The Windows Blog

Paint.NET 3.5 Released!

Brandon LeBlanc — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:49:51 GMT

Yesterday, Rick Brewster announced that the final release of Paint.NET 3.5 is now available for download.

I had blogged about one of the initial beta releases of Paint.NET 3.5 back in August. Paint.NET 3.5 utilizes DirectWrite in Windows 7 to render text (instead of GDI). As I wrote back in August, DirectWrite is one of the new additions to the DirectX family of APIs in Windows 7 and enables better readability, adds support for a large variety of languages and scripts, and in conjunction with Direct2D provides superior rendering performance for Windows applications.

You’ll notice that with the final release of Paint.NET 3.5 – it brings some new UI changes to the application. This “refreshed” UI takes advantage of Aero in Windows 7 (and in Windows Vista). I happen to be a huge fan of the updated UI.

If you’re looking for a free and powerful application for editing graphics, give Paint.NET 3.5 a try! For a complete list of changes in Paint.NET 3.5 (since 3.36) – see Rick’s blog post.

Using Play To in Windows 7 with the Linksys Wireless-N Music Extender

Brandon LeBlanc — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 22:04:29 GMT

After seeing Brad Brooks’ demo of Play To in Windows 7 a couple weeks ago at the New York City Windows 7 Launch Party, I decided immediately that I must use Play To in my home. I went out a picked up a Linksys DMP100 Wireless-N Music Extender by Cisco. This device is on the market today with firmware that is currently compatible with Play To for Windows 7.

Future releases of firmware for the DMP100 will enable it to be logo’d for Windows 7 which means it will have passed all of Microsoft’s internal tests and has complete functionality in Windows 7 such being see it in Devices & Printers, ability to name the device, and easier setup with wireless networks.

What you do with this device is connect it to a stereo system and/or a set of speakers and then to your network. You then can play your music to this device over your network.

The Linksys DMP100 supports Draft Dual-Band 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11b (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and WEP, WPA, WPA2 for security. If a physical network connection is needed, it also has an Ethernet port. For connecting to a stereo or speakers, it has a RCA L/R Input, a RCA L/R Output, an S/PDIF Output, and a 3.5mm Stereo Headphone Output.

I set up the Linksys DMP100 on a shelf in my office (please pardon the Star Trek DVDs) and connected some Altec Lansing speakers to it via the 3.5mm Stereo Headphone Output.

With my D-Link DIR-655 Router, I was able to easily connect the Linksys DMP100 to my wireless network as it supports Windows Connect Now.

On my Windows 7 PC, I fired up Windows Media Player and I have a playlist for the entire Beatles catalog (I purchased ALL of their remastered albums a few months ago). To “play to” the Linksys DMP100, all I needed to do was right-click on my Beatles playlist and chose “Play To” and select “Cisco Player”. I was then able to start playing the playlist.

And while I was playing music to the Linksys DMP100, I was also able to play music and video to other PCs on my network and videos to my Xbox 360.

I will also be talking about other devices that support Play To in Windows 7 – stay tuned!

Windows 7 Vulnerability Claims

Paul Cooke — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:56:00 GMT

Now that Windows 7 is available, a recent blog by Chester Wisnieski (who works at security vendor Sophos), entitled Windows 7 vulnerable to 8 out of 10 viruses, which has stirred some interest.

Here's a quick summary for those who missed Chester's blog. During a test SophosLabs conducted, they subjected Windows 7 to "10 unique [malware] samples that arrived in the SophosLabs feed." They utilized a clean install of Windows 7, using default settings (including the UAC defaults), but did not install any anti-virus software. The end result was 8 of the 10 malware samples successfully ran and the blog proclaims that "Windows 7 disappointed just like earlier versions of Windows." Chester's final conclusion? "You still need to run anti-virus on Windows 7." Well, we agree: users of any computer, on any platform, should run anti-virus software, including those running Windows 7.

Clearly, the findings of this unofficial test are by no means conclusive, and several members of the press have picked apart the findings, so I don't need to do that. I'm a firm believer that if you run unknown code on your machine, bad things can happen. This test shows just that; however, most people don't knowingly have and run known malware on their system. Malware typically makes it onto a system through other avenues like the browser or email program. So while I absolutely agree that anti-virus software is essential to protecting your PC, there are other defenses as well.

Let me recap some of the Windows 7 security basics. Windows 7 is built upon the security platform of Windows Vista, which included a defense-in-depth approach to help protect customers from malware. This includes features like User Account Control (UAC), Kernel Patch Protection, Windows Service Hardening, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), and Data Execution Prevention (DEP) to name just a few. The result, Windows 7 retains and refines the development processes, including going through the Security Development Lifecycle, and technologies that made Windows Vista the most secure Windows operating system ever released.

Beyond the core security of Windows 7, we have also done a lot of work with Windows 7 to make it harder for malware to reach a user's PCs in the first place. One of my favorite new features is the SmartScreen Filter in Internet Explorer 8. The SmartScreen Filter was built upon the phishing protection in Internet Explorer 7 and (among other new benefits) adds protection from malware. The SmartScreen Filter will notify you when you attempt to download software that is unsafe - which the SophosLabs methodology totally bypassed in doing their test.

So while I'm not a fan of companies sensationalizing findings about Windows 7 in order to sell more of their own software, I nevertheless agree with them that you still need to run anti-virus software on Windows 7. This is why we've made our Microsoft Security Essentials offering available for free to customers. But it's also equally important to keep all of your software up to date through automatic updates, such as through the Windows Update service. By configuring your computers to download and install updates automatically you will help ensure that you have the highest level of protection against malware and other vulnerabilities.

TechEd Europe 2009 Kicks Off Next Week with Keynote and Post-Keynote Q&A

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:48:50 GMT

Join Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft’s Business Division, and Robert Wahbe, Corporate Vice President of the Server and Tools Marketing Group at Microsoft, for the TechEd Europe 2009 keynote on Monday November 9th starting at 6:30am Pacific. During the keynote, Stephen and Robert will discuss the state of IT and the new generation of business solutions from Microsoft that will help customers reach their full business potential. Following the keynote at 8:00am Pacific there will be a post-keynote Q&A with Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President of the Information Worker Product Management Group, Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President of Infrastructure Server Marketing, and Tami Reller, Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Windows and Windows Live.

