Windows Experience Blog : Libraries

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Announced, Adds Enhancements for Windows 7 PCs

Brandon LeBlanc — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:12:40 GMT

The Windows Home Server Team has announced today the beta of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (PP3). And if you’re running Windows 7, Windows Home Server PP3 comes with several new features designed to take advantage key Windows 7 features:

Full Image-based Backups of Windows 7 PCs. After the Windows Home Server Connector is installed on your Windows 7 PCs, Action Center should no longer display that your files are not being backed up.
Windows 7 Libraries Support. Music, Photos and Videos shared folders from your Windows Home Server will be added to Windows 7 Libraries. Content saved to these shared folders will be able to be quickly accessed through your Windows 7 Libraries. And any application, like Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center, will be able to access content saved on your Windows Home Server through Libraries as well.
Windows Search 4 is now included. With Windows Search 4, PP3 offers improved query search times, indexing times and reliability. Easy search through a Library in Windows 7 with files stored in multiple locations.
Windows Media Center Enhancements. Archive old recorded TV shows onto your Windows Home Server in a variety of formats. Use Console Quick View to see statistics about your Windows Home Server through Windows Media Center.

More in-depth information on these features – see their blog post on PP3.

The Windows Home Server Team does not yet have a final release date for PP3 however they are shooting to have PP3 available shortly before GA of Windows 7. If you’re running Windows Home Server and have several Windows 7 PCs – I encourage you to give PP3 a try and help the Windows Home Server Team make PP3 rock.

To beta test PP3, please sign up as a beta participant of the Windows Home Server program on Microsoft Connect. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll be able to download PP3.

Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 will be a free update to existing Windows Home Server users via Windows Update.

I’ll be installing PP3 on my HP MediaSmart Server EX470 either tonight or sometime over the weekend. I’m stoked about the Windows 7 integration!

Windows Home Server Power Pack 2 Announced

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:06:04 GMT

The Windows Home Server Team announced today Power Pack 2. The English version of Power Pack 2 will be made available via Windows Update starting March 24th to Windows Home Servers with Power Pack 1 installed. You must have Power Pack 1 installed in order to install Power Pack 2. Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish versions of Power Pack 2 will be made toward the end of April.

Power Pack 2 offers Windows Home Server users the following awesomeness:

Improvements to Remote Access
Enhanced Functionality for PCs running Windows Media Center (via Windows Media Center Connector)
Content Streaming Support for Windows Media Center Extenders

For me, I am particularly interested in the Windows Media Center Connector. With the Windows Media Center Connector installed, Windows Media Center will have access to content stored in shared folders on a Windows Home Server. Just this last weekend, I went through about 1,500 CDs and DVDs I’ve accumulated over the years of sporadic backups of photos and documents. I had CDs going back to 2000. I went through each CD and DVD and pulled off all the important data (mostly photos) and transferred the data onto my Windows Home Server. I now have no data remaining on any physical media anywhere. Everything is now on my Windows Home Server (which I affectionately call JARVIS). And now with Power Pack 2, I’ll be able to browse through those old photos I rediscovered from years ago directly within Windows Media Center downstairs in my living room.

For more information on Power Pack 2, read this post from the Windows Home Server Team.

Psst, here is a little tip for Windows 7 Beta users who have Windows Home Servers. You can add Windows Home Server shared folders to Windows 7 Libraries. Just right-click on a Library and choose “Properties”. There you can pick which folders you want in that Library. Choose “Include a folder…” and type \\ServerName\ShareName\FolderName etc. See below screenshot for a example:

You can see that in my Documents Library, I was able to add my “Brandon LeBlanc” user folder (located at \\JARVIS\Users\Brandon LeBlanc). I have actually created a standalone Library on my Windows 7 Beta PCs called JARVIS consisting of all the important shared folders on my Windows Home Server.

How Libraries & HomeGroup Work Together in Windows 7

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:56:00 GMT

I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.

One of the things you’ll notice first is the User Profile folder structure in Windows 7 has changed a little bit from what was seen in Windows Vista.

In Windows Vista: Documents, Downloads, Photos, Videos, and Music

In Windows 7: Personal Documents, Personal Downloads, Personal Photos, Personal Videos, and Personal Music.

The naming also changed in the Public User Profile: Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Photos, Public Videos, and Public Music.

