the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 and synchronize your inventory with hosted compatibility data from Microsoft and ISVs. For about a year, we’ve been posting regular updates to the Windows Vista Application Compatibility List for IT pros and even though compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7 is pretty high, there has still been huge demand for a Windows 7-specific list. If you already have a list or inventory of the applications you want to move forward in a Windows 7 deployment, the new Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals lets you download a spreadsheet of known vendor-supported applications so that you can query the list against your pre-existing application inventory. This list represents a sample of the total ecosystem focusing on top products as defined by customers and deployments with a public statement of support provided by the vendor.

As you can see, there is compatibility status listed for both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, plus each application’s major and minor version numbers are listed to help normalize your data queries. Since October (yes, last month) we have already collected more than 5500 applications and the list is growing every day. If you are working through a list of hundreds or thousands of applications, this list will help you validate your applications more quickly. We will be updating this list regularly, so keep checking back to avoid any unnecessary testing. Click here to download the spreadsheet and get started.

If you are in the process of testing in-house developed applications, download the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) and use its in-box evaluators and test tools. Although we released ACT 5.5 back in April coinciding with Windows 7’s RC release, there were no changes needed to support the RTM version of Windows 7. Even though you will see an occasional “RC” in ACT’s reports, ACT 5.5 is the RTM-supporting version.

To access these and other application compatibility resources, check out the Springboard Application Compatibility Zone where we host the latest application compatibility content for Windows 7.

Jeremy Chapman
Windows Deployment

Programming Windows 7 Using Visual Studio 2010

Yochay Kiriaty — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:55:24 GMT

A few weeks ago, just two days before Windows 7 become generally available, Visual Studio 2010 hit its own major milestone with the release its second Community Technical Preview of Visual Studio, known as Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. To me, it is always exciting to see how the different tools and frameworks evolve and add new features. It seems that with every release the products get bigger and better, offering an even

greater number of programming languages, and addressing an ever growing number of areas of development such as Web, client, mobile, parallel, consoles, and devices.

Despite being a “beta” product, it is much easier to work with Visual Studio 2010 than with VS 2008. It is much easier to control your solutions and, even more importantly, much easier to write and document code. The user interface is much improved; it uses the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to reduce clutter and visual complexity, and modernizes the interface by removing outdated 3D bevels. Using WPF enables us to help developers focus on content areas by opening up negative space between windows and drawing attention to the current focus with a dominant accent color and a distinctive background. There are also some cool, small, and simple perks like the ability to control the size of text. You can also drag a single window from the main Visual studio application to a second monitor (just like that) and with that you have multi-monitor support via the VS client application.

Improvements to the IntelliSense allow it finally to work well for C++ projects. And let’s not forget the new debugger window that supports parallel computing debugging and lets you view your parallel stacks.

There is even a new language, F# (F stands for Functional programming), and numerous upgrades to C#, like support for dynamic keywords. Dynamic objects' operations are resolved at runtime (check out a good post about this by Scott Hanselman). There is also support for the next version of the C++ language specification, C++X0, like Lambda Expressions. Speaking of C++, we've built the C++ solutions using MSBuild, which should make everyone happy.

As always, backward compatibility is super critical, and it is important to mention that Visual Studio 2010 supports multi-targeting. Visual Studio 2010 can target .NET 2.0 through .NET 4.0 on a per-project basis, which means you can work with your older project on the new VS 2010 and enjoy all the goodies mentioned above (and many more).

But I want to focus this post on using Visual Studio 2010 to program Windows 7. There are quite few technologies and features in Visual Studio 2010 to help you write better applications targeting the specific features of Windows 7. Below are just a few of the Visual Studio 2010 features that we’ll write more about really soon.

.NET 4 and Windows 7

Visual Studio 2010 brings a complete new CLR version – version 4. This is not just an incremental upgrade on top of CLR 2 (.NET Framework 2). This enables new language enhancements like the dynamic keyword. And the new WPF brings support in a few other areas like shell and Taskbar integration, and multitouch.

WPF & Taskbar Integration

As you know, you program jump lists using the JumpList class. This exposes several methods and properties that manipulate the exposed jump lists for the application. It also has an attached property that you can apply to your application class to create, modify, and remove jump list items. If you work with specific files, you can use the JumpList.AddToRecentCategory method to add that file to the recently used file list managed by the shell.

There are two types of jump lists – tasks and items; you work with each using a JumpTask, or a JumpPath respectively. You can work with these in XAML, code-behind, or a combination of the two. The following code snippet shows a simple integration of tasks into a jump list.

<JumpList.JumpList>
   <JumpList>
      <JumpTask ApplicationPath="notepad.exe" 
                         CustomCategory="External Tools" 
                Description="Take Notes" 
                Title="Start Notepad" 
                IconResourcePath="notepad.exe" 
                IconResourceIndex="0" />

      <JumpTask ApplicationPath="calc.exe"
                         CustomCategory="External Tools" 
                         Description="Perform some calculations" 
                        Title="Start Calculator"
                        IconResourcePath="calc.exe" 
                        IconResourceIndex="0" />
    </JumpList>
</JumpList.JumpList>

In a similar way, you can use XAML to add Thumbnail Toolbar buttons as shown by the following code snippet.