You’ll be able to watch the keynote and participate in the post-keynote Q&A via the Microsoft TechEd Global Press Room. Additionally, you can follow the excitement on Twitter by using the hashtag #TEE09.

Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO

Nicole Berett — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:46:29 GMT

Since we had such a great response from our previous post on the Top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server, we thought it would be beneficial to share our thinking on the business side of things. Don’t let the name Windows Home Server fool you into thinking that this product was created for home use only. A lot of the reasons that you would use Windows Home Server in your home are just as applicable to a small or home office. Windows Home Server provides a dependable and affordable way to organize and safeguard your work on up to 10 computers. In order to help you see how Windows Home Server could enable you to work more efficiently and effectively, take a look at the top 10 reasons to use Windows Home Server in your SOHO.

1. Conveniently backup important data with automatic image-based backup of up to 10 computers every day.

2. Quickly restore an entire PC, a specific hard drive, or individual files and folders in the event of data loss.

3. Remotely access PCs while away from the office to access files, check e-mail, review financial information, or look up an address or phone number.

4. Create a centralized and security enhanced location for important work documents that can be accessed by everyone in the company.

5. Easily find and share information by organizing data in a security-enhanced centralized location.

6. Help reduce downtime with automatic monitoring of the health of your computers on the network to keep them active and available.

7. Easily expand storage space and add new capabilities as your business needs grow.

8. Grant permissions for varying levels of access by team members to your business documents.

9. Easily extend your investment with new Windows Home Server add-ins for things such as virus protection, power management, and online storage.

10. Easy to use and set-up Windows Home Server in as little in 2 hours.

Hopefully, you are now ready to buy your very own Windows Home Server and start running your business at its full potential!

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of using Windows Home Server in your SOHO, take a look at our Small Office/Home Office page on the Windows Home Server Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/soho/default.mspx

-Nicole

Windows 7 sales exceed Vista sales by 234%

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:43:00 GMT

It has been quite amazing to watch the global excitement build around Windows 7, especially during a tough economic climate. It was just a few short weeks ago that we learned about Windows 7 outselling the UK's "own" Harry Potter. In Japan, anxious PC users waited in line to be one of the first to get their hands on Windows 7. And just today, according to the NPD groups' weekly tracking service, Windows 7 software unit sales in the U.S. increased 234% over Windows Vista's first few days of sales. "A combination of factors impacted Windows 7 PC sales at the outset, but the trajectory of overall PC sales is very strong leading into the holiday season," said Stephen Baker at NPD.

Magic.

Personalize Windows 7 with the Personalization Gallery on Windows.com

Brandon LeBlanc — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:37:27 GMT

One of my favorite things about Windows 7 is how you can customize it and make it your own. Our personalization features give Windows 7 the ability to be as individual and to reflect who you are! Adding to this is a new Personalization Gallery on Windows.com, launched on Oct 22nd. With Windows 7, we’ve made it easy for people to customize their PC with different themes. Each theme has a custom background (or a series of backgrounds that shuffle), different Aero Glass colors, and sounds. Not only will you find Windows 7 themes on the Personalization Gallery, you’ll also find desktop backgrounds and desktop gadgets to download as well.

For the first time ever, Microsoft is working with other companies to enable them to offer their customers a branded experience on the desktop through Windows 7. The effort is part of a pilot program running until October 2010 by Microsoft Advertising. As of today, you will find themes from 7 global advertisers with well-known brands such as Coca Cola, Ducati, Ferrari, Infiniti, Pepsi, Porsche and Twentieth Century Fox on the Personalization Gallery for download. So if you are a fan of one of these brands, check them out! For more on this effort from Microsoft Advertising, see this blog post.

We’re also offering new Microsoft branded themes too – including the Xbox game Gears of War, Zune, and Bing!

So what if you want to make your own theme? No problem – it’s very easy. Click here for a step-by-step outline (and video) on how to customize and create your own themes. Once you’ve created your own theme, you can share it with you friends and family on Windows Live SkyDrive.

For you geeks out there wanting to know more about how we went about designing the ability to use themes in Windows 7, see this blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog.

Windows Home Server grows as your needs grow

Nicole Berett — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:15:42 GMT

If you look back at posts from several weeks ago, I wrote about the Top 10 Reasons to use Windows Home Server. Since then, I have been explaining each bullet in more detail including backup and restore , installing your home server , and connecting to friends and family through Windows Home Server’s Remote Access. Today, I will tell you a little more about item number 5 on the list - Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender and how it can provide an unlimited amount of space for your large collection of recorded Family Guy episodes or the thousands or pictures that are sitting unprotected on your PC.

With Windows Home Server, storage space grows as your needs and digital possessions grow. Thanks to Windows Home Server Drive Extender , you are able to add internal or external hard drives of any size so which will create an unlimited amount of storage space for your HD movies, pictures, or huge collection of Family Guy episodes. Users will no longer have worry about disk drive letters (C:, D:, E:, etc. etc.) as they add more hard drives to their home server, since Windows Home Server treats the disk space as a large pool of available space. Windows Home Server also monitors the health of each hard drive that is added. The lights on the outside of the server will turn Red if a drive is failing, Purple if there's a drive but it's not configured and Blue if it's configured and healthy.

*Screen shot of a Windows Home Server with over 3TB of space

In a recent satisfaction survey completed by Windows Home Server users, we found that 54% of people using the English version of Windows Home Server have 4 or more hard drives connected to their server! Some more fun facts about how people today are getting the most out of their Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender include:

The largest number of hard drives currently attached to a home server is 30, there are lots and lots of people with more than 10 hard drives attached to their home servers
The largest amount of available disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 36.603516 terabytes
The largest amount of used disk space that we have seen (so far) is: 24.093750 terabytes

*Fans in a home-built Windows Home Server that are being used to cool 13 hard drives.