These folder structure changes were made to accommodate a new Windows Explorer feature in Windows 7 called Libraries. Libraries exist in the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer which has been updated for Windows 7. In Windows 7, users are given Libraries that consist of multiple “library locations” or folders from both their User Profile and Public User Profile.

For example: the Documents Library in Windows 7 consists of your Personal Documents folder under your profile and the Public Documents folder – or 2 “locations”.

By default, my Libraries consisted of the following folders:

Documents: Personal Documents and Public Documents
Downloads: Personal Downloads and Public Downloads
Music: Personal Music and Public Music
Photos: Personal Photos and Public Photos
Videos: Personal Videos and Public Videos

There is a very specific reason why each of these Libraries consists of a Personal folder and Public folder. It ties in with HomeGroup and specific permissions which I will talk about very soon… keep reading ;-)

When I view the Documents Library – it displays all files and folders from any folder I have included in this Library in a single Windows Explorer view.

In the above screen shot, the EXAMPLE folder in the red box is a folder in the Public Documents folder while the rest of the folders are from my Personal Documents folder.

To add locations to a Library, all I needed to do was hit the location button in the top right-hand corner. To create custom Libraries, all I needed to do was right-click on “Libraries” in the Windows Explorer Navigation Pane and choose “New”. I decided to try adding a folder from my Windows Home Server to my Document Library. I had a folder full of documents on my Windows Home Server that would be perfect for my Documents Library. To my excitement I was easily able to add the folder to my Documents Library just fine. So Network locations such as Windows Home Servers are in for “library locations”!

Either way – creating custom Libraries or adding folders to a Library are very easy.

These Libraries can easily be shared with other people on your Home network through a new network sharing feature in Windows 7 called HomeGroup.

In creating a HomeGroup I was also able to choose which Libraries I would like to share out to the HomeGroup.

A few things I discovered about HomeGroup when setting a HomeGroup up:

In order to setup a HomeGroup, my PC’s Network Location needed to be set as “Home” in Network and Sharing Center. Just like in Windows Vista, a Network Location for networks your PC is connected to can be a Home network, Work network, or Public where Windows automatically applies certain settings to keep your PC safe (for example if you are on a Public network, Windows locks down your PC appropriately so you aren’t sharing important files with the world).
If a HomeGroup had already been created on PC on this network – instead of asking me to create a HomeGroup, it would have asked me to join a HomeGroup and which Libraries I would like to share.
There can be only 1 HomeGroup per Home network as far as I can tell and each HomeGroup is password-protected.
Users on any Windows 7 PC) on my Home network can join the HomeGroup and are required to enter a password for that HomeGroup they are joining. This is great because if you have friends come over to your place – they can’t just jump on to your HomeGroup and access your stuff.
Once a Windows 7 PC is joined to HomeGroup – any user on that Windows 7 PC can participate in HomeGroup. You can continue to access files from a User on a Windows 7 PC even if a different user is logged in to the PC.

So how does Personal Folders VS Public Folders tie in with HomeGroup?

I discovered that when sharing Libraries into my HomeGroup, the Public folders and Personal folders within the Libraries have different read/write permissions and are completely customizable.

In general, Public folders have read AND write permissions – meaning users in your HomeGroup can add and remove files to the folder.

Personal folders have read-only access. For files in your Personal folders within a Library – users in your HomeGroup can only view them – not edit, delete, etc.

To add a file to a Library being shared out via HomeGroup, all I needed to do was simply drag the file into the specific Library they want to add it to. That’s it. The file appears in that Library to everyone in the HomeGroup. But when I drag files to a Library someone is sharing in HomeGroup, the files are physically added to the “public” folder and not their “personal folder” (because of the permissions setup I mentioned above).

So let me give you a “real-world” example of how it works.

As you saw in the above screenshot, the user “Bruce Wayne” from the PC named MYUMPC was in my HomeGroup. I decide I want to add a photo to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library. I dragged and dropped a photo onto his Photo Library. The photo appeared within that Library as it should. When Bruce Wayne checks out his Photo Library, he will see that photo I just added. However because of the read/write permissions of Personal and Public folders – the photo I *just* added to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library actually sits physically within his Public Photos folder on his PC (the PC named MYUMPC).

Essentially PC users on your HomeGroup can add files to your Libraries but they physically sit in your Public folders on your PC and not your Personal folders. Your personal folders are preserved for only your important data. You don’t want people adding photos to your Personal Photos folder and messing up your photo collection – and the same with your music.