<TaskbarItemInfo.ThumbButtonInfos>
   <ThumbButtonInfo DismissWhenClicked="True" 
                    ImageSource="images/booktrip.png"
                    Command="{Binding BookItinerary}"
                    Description="Book the itinerary now" />
</TaskbarItemInfo.ThumbButtonInfos>

WPF Common File Dialog Supports Libraries (Finally!)

For some strange reason, WPF 3 and 3.5 Common File Dialog (CFD) didn’t support the updated version of the CFD introduced with Windows Vista. The CFD was upgraded in Windows 7 to support libraries and provide a better user experience. It now allows seamless search integration as well as some advanced user functionality. With WPF 4, applications enjoy the power of the “new” CFD directly from WPF, and don’t need to import CFD from the WinForm namespace (which was the only way to show the updated CFD from WPF 3 and WPF 3.5).

WPF Supports Multitouch

WPF 4.0 introduces multitouch support directly into the WPF API– with no need to interop to a native service. These new features are only available on Windows 7 and are automatically deprecated when running under older operating systems, so you don’t have to detect the operating system yourself. WPF 4.0 adds a new manipulation API to the UIElement base class. This new support allows developers to track multiple touches and generate both cumulative and individual manipulations across the touches. Basically, this enables you to transform your object on the X and Y coordinates, rotation, and scale.

WPF will supply these manipulation events if the IsManipulationEnabled property on the element is set to true. It defaults to false, so you will need to turn on this property for each element where you want to manage manipulations. This is as simple as adding IsManipulationEnabled=true to your XAML as shown in the following code snippet.

<Border Margin="10,5" 
    BorderBrush="DarkGoldenrod" 
    BorderThickness="2" 
        CornerRadius="10" 
    MinHeight="75" 
    IsManipulationEnabled="true">

Optionally, you can also hook the ManipulationStarting and ManipulationCompleted events to provide code behind the implementation of these events.

WPF 4 also supports low-level touch messages, or raw touch input. You can interact with the raw touch events on any UIElement using TouchDown, TouchMove, and TouchUp events, all of which have preview event versions. This can be useful if you are trying to track multiple touches that are not manipulating the same object, or if you want to provide different behavior for touches and the mouse. We’ll soon write more about Windows 7 multitouch in general and WPF specifically.

MFC Updates

In Visual Studio 2010, C++ and MFC received a healthy dosage of “coolness” factor, adding useful features such as IntelliSense enhancements and C++0x features. The MFC Library received a major upgrade, especially in regard to the Taskbar, Multitouch, and Restart and Recovery:

Taskbar

The MFC Taskbar provides all the functionality that the native taskbar COM API provides. There is nothing that the one can do that the other cannot. The MFC simply wraps the Win32 APIs (as it always does) into a more “MFC-like” API that corresponds to the MFC Framework programming style guidelines. For example, the following code snippet sets the overlay icon.

CMainFrame* mainFrm = 
dynamic_cast<CMainFrame*>(AfxGetApp()->GetMainWnd());
if (mainFrm)
    mainFrm->SetTaskbarOverlayIcon(IDI_ICON_INFO,L"Info");

First you need to obtain a handle (a pointer) to the application's main window (the top-level window), which corresponds to Win32 HWND. Then, simply call the SetTaskbarOverlayIcon passing HICON and a string that provides an alt text version of the information conveyed by the overlay to meet accessibility requirements. Simple, right?

In MFC, the CFrameWnd class provides the functionality of a Windows single document interface (SDI), overlapped, or pop-up frame window. With the new MFC, this class was updated and now supports Taskbar functionality such as icon overlay, progress bar, jump lists, and thumbnails.

In MFC, Taskbar thumbnail preview support is built in, so the Taskbar thumbnails will show any rendering within the views. Therefore, other than implementing your own View drawing, you need not provide any explicit code to update those Thumbnails.

To enable Taskbar Thumbnails in an MFC application while using the MFC application wizard, all the user needs to do is select the “Multiple documents” application type with the option “Tabbed documents” enabled. When the application runs, MFC will take a snapshot of each view and send it to the Taskbar APIs to display as thumbnails.

And the output could like this:

Multitouch

In Visual Studio 2010, MFC also supports multitouch. By default, on a touch-enabled device (such as touch screen), Windows 7 sends gesture touch messages to any application; that is, by default Windows 7 sends WM_GESTURE messages to the target windows. All that MFC is doing is mapping these messages to its own message handlers. MFC provides a number of message handler overrides that can receive each of the gesture types, and each returns a Boolean value. If a gesture input is processed by the application, the corresponding override should return TRUE; otherwise, it returns FALSE. Therefore if you wish to handle the zoom gestures, all you need to do is implement the relevant handler. Here is the list of supported handlers.