WindowsHome Server Drive Extender provides the reliability benefits of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) without the complexity. Windows Home Server supports reliability by duplicating designated shared folders – so important data (e.g. your Photos, Music, etc.) will be stored on separate hard drives helping to provide protection against hard drive failure. Folder Duplication is configurable on a per shared folder basis, so a given shared folder can have multiple copies, with each one being stored on a separate hard drive.

How is it different from RAID solutions?

Any hard drive, any time. You are not restricted to simply adding more hard drives of the same type and size. When you want to grow your home server storage, you just buy whatever hard drive you like and add it.
Internal and external hard drives can be used to grow your storage. No space in your home server case? No problem, plug in one or more USB 2.0 or FireWire hard drives.
Hard drive removal, as explained above. With time, it will be important to remove the older smaller hard drives and put in new larger hard drives so you can store more stuff.

To see how easy it is to add and remove a hard drive first hand, take a look at the screen cast below:

-Nicole

Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 - Guidance for IT pros

Stephen L Rose — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Every day this week long-time Springboard technical contributor and Windows deployment insider, Jeremy Chapman, will post a blog about how to think about Windows 7 deployment projects. We debated on making this a whitepaper or a feature article, but to keep things less formal, we went with a multimedia blog series. This series won't just cover steps to publish images in your Windows Deployment Services environments, instead it goes much broader into the major steps of deployment all-up; from figuring out what applications and hardware you have to migrating files, managing applications, building images, incorporating drivers and automating stuff end-to-end. Jeremy has been a veteran member of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit team and while he won't be posting the classic "1500 pages" of how-to content, he will stay on his quest for the elusive and often escalated-for "one-page paper" to migrate enterprise customers from Windows XP to Windows 7. Let's see if he can do it!

Part 1 is already up and parts 2-5 are coming each day this week:

The "One-Pager" for Moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 (Overview)
Migrating User Files and Settings from Windows XP to Windows 7
Application Management and Preparing for a Windows 7 Deployment
Choosing and Image Strategy and Building Windows 7 System Images
Automating the migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 End-to-End

Subscribe to the RSS feed or check back for the rest this week. If you are coming to TechEd Europe next week, Jeremy will be delivering multiple sessions on Windows deployment and application compatibility. Please let us know what you think about these blogs, the longer multimedia format and whether you would like to see other topics covered.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you next week at TechEd!

Stephen Rose

NVIDIA and Windows Touch

NVIDIA — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:10:15 GMT

Windows 7 will change the ways you interact with your PC. How you ask? Windows Touch.

Touch refers to the way Windows lets you interact directly with a computer using a finger. Compared to using a mouse, keyboard, or pen, touch can be much more engaging, natural, and convenient.

The Windows Touch technology in Windows 7 is an evolution of the technology that is rooted in Windows Vista. In Windows Vista, single-touch input improved the interaction when using the pen stylus and the mouse of earlier Tablet PC platforms. With Windows 7, users can directly manipulate their computer environment through multitouch for the first time. Users can use a variety of gestures directly on their computer screen to move data, including:

Touch, or mouse-such as behavior: tap, double-tap, right-click, drag, and select.
Touch gestures- such as Flicks (navigational and editing).
Multitouch gestures-- such as zooming in, zooming out, panning, and rotating.

A Windows 7 PC powered by NVIDIA GPUs will deliver faster, more engaging Windows Touch experiences. NVIDIA GPUs are well known for accelerating 3D interfaces. The Windows 7 Aero desktop, now designed using the DirectX 10 API and designed for Windows Touch, is no exception. From the new taskbar previews to Aero Peek, Flip, Snap, and Shake, NVIDIA GPU provides a snappy 3D experience. Windows 7 also uses the GPU to reduce memory consumption by half by eliminating the need to keep a second copy of each window in system memory. This frees up system memory for other applications and keeps your PC responsive.

Multi-touch capability was designed into the core of Windows 7 and is a perfect fit for the new highly visual GPU-accelerated applications like Cooliris and Super Loiloscope. Cooliris lets you browse the web in 3D and now with the addition of Windows Touch, the experience becomes even more immersive. With Super Loiloscope you can have fun creating videos and applying effects with the touch of your finger.

Touch input does not replace the keyboard and mouse, it enhances them. Touch is a natural and intuitive way to interact with you PC when you are doing common computing tasks such as:

Web browsing
Interacting with photos
Playing games
Organizing music and video (creating playlists, sorting media, and organizing content)
Reading and sorting e-mail
Using documents
Managing a Windows workspace

As you can see, your Windows 7 Touch experience will be faster, smoother, and more immersive with an NVIDIA GPU in your PC.

Internet TV & Netflix Comes to Windows Media Center in Windows 7

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:51:44 GMT

In case you haven’t already heard, I wanted to let you know that we’ve launched Internet TV in Windows Media Center for Windows 7 users. Internet TV lets you watch videos from a variety of providers via the Internet right in Windows Media Center in addition to live and recorded TV (if you have a TV tuner for your PC).

For Windows 7, Internet TV has been updated with enhancements to the UI and features more content from new content providers. Those providers include the CBS Audience Network, Zune (Full Zune Video Podcast Library available), MSNBC, MSN, and more.

And you can access Internet TV right from the Guide in Windows Media Center!

Internet TV is currently now available for free for people running Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. The CBS Audience Network and the Zune Video Podcast Library in Internet TV is only be available within the U.S. ~~but Internet TV is also available in the UK with content from Sky and MSN~~.

UPDATE: Internet TV will be able in the UK coming soon with content from Sky and MSN.

Also now available is Netflix for Windows Media Center in Windows 7!

Right from Windows Media Center, you can access your Instant Queue to play movies and TV shows and browse the Netflix library and add movies or TV shows to your Instant Queue or Instant Queue. Netflix in Windows Media Center is only available in the U.S. today as Netflix On-Demand (“Instant Watch”) videos are available only in the U.S.