The way that Libraries are set up with the Personal and Public folders allows users to be in control of their personal data. You can choose to let folks in your HomeGroup view your data in your Personal folders within your Libraries or you can completely turn off access to your Personal folders all together giving only access to the Public folders within the Library.

With Windows 7’s new Libraries feature as well as the new HomeGroup feature – I discovered I am more easily in control of my data at the same time am able to easily share things out to people.

Notes on the Windows 7 Demo from Today’s PDC Keynote

Brandon LeBlanc — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:59:05 GMT

Just a few hours ago, Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President for Windows and Windows Live Engineering, did his keynote here at PDC2008 unveiling Windows 7 to the world for the first time. Steven asked Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Experience, to come up on stage and demo specific Windows 7 features that I think you’ll find very exciting. I’d like to take a moment and share some notes I took live here from PDC from his keynote about those features that they demoed.

It’s important to note that many of these features that were demoed during the Keynote were from more recent Windows 7 build and didn’t make it into the Windows 7 build being handed out to attendees here at PDC – but we wanted to show them off to you anyway.

Ok now on to my notes on the features demoed here from PDC (not in any specific order)! I also hope to try and add a little more context to the features that were demoed.

I’d like to emphasize all of these features that were demoed ultimately showcases that Windows 7 is being designed to make the things you do today faster and easier, and new things possible.

New Windows Taskbar in Windows 7:

The new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 focuses on application “tiles”. These application tiles can be arranged or re-arranged anywhere on the Windows Taskbar simply by grabbing the tiles and moving them where ever you want on the taskbar. Users will be able to “pin” applications they use the most to the new Windows Taskbar via the Start Menu by simply dragging and dropping those apps from the Start Menu to the Windows Taskbar.

Another Windows Taskbar feature that was demoed was Live Previews. This lets users quickly see into the application window to see what’s there within the application window. When a user has multiple tabs opened in IE in Windows 7, when they move their mouse over the IE tile on the Windows Task bar – Live Previews will show all the tabs that are opened in IE (as seen in the above screenshot). You can even close tabs via Live Previews on the Windows Taskbar.

When users mouse-over each of the tabs they can “peak” into the each IE tab as it briefly appears on the maximized on screen. Sometimes the Live Preview via the taskbar isn’t enough of a preview.

The idea here is to offer users easier access to their most used applications and applications they have running.

Jump Lists:

Another feature that is also part of both the new Windows Taskbar and also the Start Menu is Jump lists. When you right-click on an application on the new Windows Taskbar in Windows 7 – you get a “Jump List” of options. In the demo, Julie right-clicked on Word and a Jump List appeared showcasing recent documents that have been worked on. If you recall, your recent documents you worked on in Word was usually accessible only inside Word. Jump Lists enable you quick access to options that might be deep within an application.

Here at PDC, we’re talking about how developers can take advantage of API’s that allow them to utilize Jump Lists.

The screenshot above is showcasing a Jump List for Windows Explorer within the Start Menu in Windows 7.

Windows Explorer:

Windows Explorer introduces a new Navigation Pane showcasing easy access to your Libraries and HomegGroup as well as your Desktop and Computer. Libraries allow users to have all their data (documents, music, photos, videos, etc) all in one place. We want network sharing to be much easier in Windows 7. And HomeGroup enable just that. HomeGroup is designed to seamlessly integrate and share computers and devices on your home network. Your HomeGroup is also searchable via Windows Explorer too.

Each Library can have “locations” of folders configured to be included into that Library. Local or network locations can be included in Libraries. In the demo – you could see multiple locations for one “place” or Library. You can add folders from other PCs in your HomeGroup to your Libraries too and they will show up whenever you connect to your HomeGroup.

I have a more in-depth blog post exploring the power of Libraries and HomeGroup in Windows 7 that should be posted shortly – stay tuned.

Searching for files is also easier in Windows 7. Search now includes Filters such as “Type” or “Tags”. When searching for a specific term – matching strings are highlighted. Windows Explorer also enables quick access to enabling the Preview window with an icon in the top right-hand corner of the Windows Explorer toolbar.

There is a consistent Windows Explorer UI across all of Windows 7 including Windows Media Player 12.

Media Streaming:

It just plays. Windows 7 makes it easier to play media on your home network (especially with HomeGroup). No more choices thrown at you when try to play media.

Windows 7 will let you stream any media to computers and devices on your network including Digital Picture Frames.