// Gesture handlers
virtual BOOL OnGestureZoom(CPoint ptCenter, long lDelta);
virtual BOOL OnGesturePan(CPoint ptFrom, CPoint ptTo);
virtual BOOL OnGestureRotate(CPoint ptCenter, double dblAngle);
virtual BOOL OnGesturePressAndTap(CPoint ptFirstFinger, long lDelta);
virtual BOOL OnGestureTwoFingerTap(CPoint ptCenter);

Similarly, you can register to receive raw touch messages and the default gesture messages. In Windows 7, gestures messages and raw touch are mutually exclusive. If you register to receive the raw touch messages for a particular window, that window will stop receiving gestures messages. If you opt-in to handle raw touch messages, you need to implement the following handler:

virtual BOOL OnTouchInput(
                        CPoint pt, 
                        int nInputNumber, 
                        int nInputsCount, 
                        PTOUCHINPUT pInput);

MFC makes your life easier by providing a lot of the information per each touch point, for example, the client coordinates for the actual point where the touch-enabled device has been touched. MFC also provides the ID of the touch point, that is, the first, second, or third finger, as well as the total count of current touches.

Restart and Recovery (Restart Manager)

In Visual Studio 2010, MFC also provides native support of the Restart Manager. Restart Manager is a feature introduced by the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. It can help applications maintain their data when an update needs to shutdown the application or when an unexpected software error or crash occurs. Instead of shutting down abnormally, Restart Manager enables an application to perform an application save before it is terminated. Furthermore, it can re-invoke the application, enabling it to restore its state from before the shutdown or crash.

For new MFC applications, you can get the application restart and recovery feature for free by using the MFC Application Wizard as you can see from the following image:

All configurable parts of the restart manager API are exposed to the user through virtual members that can be over-ridden. Needless to say, you can expect some more blogging about this feature.

.NET 4 and Location

.NET 4 has a new Device namespace that supports the Windows 7 Location API (part of the Windows 7 Sensor and Location. The System.Device.Location namespace allows application developers to access the user's location easily using a single API. Location information may come from multiple providers, such as GPS, Wi-Fi triangulation, and cell phone tower triangulation. The System.Device.Location classes provide a single API to encapsulate the multiple location providers on a computer and support seamless prioritization and transitioning between them. An application developer using this API does not need to know which location-sensing technologies are available on a particular computer and is freed from the burden of tailoring an application to a specific hardware configuration.

To begin accessing location, you need to create a GeoLocationProvider. This object is the main “location manager” object through which you can register for LocationChange notifications and synchronously read the latest location information. Next you need to call Start to start the acquisition of data from the current location provider. You can check the Status property to determine if data is available. If data is available, you can get the location once from the Location property, or receive continuous location updates using the LocationChanged event. The following code snippet is a VERY simple code sample showing how to retrieve the current GeoCoordinates (latitude, longitude).

GeoLocationProvider provider = new GeoLocationProvider();
provider.Start();
GeoCoordinate coordinate = provider.Location.Coordinate;
if (coordinate != GeoCoordinate.Unknown)
{
  //Business logic here
}

Unfortunately, .NET 4 supports only the Location API and not the full Sensor and Location Platform – meaning that the .NET location implementation is still missing the Sensor piece. Use the Windows API Code Pack to access sensor from managed code.

Parallel Computing and Windows 7 Multi-Core

Parallel programming in Visual Studio 2010 has many aspects, for example, Parallel LINQ and other .NET enhancements for supporting parallel computing, including statements like Parallel.For that use System.Threading.Tasks.Task. C++ developers will be happy to learn that the Task concepts also exist in C++ Version 10, which ships with VS 2010. For native code, Concurrency Runtime (ConcRT) has implicit knowledge of Win7 processor groups and will schedule work on up to 256 cores; ConcRT also takes advantage of User Mode Scheduling of threads. Therefore, any workload that sits on top of ConcRT immediately benefits. In other words, because both the Parellel Pattern Library (PPL) and Asynchronous Agents are included in Visual C++ 10 CRT and are built on top of ConcRT, any workloads you build on them will scale to 256 cores--

just like that! (Well, you will still need to write the code, but the scaling is free.)

For managed code applications, the story is less bright. Management of the managed stack thread sits on top of the .NET ThreadPool (System.Threading.ThreadPool) by default. This does not use the new processor group APIs in Windows 7, and therefore doesn’t automatically benefit from the Windows 7 ability to scale. The maximum number of processes that the threadpool can utilize is 64. But not everything is lost, it is possible to write a custom TaskScheduler that targeted more than 64 procs, and use the rest of the Task Parallel Library with that special scheduler. This would be a cool CodePlex project, right?

Overall Visual Studio 2010 includes tons of new technologies and improvements--all of it icing on the Windows 7 cake!

Windows 7 Delivers Next-Generation Audio

Dolby — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:40:55 GMT

When it comes to optimizing and really advancing the personal entertainment experience on the PC, Microsoft and Dolby Laboratories share a history of improving the integrity of audio playback. The collaboration between the two companies started when they began working together to enhance audio delivery for the Xbox in 2001. After this design was completed, Microsoft extended its usage of Dolby audio technology in Windows Media Center. This work continued with Windows Vista, which was launched worldwide in January 2007. The evolution of these shared efforts is realized in Windows 7 today.

Windows 7 builds on past collaboration by adding next-generation Dolby Digital Plus technology to offer high-quality multichannel audio. Available in Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, Dolby Digital Plus brings home theater–quality audio to the PC, improving the listening experience of music, movies, and TV.