Fire Windows Media Center in Windows 7 up today and give both Internet TV and Netflix a spin!

For more on Windows Media Center in Windows 7, I highlight recommend you check out my post from earlier last month on the 7 great things about Windows Media Center in Windows 7.

Brad Brooks demonstrated Internet TV and Netflix during the keynote at the New York City Windows 7 Launch Event on October 22^nd. You can watch the keynote from the event on-demand from the PressPass Windows 7 Virtual Presskit site.

New Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Released

Paul Cooke — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Volume seven of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv7) - part of Microsoft's commitment to providing an unparalleled level of security intelligence to help keep individuals and organizations better informed and to maximize security investments - was released today and there are a couple of tidbits in the report that caught my attention that I thought I would pass on. As a reminder, the SIR is published by Microsoft twice per year and looks at the data and trends observed in the first and second halves of each calendar year.

The first thing that struck me while reading through the report is that for the first time, the SIR shares some high-level security best practices from countries that have consistently exhibited low malware infection. For example, Japan, Austria and Germany's infection rates remained relatively low during the first half of this year.

So how do these regions keep their customers and resources safe from cyber threats? Japan's infection rates remain relatively low is due in large part to collaborations like the Cyber Clean Center. The Cyber Clean Center is a cooperative project between ISPs, major security vendors and Japanese government agencies aimed at educating users on how to keep their PCs infection free. Austria has implemented strict IT enforcement guidelines to lower piracy rates and this, along with strong ISP relationships and fast Internet lines, has helped ensure the ecosystem is kept up to date with security patches. Germany has also leveraged collaboration efforts with its CERT and ISP communities to help identify and raise awareness of botnet infections and, in some cases, quarantine infected computers.

The other thing that stood out to me was the graph below. This graph shows the effectiveness of automatic updating and shows what happened to the trojan downloader family Win32/Renos once Microsoft released a signature update for Windows Defender via Windows Update and Microsoft Update. Within three days, enough computers had received the new signature update to reduce the error reports from 1.2 million per day to less than 100,000 per day worldwide! To me this shows how important it is for users and organizations to utilize automatic updates to help prevent the spread of malware!

The report also underscores some of the trends that we have seen from previous versions of the report: for example, the infection rate for Windows Vista is significantly lower than that of its predecessor, Windows XP. It also tells me that the higher the service pack levels of an OS, the lower the infection rate. Once again, these items help point out that you need to keep your software up-to-date. With Windows 7 now available it might be a good time to look at upgrading your OS!

Take a look at the full report at http://www.microsoft.com/sir and use the information to help protect yourself, your networks, and your users.

Microsoft Just Made the Web’s Best Video

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:44:40 GMT

Remember this hilarious video called “A Brief History of the Web” I blogged about in March? The video has won the Best Online Video (standalone) at the OMMA Awards. Very cool! You can see the full list of winners here. If you haven’t seen the “History of the Web” video already, you should ;-)

Awesome Windows 7 Resources

Brandon LeBlanc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:34:49 GMT

With Windows 7 now available worldwide, I wanted to share some resources available to help IT Pros become more proficient with Windows 7 and consumers more savvy about new support resources for Windows 7.

Microsoft Learning has developed a wide range of training and resources for IT Pros that address the benefits and key technical aspects of Windows 7. With these resources, IT Pros can prepare for deployments and become Windows 7 experts within in their organization. These resources include:

The Windows 7 Learning site with information, tools and resources to help people get up and running on Windows 7, such as Learning Snacks, Learning Plans, certifications currently available on Windows 7, and resources for classroom and online training.
The Career Campaign site that provides guidance, career paths, special offers and certifications for common IT job roles. Through Learning Plans and special offers, IT pros can train to get certified on Windows Server, Windows client technologies, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SQL Server. Individuals can chart their course from their current skill level to their desired job role and skill level, from beginner through experts, with clear guidance on classes, upgrades and newest releases, along with special offers that will help individuals meet their career goals.
Special offers from Microsoft make it easier for individuals who are getting started in their careers, changing job roles or advancing within their organizations get the training they need. This includes limited-time offers and discounts on training and certification, making it easier to embark on a career course, such as: discounts of up to 25% on certification exams, Career Packages that include classroom training, a Certification exam and a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (available through select Certified Partners for Learning Solutions) and discounts on e-Learning collections for self-paced study.
Springboard Series on TechNet is a GREAT place for IT Pros to Discover & Explore, Pilot & Deploy and Manage Windows 7. Be sure to keep your eyes on the Springboard Series Blog too.

Since many IT Pros serve double-duty as the IT expert for their friends and family, there are support tools available in and around Windows 7 that make it easier for them to help consumers address their issues. Detailed on Microsoft’s PressPass site, these resources provide end-to-end Windows 7 support that includes built-in self-healing and support tools, easy-to-use automated and scripted solutions and customer support through new social media forums, including:

Windows Update: Automatically updates software to help prevent problems.
Windows Action Center: includes more than 20 automated troubleshooters that fix more than 150 common problems.
Scripted diagnostics and solutions: through Fix IT solve common software problems with the click of a button.
Online Support: through Microsoft Answers provides peer to peer help, guidance from customer support experts and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs).
In the moment help: through tweets to the @MicrosoftHelps Twitter account.
Easier, more intuitive online resources such as the Windows Help and “How To” center and the solution centers available on support.microsoft.com .

For more information about the value of training and certification, and to keep up with new Windows 7 training resources, visit Born to Learn; and for more information about the consumer support resources available in Windows 7, please visit support.microsoft.com.

Special thanks to the folks at Microsoft Learning and Microsoft Customer Service and Support (CSS) for reaching out to me and compiling these awesome resources to share with you today.

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile Client and your Setup code

Mike Francis — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:17:45 GMT

The Windows Marketplace for Mobile client provides users a streamlined experience to purchase and install applications on their Windows Mobile 6.5 devices (coming soon for 6.1, and 6.0).