In Windows Media Player 12, you can play music to a specific device on your home network. When you stream music to a specific device (or “play to” a specific device) – a device player called the Play To player will appear letting you control playing media to that device. All Julie did was right-click on a device in HomeGroup and choose “Play to”. This works for not just songs but also videos and images and also can be utilized in Windows Media Center in Windows 7 too.

Device Stage:

Device Stage is an all-in-one view of a specific device on in your PC’s Printers and Devices Folder – a new folder in Windows 7. 3rd party hardware manufacturers can use Device Stage to give users all the options – or “Tasks” - they need and want to control their device whether it’s a printer or mobile device. The Device Stage experience is also services-enabled feature customizable for 3rd party hardware manufacturers.

In the demo, Julie shows off connected her Motorola phone to Windows 7 and being able to manage that device using Device Stage. Because the Motorola phone is a Plug-and-Play device, the device appears in the taskbar and Device Stage pops up on her screen when she plugged it in to Windows 7. Device Stage is designed to take advantage of mobile devices and offers specific tasks such as syncing media to a device, syncing contacts and calendar events from Outlook to a device, and creating and downloading ring tones. Custom phone makers and carriers can take advantage of Device Stage for their devices.

We’ll have much more to say about Device Stage in Windows 7 next week and WinHEC!

Personalization:

In Windows 7 – your desktop is YOURS. Windows 7 will ship with specific themes users can use for their PCs or customize and create their own. 3^rd parties can create custom themes for Windows 7 and let you download them. We’re looking to offer theme downloads straight off of windows.com for users to enjoy.

Julie also demoed the improved abilities to change the color of glass in Windows 7.

Gadgets are now built in to the desktop instead of being confined to a sidebar. You can place them anywhere you want on the desktop or “snap” them to the side like you did previously with Windows Vista’s Windows Sidebar. To add gadgets, people will simply be able to right-click on their desktop to do so.

System Tray Enhancements:

The Windows Taskbar also comes with System Tray enhancements that automatically hide all but a default set of notification icons. Hidden notification icons are put into an “overflow” menu which can be expanded out to view. For notification icons you want on your system tray, Julie shows that you can drag icons from the “overflow” menu to the system tray. If there is a notification icon you don’t want on the System Tray, simply drag it to the desktop and it disappears. Users can also change the order by dragging the notification icons in the order you desire.

The overflow menu has a Notification Icon Control Panel that lets you also manage which notification icons are visible and how they alert you etc.

Wireless Networking:

Directly from the System Tray, Windows 7 introduces a better way of quickly accessing and connecting to wireless networks. Find and discovering available wireless networks is much easier. When new wireless networks are available in Windows 7, the network icon in the System Tray gets a neat little yellow star icon. Users can click the network icon and expand the available networks and choose which one they want to connect too.

Action Center:

Action Center is the central spot for users to troubleshoot issues with their Windows 7 PCs, view reported problems (and report them to Microsoft), run maintenance tasks that can make your Windows 7 PC perform better. Windows Defender is also integrated with Action Center to minimize the amount of alerts users see.

You can also use Action Center to access the UAC Control Panel…

UAC:

Enhancements to UAC put users in control of how UAC communicates with them.

Touch Capabilities:

Windows 7 spots huge investments in Touch capabilities. Julie demos quite a few of these features using a new HP TouchSmart PC. You can read two of my posts on HP’s TouchSmart PC line here and here. She first demos access Jump Lists with touch and also rearranging stuff with touch. She also showcases Gestures which make using touch-capable devices with Windows 7 pretty slick.

Touch in Windows 7 will be incredibly useful especially when browsing through your photos as Julie also demonstrates. She “flicks” through photos using her finger.

With touch and the enhanced Paint that comes with Windows 7 with the Ribbon UI introduced in Office 2007, Julie demonstrates choosing a paint brush and using touch to draw in Paint.

After Julie was done were her demos, Steven Sinofsky came back to stage to discuss a few things such as Software + Services with Windows Live and IE8. I’ll be diving deeper into those topics in later blog posts.

There you have it – a pretty sweet preview of what’s coming with Windows 7. In the future, expect us to continue to talk about Windows 7 and of course look to our new Windows 7 Team Blog for announcements related to Windows 7 including information about the Windows 7 Beta (which Mike Nash talks about here). I’ll also be talking about my Windows 7 experiences too.