When it comes to the small, discreet speakers built into a PC or laptop, how can audio really be optimized? Dolby Digital Plus, a multichannel audio standard for DVDs and select HD broadcasts worldwide, is a high-efficiency, next-generation audio codec that maintains the quality of Dolby Digital at a lower data rate and is fully compatible with all current Dolby Digital A/V receivers. From the movie and music producer point of view, this means that Dolby Digital Plus offers more channels and better compression, making it easier to create higher quality content at lower bit rates to experience on the PC.

Dolby Digital Plus is already the broadcast audio standard for HDTV services in Europe. France is currently using Dolby Digital Plus, with Poland and other countries following closely. Users in these countries watching streaming broadcast content on their computers get to experience next-generation sound.

Microsoft’s diligence in working closely with Dolby engineers to fully enable the PC to be a more sophisticated, dynamic entertainment device is evidence of the company’s broad vision and steadfast commitment to revolutionizing the role of the PC. The next generation of PC enthusiasts can enjoy their computers as their primary home entertainment device—and Dolby Digital Plus will play an important role in that experience.

Spinal Tap fans will recall the restaurant scene in which David St. Hubbins’s interfering girlfriend, Jeanine, informs the band that their album wasn’t “mixed right” because it wasn’t mixed in “Dob-l-ey.” We may be biased, but we tend to agree with that statement. Content is never quite right without Dolby audio technology. Fortunately, PCs with Windows 7 will never have that problem.

To check out the latest on Dolby Digital Plus in Windows 7—including Dolby videos and a dedicated Windows 7 web page—visit Dolby.com and Audiodolby.com. For a complete Dolby PC demo and other PC videos, visit www.audiodolby.com/#/motion/pc. For press releases and news about Dolby technologies, visit investor.dolby.com/releases.cfm.

Robin Selden
Senior Vice President, Marketing, Dolby

Seesmic Moving to Windows Platform, Announces Seesmic for Windows

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:05:41 GMT

During this morning’s keynote at PDC09 – Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur joined Ray Ozzie on stage to make a very important announcement regarding the future of Seesmic. Seesmic focuses on bringing many of your favorite social networking services like Twitter and Facebook together into a single application so you don’t have to bounce between those services. They are best known for their Abobe AIR Twitter and Facebook app called Seesmic Desktop today.

While on stage with Ray, Loic announced the launch of Seesmic for Windows.

With the vast majority of Seesmic users coming from PCs running Windows, the move to the Windows Platform made sense. By moving development to focus primarily on the Windows Platform, it will allow Seesmic to focus on providing the best user experience to the majority of its users. This includes addressing issues with performance. Loic also announced that Seesmic for Windows will allow developer to write plug-ins that can run securely within the application.

As part of today’s announcement, Seesmic is releasing a Preview release of Seesmic for Windows. Seesmic for Windows is Seesmic’s brand new desktop client developed on the Windows Platform. They have been working aggressively to have this Preview release ready for you today.

Seesmic for Windows provides an excellent way to manage tweeting on Twitter. It helps you stay on top of what your friends are tweeting and what the latest trends on Twitter are.

Seesmic for Windows provides a “tabbed” UI (left-side of the app) that lets you filter your Twitter “stream” of tweets. You can filter by account as Seesmic for Windows supports having multiple Twitter accounts signed in, searches and Twitter’s latest new feature called lists. Everything can be filtered into specific columns. You can drag the columns into whatever position you like and scroll right to left to view your columns. And the new posting bar in Seesmic for Windows makes it easy to switch from one account to multiple accounts.

I’ve had the pleasure of using Seesmic for Windows for the last few weeks now and it works great! I’m currently managing 2 Twitter accounts, a few lists and use the Twitter Search capabilities track tweets on Windows 7, Windows Live, and more. I am very excited about what’s to come for Seesmic for Windows. You can expect to see Seesmic for Windows take advantage of the Windows Taskbar enhancements in Windows 7 and when Twitter adds support for dynamic location, it will use Windows 7’s Location and Sensor Platform!

Seesmic for Windows was released to all Team Seesmic members during the keynote this morning. If you are a Team Seesmic member, you should have an email from Loic in your inbox with a link to download Seesmic for Windows. If you’re not a Team Seesmic member, don’t worry. Join Team Seesmic to download the Seesmic for Windows Preview and receive the latest and greatest builds. You can also head on over to Seesmic.com right now and sign-up to receive Seesmic for Windows when it becomes available as well. Give Seesmic for Windows a spin and be sure to follow @windowsblog and @mswindows!

Loic also demonstrated Seesmic ported over into Silverlight and running as a Silverlight-based app. Seesmic is also excited about the possibilities Silverlight will provide in regards to eventually creating a cross platform application.

For more on today’s announcements from Day 1 of PDC09, click here.

UPDATE: For more information on Seesmic’s announcements today including Seesmic for Windows, check out Loic Le Meur’s blog post!

Need to prepare your end users for Windows 7?

Stephen L Rose — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:37:22 GMT

With Windows 7 now available to everyone, we are beginning to hear more and more requests from IT Professionals for content they can use to get their support teams and users up to speed on the end user features of Windows 7. We have spent a lot of time creating this content and you can find it various places like the Windows 7 Help and How To page, Springboard Series IT pro Tip and Tricks and the Microsoft Learning site, but we know there is a lot of content out there and you want a simple way to find it.