As you will notice when installing applications, the user interface is different from the typical CAB file installation (see below) perhaps you are used to.

It is very important that the Marketplace install experience be uniform and streamlined. To keep it this way, no custom UI (errors, prompts, informational messages, etc.) should be displayed during installation or uninstallation.

If you absolutely must display custom UI, there are some things you should know about the Marketplace client.

The Marketplace client achieves a streamlined experience by suppressing the normal user interface, displaying a client specific progress bar and providing feedback when the installation has completed. This can cause problems for applications that have custom prompts implemented in the setup dll. For example, you may want to prompt the user to start your application after installation has completed. This is easily done by adding the appropriate MessageBox prompt to the Install_Init export of your setup dll. However, there can be problems with this.

The foreground display of your MessageBox or other custom UI, depends on knowing the window handle of the calling process. When your application is installed with the Marketplace client, no window handle is passed to your setup DLL’s exported functions. This can cause your custom UI to not be displayed in the foreground. This causes confusion for the user since it looks like the installation is still running, but there is no UI feedback. The only recourse for the user is to use task manager to locate the prompt window and select it to bring it to the foreground. This is a very poor user experience.

You can resolve this by using the MB_TOPMOST | MB_SETFOREGROUND flags when calling MessageBox or WS_EX_TOPMOST when creating a window for custom UI.

Have you tried the Marketplace client yet? No? Don’t have a 6.5 ROM update or device yet? No problem. Download the Windows Mobile 6.5 standalone emulator images here. These come with a fully functional Marketplace client you can download and install apps with.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Now Available: Security Baselines for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8

Stephen L Rose — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:19:00 GMT

Now that Windows 7 is available, are you looking for some security baseline recommendations from the experts? Then here’s another timely release from the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team! Today, new security baselines for Windows® 7 and Windows® Internet Explorer® 8 are available for download.

Over the past few months, the Solution Accelerators team collaborated with Microsoft security experts, multiple government agencies worldwide, and a large community of IT security professionals to develop and test these new security baselines.All of these baselines are free for you to use.

In case you are not familiar with all of the security baselines available for Microsoft products, they ship as part of the Security Compliance Management Toolkit (SCMT) Series. The SCMT helps you to plan, deploy, and monitor security baselines for Windows® operating systems, Internet Explorer, and 2007 Microsoft® Office applications. It contains background information about compliance, and planning advice about how to automate security compliance. It also refers you to other tools and guidance that you can use to establish and deploy a security baseline, and then monitor and maintain compliance with your established configuration.

Where do you start?

At a high level, security compliance consists of four basic steps:

Plan how to meet security baseline requirements.
Deploy security baseline configurations.
Monitor security baseline configurations.
Remediate security baseline configurations.

The tools, guidance, and recommendations in the SCMT help you through each step of this process and give you the support to make key decisions about security baseline settings for your specific environment.

Here’s what you get:

Security guide – The toolkits include new and updated security guides for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Microsoft Office 2007 SP1, and Internet Explorer 8. The guidance provides you with best practices and automated tools to help you plan and deploy your security baselines.
Attack Surface Reference workbook – A resource that lists the changes introduced as server roles are installed on computers running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
Security Baseline Settings workbook – A resource that lists all of the prescribed settings for each of the preconfigured security baselines that the guides recommend.
Security Baseline XML – XML files that allow you to consume the data defined in the security baseline settings workbooks.
GPOAccelerator tool – A tool that you can use to create all of the Group Policy objects (GPOs) you need to deploy your chosen security configuration. This release also supports creating security configurations on computers not joined to a domain.
Baseline Compliance Management Overview – The overview discusses best practices on how to monitor security baselines for Windows operating systems, Office applications, and Internet Explorer 8.
DCM Configuration Pack User Guide – A step-by-step prescriptive user guide about how to use Configurations Packs with the DCM feature in Configuration Manager 2007 R2.
DCM Configuration Packs – Configuration Packs that provide prescriptive security information, which you can use to check the compliance of systems in your environment.

What should you do next?

Learn more about the Security Compliance Management Toolkit Series.
Download the Security Compliance Management Toolkit Series.
Find other Windows 7 Solution Accelerators here: Windows Desktop Solution Accelerators.
The Solution Accelerators team is developing a new tool called the Security Compliance Manager. It will help you manage your security and compliance process for the most widely used Microsoft technologies. Join the Beta review program and provide your feedback on the features you want most.
Get all the step by step guides, whitepapers, how to’s and screen casts on deploying and managing Windows 7 in your environment from the Springboard Series on TechNet.

Get to know the Windows Home Server Team: Video interview with Jonas Svensson, Community Program Manager

Nicole Berett — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:27:48 GMT

Many of the products that you use everyday are faceless and may be hard to identify with. We thought it would be interesting to put a face behind Windows Home Server and give you a chance meet some of the people that work on Windows Home Server day in and day out. I will be introducing you to different areas of the team, but we will start with our Community Program Manager, Jonas Svensson.

Jonas is someone that you may have already met. As our Community Program Manager, he participates in multiple events event throughout the year that you have possibly attended including SMB Nation and PDC. In this interview, you will find out how he contributes to the team and how Windows Home Server is a part of his daily life. Enjoy!

Windows 7 Early Adopter Panel at the Gartner Symposium

Stephen L Rose — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:02:00 GMT

This post was written by Devrim Iyigun, a Senior Product Manager here in Redmond.

I had a chance to attend Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009 last week in Orlando, Florida. For those of you who are at the early stages of deploying Windows 7, looking for some insider information and did not have the opportunity to attend the conference, I have a great resource I would love to share with you.

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2009 is one of industry’s largest and most important annual gathering of CIOs and their senior IT leaders. This year’s event focused on how business technology can help customers return to growth by balancing cost optimization and risk mitigation. Microsoft was helping customers to understand how they can realize the benefits of Windows 7. With the general availability date for Windows 7 being October 22nd, this year’s event was quite special for the Microsoft team.

One of the Microsoft –sponsored sessions that took place is Windows 7 Early Adopter Customer Panel. In this highly visible discussion, featured Gartner Research VP & Distinguished Analyst Michael Silver facilitated the panel around Windows 7 planning, deployment and customer experience with Windows 7 Early Adopter Customers: ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella.

The panel includes discussions about topics of importance for enterprises considering the move to Windows 7 such as application compatibility and deployment goals. ADP, BMW, Energizer and Pella share their perspective on business drivers to adopt Windows 7 and the benefits they expect to achieve with deploying Windows 7. These companies also share their deployment experience and recommendations for companies new to Windows 7 deployment.

This is your chance to get valuable insider information from Microsoft Customer industry leads. Please click here for a replay of this webcast.

For more enterprise company case studies, information on Windows 7 cost savings or our webcast series just visit our Windows Enterprise site.

For all of your Windows 7 IT pro information, visit the Springboard Series on TechNet. The destination for Windows desktop IT professionals to Discover & Explore, Pilot & Deploy and Manage Windows 7.

Widget Anatomy – Touch and D-Pad inputs, oh joy!

Jorge Peraza — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:00 GMT

This is fifth and final part of my Widget Anatomy series that described the ins and outs of the Widget Framework that shipped with windows mobile 6.5. In this installment we will discuss the different ways a Widget can receive inputs from the user and how best respond to them.

First the easy one: Touch

Touch is the primary input for all our professional devices and it looks like they will be a significant percentage of our device offering. Handling this is fairly easy since the browser engine translate the touch event into a mouse click which can be handled by using the onclick event handler as shown in the following example:

        1: <html>

       2: <head>

       3:     <script type="text/javascript" src="js/ImageSearch.js"></script>

       4: </head>

       5: <body>

       6:     <div id="SearchBox">

       7:         <input id="SearchQuery"/>

       8:         <img src="images/search.png" class="searchIcon" 
               onclick="doSearch();" />

       9:     </div>

      10: </body>

      11: </html>

It is important to note that, since there is no “mouse” for widgets most of the other mouse related events like onmouseover, onmousemove, etc will not be triggered in a reliable enough way to use them.

Now the hard one: The Directional-Pad

I been making special emphasis to the fact that Widgets work seamless across all Windows Phones so, we need to ensure that the can be used correctly when the user interacts with it using the directional path.

It is important to note that, unlike IE6, a The widget framework will respond to a D-Pad input event by moving the focus to the closed actionable element in the direction of the user click. This behavior is similar to the old pocketIE and among friends we call it “Link to Link navigation”.

An actionable element is defined as any DOM element that can receive focus (Like a form field) or an element that implements its onclick event handler. When an actionable element gain focus the onfocus even is triggered, the same way, the focus is moved away from the element the onblur event is triggered. Now we can easily use those events to show the user where the focus is since the Widget Framework does not automatically highlights the focused element. We do this because we don’t want to inhibit the creativity of the widget creator to design his/her own focused highlight strategy.

The only “little” extra detail is that all elements that can gain focus need to have the tabindex property defined (the value is not important). This is easily forgotten but if not set, the focus and blur events will not trigger,

    <html>

    <head>

    <script type="text/javascript">   1:     2:     function OnFocus(element) {   3:         element.style.backgroundColor = "red";   4:     }   5:        6:     function OnBlur(element) {   7:         element.style.backgroundColor = "white";   8:     }</script>

    </head>

    <body>

    <div onfocus="OnFocus(document.getElementById('one'))"

         onblur="OnBlur(document.getElementById('one'))"

         onclick="alert(1)"

         tabindex=1>

            <p id="one" style="font-size:medium:">1</p>

    </div>

    <div onfocus="OnFocus(document.getElementById('two'))"

         onblur="OnBlur(document.getElementById('two'))"

         onclick="alert(2)"

         tabindex=2>

            <p id="two" style="font-size:medium;">2</p>

    </div>

    </body>

    </html>

In this example, we created two divs that can receive the input focus, you can move from one to the other using the D-Pad, the element that receives focus changes the color of its background to red.

Conclusion

Writing Windows Mobile applications is now as easy as writing a web page, and, by following some best practices your widget can be as functional and attractive as any other native application on the platform.

This is the end of this blog series and since Windows Phones are now available on many countries, you should go get one and write many cool widgets for it. Don’t forget to share the results with the world by uploading them to the marketplace!

Until next time

Jorge Peraza

Widget anatomy series at glance

#1 The manifest

#2 The keys for a great user experience

#3 Performance and battery life

#4 Security insights

#5 Touch and D-Pad inputs, oh joy!

Windows7 Trigger Start Services – Part 2: Building a Trigger Start Optimized Service

Yochay Kiriaty — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:13:21 GMT

In the last post Windows 7 Trigger Start Services – Part 1: Introduction, we introduced Windows7 Trigger Services as a great way to optimize your services to have better performance and improved security. In this post you will learn how to convert a standard automatic-start service to a trigger-start service that starts up only when a certain event occurs in the system. We’ll use a WPF application (obviously managed code) that registers and monitors a service (also implemented using .NET). To bridge between the .NET world and the native Win32 APIs that we saw in the previous post, we use a C++/CLI interoperability layer.

This sample application has 3 parts:

A C++/CLI interoperability layer that provides a regular and easy .NET API to the controller application
A WPF controller application that lets you register and run the service
A simple .NET service that looks for a USB storage device (disk on key) and on it, a specific folder named “ToCopy” from which to copy files to your local “C:\FromUSB” folder

The following image illustrates the solution structure.

Let’s start by reviewing the .NET Service code implementation. This is a simple Windows service written in C#. The purpose of this service is to copy pictures automatically to your local hard-drive- “c:\FromUSB” from the USB storage device that is plugged into your computer.

The service implementation can be found at USBService.cs. This class inherits the ServiceBase base class and overrides the OnStart and OnStop methods. This class has a DoWork method that actually does all the copying of images from the USB disk to your local drive. The DoWork method writes to a log file that we will be monitoring.