To help you find this information quickly and easily, we have updated the Enterprise Learning Framework (ELF) with content for Windows 7. ELF is a is a web based tool that helps corporations develop a training and communication plan for employees during a Windows 7, Windows Vista, and 2007 Microsoft Office system deployment. The tool helps you find content for three different audiences, Information Workers, Influential Information Workers, and Support. It also helps you find the right content for topics you are interested in, within particular deployment timeframes. ELF even gives you the ability to generate customized email messages or a Microsoft Office Word document that you can send to your users with all content you find.

The Enterprise Learning Framework is a great tool to help you prepare your end users and your support staff for Windows 7. You can find the tool here.

Windows Home Server Add-Ins: D-Link D-ViewCam, AutoExit, and Diskmgt

Nicole Berett — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:24:52 GMT

Windows Home Server grows as your needs grow, not only through expanded storage, but also with extended capabilities brought to you with Windows Home Server add-ins. There are over 100 add-ins currently available for download which will allow you to customize and use Windows Home Server in new and exciting ways. In a previous Add-In blog post, I told you about Lights-Out, WebGuide, and Whiist. Today, I will tell you about 3 other add-ins: AutoExit, Diskmgt, and the new D-Link D-ViewCam add-in.

D-link D-ViewCam

The D-Link D-ViewCam is a software add-in for Windows Home Server that provides instant access to your live camera feeds and all the surveillance video already saved to your server. Compatible with the D-Link Network Cameras models DCS-920, DCS-1100, DCS-1130 and DCS-2121, this add-in allows users to easily manage their recording, streaming, and camera settings – all within the Windows Home Server administrative Console. Manage and access up to 4 live camera feeds from home or even remotely via the web.

*Screen shot of the D-link D-ViewCam in action around the house.

As mentioned in the We Got Served blog, Chief technology officer, AJ Wang from D-link states: “We’re working on developing more D-Link devices that are Microsoft Windows Home Server compatible so our customers can quickly and easily derive more benefits from some of our most popular products… I believe our customers will appreciate how simple it is for network devices to be recognized and installed on the server and will value the remote access that it provides.”

You can learn more about D-Link on their product Web site.

AutoExit

ASoft’s AutoExit for Windows Home Server is a console add-in for Windows Home Server. It can be used to shut down and reboot machines in your home network from within the console. You can also put the machine into hibernation, sleep, log-off the user, or lock the machine. If you prefer not to use the console, you will have the option to do any of the above actions from the toolbar and either to an individual computer, or for all of the PCs on the network.

Wake On Lan is supported which enables you to easily boot up your PC remotely when you are out of the home or office. There is even support for opening a Remote Desktop session to the remote machines and to the server!

So that you are always informed of what actions have been used in AutoExit, Statistics are kept so that a detailed trace can be viewed on when certain actions were executed.

*Screen shot of AutoExit addition in the Windows Home Server console

Some of the new features in AutoExit 2009 for Windows Home Server include:

· Multilingual UI (supports German, French, Japanese).
· Setup has been made smaller and packaged as a zip file instead of 1 installer.
· Send a message to all connected clients.
· Warn users when the server is going down.
· Support for Windows 7.
· Mac-address of the server is retrieved when opening the diagnostic dialog and the Mac field being empty.
· Multiple fixes and some minor adjustments.

Diskmgt

Windows Home Server Disk Management is another Windows Home Server add-in. This add-in is designed for users who would like to see more detail about their server's storage status than what the standard Windows Home Server Storage interface provides.

It acts as an extension of the server storage interface, making it easier to identify the hard drives via a visual display. Seeing which drive is the system drive and the amount of data being used on each drive has now become easier.

If you are interested in expanding your Windows Home Server’s capabilities, take a look at our top Window Home Server Add-Ins.

-Nicole

Reporting Live from the Windows 7 Seminar: Boot Camp

Yochay Kiriaty — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:07:11 GMT

Here we are at the LA Convention Center, attending the FREE Windows 7 Seminar: Boot Camp. We managed to “sell out” (just a reminder-- it is free) this event, getting more than 1200 registrations. This day is all about learning what’s new in the Windows 7 kernel, how developers can take advantage of these feature, and then learn how to take advantage of some “user mode” features like multitouch, taskbar, sensor and location, and others.

Today started with Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow and the man behind SysInternals and many of the improvements in Windows 7, describing some of the changes made to the Windows 7 kernel. Immediately after Mark, Arun Kishan, a Principal Architect for the process management components, described his work around the thread and process allocation that frees the kernel from its thread dispatcher locks and gives Windows 7 the ability to scale seamlessly to 256 cores. Then Landy Wang, a Distinguished Engineer in the Kernel team, described changes made in Windows 7 memory management, mainly focusing on memory Working Set and memory trimming.

After lunch, Jaime started his run, giving some insight and very useful tips about using the Taskbar, from understanding the difference between Application ID and Program ID to the effective use of custom previews. Jaime has only 60 minutes, but I am sure his tips for working with the Taskbar will prove very useful. For example:

Tip1 – when writing your own jump list item or link, make sure you remember what items you wrote, because you can’t just “read” the jump list items
Tip2 – if you decide to invest in cutom switcher and provide your own thumbnail preview and Aero Peak make sure you “save the state” of your application and images as DWM will not always perform for you.

I'll be up next, explaining Windows 7 libraries in depth, with a focus on useful tips for programming Windows 7 libraries, and specifically how to stay in sync with library updates. We have already had plenty of Windows 7 libraries posts - Windows 7 Programming Guide – Libraries, so I am not going into great detail. However, I do want to hand out the presentations and code samples used. All my demos as well as Jaime’s are part of the Windows 7 Training kit.

Right after our discussion about libraries, we will take a deep dive into the Windows 7 Sensor and Location platform. I just LOVE the endless amount of innovation and opportunity developers have generated while using this platform. After the Windows 7 launch on October 22^nd, we saw a large number of laptop models coming out with built-in sensors. Developers will most probably use these to create truly adaptive applications that adjust their functionality and UI based on sensor input.

After our Sensor and Location Platform discussion, it will be Michael Oneppo's turn to explain the changes in the Windows 7 graphics stack. Michael's presentation is very interesting, as it describes some of the DirectX API that was down ported to Windows 7 as a result of the Platform Update for Windows Vista and the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008. For example, did you know that the Microsoft Direct3D API DirectCompute feature allows your applications to use a new pipeline stage in the GPU, the compute shader stage, to implement highly data-parallel algorithms with unmatched speed and performance? This means that now you can use GPU power for parallel programming, freeing your CPU to do other things. It is amazing how powerful these GPUs have become; allowing them remain idle would be a huge waste of resources. If you want to learn more, you can always view Chas Boyd PDC session – DirectX11 DirectCompute.

To close the learning part of the day, Jaime Rodriguez takes us through a quick tour of Windows 7 multitouch. Jaime is taking his usual practical teaching approach of focusing on a few tips and tricks that will make it easier for you to start using multitouch.

Windows Marketplace for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1

Eric Nelson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:51:36 GMT

After last week’s news, I’m pleased to tell you that Windows Marketplace for Mobile has today reached another major milestone by adding support for Windows Mobile 6 and 6.1 devices. This is an especially proud day for Microsoft because it marks our fulfillment of the Marketplace vision that we put forth only 9 months ago at Mobile World Congress. Last week we expanded the Marketplace experience to the PC and updated the developer portal to include stronger anti-piracy protection features for developers. Today, Marketplace is delivering some great free new features that enhance and expand the Marketplace experience to even more Windows Mobile customers.

Now available for phones with Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1
Initially, Marketplace was available for the new Windows phones with Windows Mobile 6.5. Today, almost all people with phones running Windows Mobile 6.0 and above with a supporting data plan can now access Marketplace. We’re delighted to bring the benefits of Marketplace to even more people, and give Windows phone developers the opportunity to reach more than 30 million devices worldwide. To get Marketplace for a Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 based device, customers can simply point their phone’s browser to http://mp.windowsphone.com to start the download process; from the Web, customers can visit http://windowsphone.com/getmarketplace or simply click here. Then browse and shop a wide range of quality applications for work and play; roughly 90% of the apps in our catalogue already support Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 devices.

Updated application catalog and software vendors

The activity we’re seeing on Marketplace continues to give us confidence that we’re delivering the right value to the right market. Customers and developers alike are responding well to our focus on quality, ease of use and flexibility – both in the shopping experience and in our relationship with the developer community. We now offer over 800 applications, more than three times the number we offered when Marketplace launched just over one month ago. Additionally, over 1,000 software vendors and counting are registered to deliver great applications for work and play on Marketplace.

Microsoft was among the first to make transparency a core tenet of our relationship with developers and we’re pleased to see others in the industry follow suit. We may not have built the first application store, but we did set out to pioneer a fresh Marketplace experience that we look forward to expanding upon in the months and years ahead.

New online marketing campaign

Over the past 9 months we’ve made some promises. We told you that we would bring to market a fresh take on the mobile application store that delivers strong value and opportunity for developers and a convenient and confident shopping experience for people, across their choice of handset and mobile operator. Today, Marketplace is flourishing and the new features described above further deliver against our vision for establishing a new mobile application market. To celebrate this latest milestone, we are launching a multi-faceted online marketing campaign to ensure people surfing the web are aware of all the high quality applications that our developers have made available for Windows Mobile 6, 6.1 and 6.5 based devices. As we said in October, in the coming months you will see more exciting news coming from Windows phones and Windows Marketplace for Mobile as we continue find new ways of improving the Windows phone experience for customers and creating new business opportunities for developers.

We’re just getting started!

Windows 7 Netbook PCs and AT&T Join Together in Rising Telco Trend

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:48:15 GMT

Now that Windows 7 is available, we’re seeing more and more demand from customers, OEMs and telcos to include the new OS on their PCs. I’m excited to announce that later this month; AT&T is offering subsidized mobile broadband plans on the Acer Aspire One and the Samsung Go Netbook PCs, featuring Windows 7. More info can be found here.

This is the first time AT&T will be launching its 3G service for Windows 7 netbook PCs; it’s a great pairing given these devices are used primarily by people on the go for work, school, travel or just moving from room to room in the house.