The real interesting part of the service implementation is the OnStart method. This method is called once the service is started. Notice that the first line of code checks whether the service is configured as a trigger start service. If the “if” statement returns false, we create a new instance of a timer and have it poll every 5 seconds. Before Windows7, this was the only way to implement such a service, that is, by regularly polling the system to check for a USB device. Therefore, the service needs to run 24x7 to poll the system. This is highly wasteful of resources and keeps the system from transitioning to a low-power state, increases the application attack surface, among other negative things.

But, with Windows7, you can configure such a service with a USB device arrival trigger. This means that the service will not run until a USB device arrives, specifically a USB generic disk device. We’ll get to that part of the solution in a second, but for now, if you look at the OnStart method, you will notice that we check whether the service is configured as a trigger start service; if it is, we simply call the DoWork method on another thread, as shown by the following code snippet. This should work just fine because the service is NOT running, and will start to run only when the trigger happens. And then it will not default to the timer, but rather use the thread pool to queue the work.

 protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
 {
   if (ServiceControl.IsServiceTriggerStart(ServiceName))
   {
      ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(_ => DoWork());
   }
   else
   {
     _timer = new Timer(_ => DoWork());
     _timer.Change(0, 5000);
   }
 }

The ServiceControl namespace contains the C++/CLI interop layer. This layer uses C++/CLI as the binding element between the native API and the WPF application. The main ServiceControlInterop.cpp file contains all the functionality that we need and that is used by the WPF application. For example using the controller application we can use AddService(…) or RemoveService(…) to add or remove a service respectively. We can also configure the service as a trigger start service for either a USB device arrival or first available IP address by using SetServiceTriggerStartOnUSBArrival or SetServiceTriggerStartOnIPAddressArrival respectively. Reviewing both function implementations reveals that basically both are following identical paths. They:

First, use OpenSCManager to get a handle to the Service Control Manager (SCM)
Then use the SCM handle OpenService, to get an actual service handle that we wish to configure
Finally call ChangeServiceConfig2 to set the specific trigger

All this was explained in detail in the last post (Windows7 Trigger Start Services – Part 1: Introduction

You can download the code sample for this application. Note that you will have to run Visual Studio as administrator (see image below) because you will need to register, start, and stop services. . You will also need to Windows 7 SDK to compile the C++ part of the solution.

When compiling and running the default solution (the WPF application) you will see the following image.

This is the main WPF controller application. From here, you can create the service by clicking the Create Manual button.

Next, open the Services Window by typing “Services” in the Start Menu search box. You should see the Service window. Locate the USBCopyService; it should appear as in the following image.

Click the Run button and then the Refresh button in the Services window, or just press F5. You will not notice a great deal of change, but the USBCopyService changed from Manual to Started, as shown in the following image.

A second look at the actual application reveals the service activity in the log file. As you can see in the following image, the services awaken every 5 seconds and poll the system, looking for USB devices:

Click the Stop button to stop the service and then click the Delete Service to delete it. Now click the Trigger Start button to register and configure the service as a trigger start service that is triggered once a USB Generic disk arrives. If you check the Service window, you will see the USBCopyService listed as “manual” where in reality it is configured as triggered start service (there is just no graphical representation of that).

If you plug in a USB disk with a “ToCopy” folder the service will kick into action and copy the files to c:\FromUSB. Not the best implementation, but hey, it is only a demo. The following image shows a single line in the log file because the service actually ran only once; it executed the DoWork method and then quit. It didn’t run and poll the system every 5 seconds and didn’t waste resources or become a security liability.

To conclude

Developing a service with Windows 7 trigger start service in mind might be a little more difficult than a regular “auto-run” service that just runs in idle from boot to shutdown. But in practice, all it takes is only a few lines of code, no more. And these few lines of code can have a very big affect in terms of resource consumption and security. So the next time you build a new Windows Service, try to incorporate triggers.

You can learn about Windows 7 using the Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers or by viewing Windows 7 videos on Channel 9.

You can also get hands-on experience for Windows 7 Trigger Start Services using the Windows 7 Online training that is part of the Channel 9 Learning Center

Windows Home Server Featured on Computer Outlook Radio Show

Dave Berkowitz — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:16:16 GMT

In case you missed it, our very own Steven Leonard (Senior Product Manager) and Jonas Svensson (Community Program Manager) were featured on the “Java with John” Computer Outlook radio show on Sunday, October 25. In case you missed it, you can listen to the replay here. Enjoy!

Steven and Jonas kicked off the show by reminding the audience of the great features in Windows Home Server and then talking about how active our Windows Home Server community has been … taking advantage of the latest tools and resources as well as sharing feedback and best practices with Microsoft and the broader community. The guys also highlighted how the Power Pack 3 beta can improve the Windows Home Server experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center.

Host John Iasiuolo is a long-time user of Windows Home Server and had some cool insights about how he’s using the product at home and work, calling out some of his favorite features along the way. Of course we always love to hear from happy users! We look forward to sharing more Windows Home Server tips and tricks on future shows.

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

Announcing Final Releases of Platform Update for Windows Vista Technologies

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:54:22 GMT

Today we are announcing the final release of the Platform Update for Windows Vista. The Platform Update for Windows Vista features a set of runtime libraries which add support for new technologies making it easier for developers to develop for Windows 7 and Windows Vista without impacting their users.

The Platform Update for Windows Vista will be available for free via Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services and the Microsoft Download Center. You will need to have Windows Update “recommended settings” enabled in order to automatically receive the update without additional action.

These updates include the following:

Windows Ribbon and Animation Manager Library: contains the Windows Ribbon API, a command framework that enables developers to quickly and easily create rich ribbon experiences in their applications, and the Windows Animation Manager API, an animation framework for managing the scheduling and execution of user interface element animations.
Windows Graphics, Imaging, and XPS Library: components for developers to leverage the latest advancements in modern graphics technologies for gaming, multimedia, imaging and printing applications. It includes updates to DirectX to support hardware acceleration for 2D, 3D and text based scenarios; DirectCompute for hardware accelerated parallel computing scenarios; and XPS Library for document printing scenarios.
Windows Automation API: allows accessibility tools and test automations to access Windows user interface in a consistent way across operating system versions.
Windows Portable Devices Platform: supplies the infrastructure to standardize data transfers between an application and a portable device, such as a mobile phone, digital camera, or portable media player.