Many telecommunications companies are joining this trend – in fact, more than 50 providers in the US and internationally will be deploying Windows 7 PCs by 2010. They’re seeing that Windows 7 supports netbook PCs in a way that offers a better experience than ever before. Why?

Windows 7 netbook PCs are the perfect companion device and are familiar and easy to use. People don’t want “complicated” when they’re moving around – they need an OS that’s simple, works the way they want and opens doors to new possibilities in computing.
Customers want a complete, connected experience across their phones, netbook PCs, laptops, desktops, and TVs. They want connectivity everywhere regardless of device; this makes that possible.
In the same way that Windows XP made Wi-Fi mainstream for the first time, Windows 7 has the potential to do the same to 3G and at the same time redefine what people come to expect from their PCs while they’re on the go.
Customers like that they’re seeing cost reductions through data and voice bundling on netbook PCs and they’re seeing lower-cost PCs through subsidization.

In addition to AT&T’s announcement, you may have heard recently at TechEd Europe that UK-based Vodafone announced support for Device Stage. Canadian telecommunications company Sierra Wireless is doing the same. You can find more information about Device Stage in a previous blog post, but suffice to say that this is a positive step toward providing even more connectivity possibilities to the Windows 7 experience.

Behold the Dell Inspiron Zino HD

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:38:42 GMT

Yesterday, Dell officially announced availability of the Dell Inspiron Zino HD.

The Inspiron Zino HD is a small PC that packs quite a punch in an 8” by 8” square. Hip to be square, right? Ok – enough Huey Lewis, let’s talk about what this PC comes (and can be configured) with:

It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit*.
You can customize the PC with 7 solid colors.
You can customize the PC with 3 designs.
The Inspiron Zino HD uses AMD’s Athlon processor (single or dual core).
The base configuration is 3GB of RAM, but can be configured with 4, 6, and 8GB of RAM with 8GB being the max.
Storage shouldn’t be a problem with your choice of 500GB, 640GB, 750GB, or 1TB 7200rpm SATA hard drives.
You can choose either a DVD +/- RW drive or Blu-ray drive.
For graphics, you can choose either an integrated ATI Radeon HD3200 or discrete ATI Radeon HD 4330 with 512MB of dedicated memory.
It has HDMI and VGA ports.
A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated gigabit Ethernet are both standard.
It has integrated 2.1 High Definition audio with the choice of going with a Sound Blaster X-Fi High Definition audio from Creative.
For your wireless needs, you can choose either a Dell 1397 802.11 b/g wireless card or Dell 1520 802.11 b/g/n wireless card.

This little PC starts at just $229 and can be customized to support a variety of configurations depending on your needs.

Matter a fact, Dell’s Lionel Menchaca talks about a perfect use for the Inspiron Zino HD – a Windows Media Center “hub” with Windows 7. You can connect this PC up to your HDTV via HDMI and play HD Blu-ray movies. You can buy a USB TV tuner to watch and record live TV in Windows Media Center and also stream video content via Internet TV and Netflix.

For a powerful Windows Media Center setup with Windows 7, it is recommended when ordering your Inspiron Zino HD you choose the discrete graphics option (the ATI Radeon HD 4330) for the best experience. With with the storage options you get with the Inspiron Zino HD, you can literally make this PC the centralized “hub” on your network for all your digital media. And of course HomeGroup in Windows 7 makes it easier than ever to share that content with the rest of your PCs on your network too.

In the coming months I’m hoping to pick one of these up and deploy it in my home as my own Windows Media Center hub.

* Base model comes with Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-bit.

Photos credit: Dell. See the full set of Inspiron Zino HD photos from Dell’s official Flickr page.

Survey provides valuable insights into how you’re using Windows Home Server – and what you think about it

Dave Berkowitz — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:58:58 GMT

A few months ago, we asked members of the community to participate in a survey to gather data about usage and satisfaction with Windows Home Server. We were blown away by the number of people who responded, as well as the level of detailed feedback that we received. Your suggestions are important to us because we use your ideas to help us shape future versions of the product, as well as our strategies around marketing and sales. So thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.

We thought you might be curious to know what the survey results were, so here’s a recap of the overall findings. We plan to do this survey every year, but don’t feel like you have to wait to give us your feedback. You can join our ongoing Windows Home Server beta programs at Microsoft Connect as a way of sharing feedback and best practices with other users.

Product satisfaction is very high

We were happy to hear that satisfaction with Windows Home Server, already high in 2008, continued to improve in 2009 with nine out of ten respondents telling us they are satisfied or very satisfied.

Used for work & play

Windows Home Server also seems to be generating a lot of interest with SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) customers. A growing number of home-based businesses are using Windows Home Server in 2009. This seems to indicate that HP was onto something with its recent Data Vault announcement – the first Windows Home Server to specifically target the SOHO space. Pete Cullen, who runs Cullen IT Consultancy in the UK, also recently wrote about the value he is seeing for Windows Home Server in small businesses.

Becoming the media hub

The survey indicates that motivations for buying Windows Home Server have been shifting since last year. In the 2008 study, back-up was the top reason respondents cited for purchasing the product. This year, most of you reported that consolidating and organizing shared media and files was the primary reason for purchase. Back-up is still a close second, though, and people really love the ability to easily expand storage capacity. According to survey responses, the remote access feature was more popular in Japan than in other parts of the world.