Note that the Windows Automation API will also be made available as a separate download for PCs running Windows XP.

For specific details about the Platform Update for Windows Vista as well as the Platform Update for Windows Server 2008, click here.

By making these libraries broadly available through the Platform Update for Windows Vista, we expect customers will find an increasing number of applications using new features in Windows 7.

Making PCs Run Faster And Longer

Intel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:54:54 GMT

Intel and Microsoft have been collaborating for more than 20 years. The day Microsoft launched Windows Vista; we had already been collaborating on Windows 7. The joint team quickly grew to several hundred engineers. Last week, the work we did together became a reality. While marrying Intel’s future Intel Core processors with Microsoft’s latest operating system was quite possibly the biggest undertaking to date for the two companies, there was a very short list of top priorities from users.

First, make notebooks run longer (“I want to watch the whole DVD on the airplane.”). Second, make it run everything faster (“I want to start work when I turn it on and don’t want that DVD, encryption or anything else to slow it down.”) So, Microsoft and Intel set to work.

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to show some journalists what our engineers had come up with as a result of the collaboration. The resulting stories provide a good overview of some of the unique advances that the collaboration achieved to improve PCs.

Don’t we all hate it when the latest blockbuster we brought along for a long plane ride drains the laptop battery right at the climax. Of course, the same is true of other mobile situations – catching up at coffee shops, sharing photos and videos with friends, comparing prices while shopping – where plugging in is either a hassle or impossible.

To get to the movies’ credits, the team optimized resource utilization throughout the system. Devices were aggressively powered down, busses shut off when possible and Intel processors were kept in their Deep Power Down state longer and more often. The new Microsoft Windows 7 timer coalescing feature, which minimizes the time a processor is running in high gear, to take advantage of Intel Deep Power Down Technology is a good example of how we worked together to optimize our products. By applying such power saving techniques throughout the system and reducing resource utilization Microsoft and Intel engineers were able to reduce power usage of a Windows 7 laptop nearly 20 percent over an identical laptop running Windows Vista SP2. That gained an additional 1.4 hours of battery life, enough extra power to blow by the credits and see all of the special features.

Getting computers to do things faster is something Microsoft and Intel have been doing for a couple of decades. However, with Windows 7 and Intel’s new Core processors rolling out at roughly the same time, the team saw the opportunity to really put rocket engines on PCs. Possibly the most significant performance advancement is enabling the Windows 7 kernel to intelligently manipulate threads in the recently improved Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. The kernel scheduler juggles thread connections with respect to such things as logical processor/core relationships, thread-to-core distribution, and parking and unparking second logical processors in cores to match the workload. Also, the Westmere system we showed reporters was equipped with Intel Solid State Drives, reflecting another area of collaboration.

Skip the formal benchmarks. The companies made their point by booting a PC based on an Intel reference design in less than 11 seconds. Actually, that may be too fast for many as it doesn’t allow sufficient time to get a cup of coffee that many of us are used to doing.

OK, I have a vested interest, but with Windows 7 getting such hardy reviews and its optimization for new advances in Intel processors, now seems to me like a pretty good time to buy a new PC.

Joakim Lialias
Microsoft Alliance Manager - Intel

HP MediaSmart Servers get rave Aussie reviews

Dave Berkowitz — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:44:52 GMT

For our friends Down Under, the wait is now over thanks to the arrival of HP’s MediaSmart Servers (powered by Windows Home Server software).

Australians are the happy new recipients of home servers that have created so much buzz and excitement here in North America! So it’s no surprise that HP’s recent announcement about the availability of the MediaSmart LX197 and MediaSmart EX490 servers in Australia garnered rave reviews. Gizmodo Australia says: “ . . . ultimately I think this is going to be a mandatory box (or a box like it, at least) for every home within the next couple of years.”

PC Authority says: “HP have a really good product on their hands here, and with space for up to 7TB of internal storage, it's an interesting alternative to storing movies, music and pictures in the cloud.”

And more kudos go to HP with the announcement by Notebooks.com that the HP MediaSmart EX 495 has won its Editor’s Choice Award. Notebooks.com says features that put it over the top were ease of configuration, ease of maintenance and Mac compatibility. They say “The EX495 is the best one I’ve had the pleasure of using and I highly recommend it.”

Congratulations to HP!

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

P.S. It was Alphaville in an archived post for the introduction of Windows Home Server in Japan, so it is only fair to mention Men At Work for Australia.

Windows 7 Product Guide Now Available

Brandon LeBlanc — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:36:24 GMT

As many of you have noticed, there is a lot of information out there about Windows 7 now that it is available for everyone. You can find information on everything from the Action Center to Windows XP Mode on various blogs and web pages all over the Internet. You might want a concise guide of what Windows 7 has to offer and how it can help you and your business. With this in mind we created the Windows 7 Product Guide. This easy to read guide gives you a clear overview of the features in Windows 7 without a lot of technical jargon that you might find in other content. The guide was designed to educate and inform readers about benefits you get from adopting Windows 7.

The Windows 7 Product Guide is has three major sections:

Introduction - Describes how Microsoft designed Windows 7, what editions of Windows 7 are available and what is new.
Windows 7 for You - Goes over features in Windows 7 that, simplify everyday tasks, works the way you want, and makes new things possible.
Windows 7 for IT Professionals - Explains how Windows 7 can make people productive anywhere, manage risk though enhanced security and control, and reduce costs by streamlining PC management. This section also has an overview of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack to help you learn about how this set of applications can help you get to a more managed and optimized desktop.

If you are looking for a good reference guide about Windows 7, I recommend that you download a copy of the Windows 7 Product Guide here (XPS and PDF versions available).