We’ve also seen a big increase in those who have devices other than computers connected to Windows Home Server. This year, about three quarters of respondents connect other devices, such as game consoles and media players, compared to only two thirds in 2008.

More than half of respondents reported four or more hard drives connected to their Windows Home Server. The most popular place that people are keeping their Windows Home Server is in a den or office.

So again, thank you to everyone who participated in the survey. We learned a lot about how you are using the product. We will use your feedback to continue to advance the product.

If you would like to share more with us about how you are using your Windows Home Server and are willing to talk publicly about this, we want to hear from you. We are looking to learn more about what people are doing at home or in their small business. Do you have a great success story about how Windows Home Server helped your family or your business? Check out some of the stories we are looking for. Do you fit the bill on any of these? Or do you know someone who does?

· I’m using Windows Home Server as part of a virtual business team

· I used Windows Home Server to start a new business within the last two years

· Windows Home Server helps me manage my home office/small business

· Windows Home Server saved my family or business from a potential data loss disaster that would have been devastating

· Windows Home Server helped me get my teen’s music/photos/video collection under control

· I didn’t have enough storage space for my music/photos/video before Windows Home Server

· I’m an artist/photographer and I use Windows Home Server in my business

· I’m running an automated home through Windows Home Server

- I am a small business using Windows Home Server for backup and recovery as part of my Windows Small Business Server (SBS) deployment

Please contact us with your story.

- Dave Berkowitz, Senior Product Manager, Core Infrastructure Marketing, Microsoft

TechEd Berlin Wrap Up

Stephen L Rose — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:38:00 GMT

What an amazing week here in Berlin. We had over 60 sessions presented by over 80 different speakers on Windows 7 this week.

We had hundreds of people stop by our Springboard Series on TechNet booth and the Talking About Windows booth. Since we localize Springboard in 10 languages we had a cool time showing demoing the site in all of the different languages. I also want to give out a huge thanks to our STEP (Springboard Technical Experts Program) members who helped to work our booth. These amazing guys came from Ireland (Aiden), Bolivia (Miklos), New Zealand (Erdal) and the UK (Justin) to help support Springboard and Windows 7.

I even had a chance to be part of the Pre-Keynote. Check out the video of the bus arrival with keynote hosts Hyper-D and Hyper-T.

We met tons of IT pros excited about Windows 7 as well. We worked with a STEP member named Alex de Jong from the Netherlands. Alex asked the delegates at Teched EMEA about their Windows 7 experience. Alex contributes to NGN, the Dutch community of IT Pros. To learn more about Alex and all he does for the community, follow him on Twitter at @alexdejongngn. So ready to see the cool interviews and hear what over 100 IT pros from all over the world had to say about Windows 7 and Springboard? Check out our Talking About Windows events page under the TechEd EMEA event listing here. (Also a huge thanks to his crew, Ed Wens and Michel van den Einden who did all the camera, editing, and production).

Also, make sure to check our our newest Engineering and IT pro videos on the main page from Lidiane Souza, Greg Lambert, Stephen Hall and Peter Menadu.

Tuesday night was our Springboard Party at the Water-Gate Club. Over 300 It pros from around the world showed up to party and share their love of Windows 7 and Springboard. It was a great time with great music courtesy of DJ Joey Snow and DJ David Lowe. Thanks again to our co-sponsors on the Windows Server team and TechNet+ team as well as everyone who showed up to celebrate with us.

It was a week of listening to amazing speakers, everyone asking great questions,cool demos, people working in HOLs all day and getting certified that evening, amazing food and people passionate about all of our products. All of this and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Our motto, “Life Without Walls” really took on a whole new meaning for me as I stood in front of the wall and outside the Brandenburg Gate on Monday.

Thank you Berlin for an amazing time.

Stephen

Windows 7 Wins Popular Science Award for Windows Touch

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:12:55 GMT

Today, Popular Science released their annual Best Of What’s New for 2009 which recognized this year’s top 100 innovations. Windows Touch in Windows 7 has won Popular Science’s Best of What’s New Award this year in the computing category. Very cool!

Speaking of Windows Touch – USA Today’s Ed Baig takes a closer look at Windows Touch in Windows 7 and multitouch on PCs in general. He suggests Windows 7 could spur multitouch adoption in PCs. I’ve been playing with the HP TouchSmart tx2 and have a couple of multitouch monitors on the way for my office here in Redmond. If you haven’t had a chance to experience Windows Touch on Windows 7, head to your favorite retailer and give it a spin.

Announcing Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployment webcast

Jodi Kogan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:37:00 GMT

Team member Kim Griffiths has this to share today:

On Wednesday, Nov. 18th, I'll be hosting a webcast that will give you info on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployment planning. The webcast will run 60 minutes and will go into the best practices and lessons learned from dealing with volume activation in a variety of environments, including networked, isolated, roaming, branch office, development, and test.

TechNet Webcast: Plan for and Deploy Volume Activation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Webcast Length: 60 minutes
Date: 11/18/2009
Time: 10:00:00 AM Pacific

I hope to "see" you there!

- Kim