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Microsoft My Phone syncs information on your mobile phone to a storage space on a web site hosted by Microsoft. If your phone is lost or stolen, or if you upgrade to a new phone, you can easily restore the contacts, calendar appointments, photos, and other information that you stored on My Phone to a compatible new or replacement phone. Most phones that run the Windows Mobile 6 operating system are compatible with My Phone service.

More info – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/myphone/moreinfo.aspx

Microsoft My Phone syncs information on your mobile phone to a storage space on a web site hosted by Microsoft. If your phone is lost or stolen, or if you upgrade to a new phone, you can easily restore the contacts, calendar appointments, photos, and other information that you stored on My Phone to a compatible new or replacement phone. Most phones that run the Windows Mobile 6 operating system are compatible with My Phone service.

More info – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/myphone/moreinfo.aspx

The Windows(R) Image to Virtual Hard Disk (WIM2VHD) command-line tool allows you to create sysprepped VHD images from any Windows 7 installation source. VHDs created by WIM2VHD will boot directly to the Out Of Box Experience, ready for your first-use customizations. You can also automate the OOBE by supplying your own unattend.xml file, making the possibilities limitless.
Fresh squeezed, organically grown, free-range VHDs – just like Mom used to make – that work with Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Windows 7’s new Native VHD-Boot functionality!

Full Article – http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/wim2vhd

If you’re looking for evidence that Microsoft has gone over every single detail in Windows 7 with the proverbial fine-toothed comb, look no further than Calculator, an applet that dates back to the very first version of Windows from 1985. This utilitarian applet hadn’t been significantly updated in decades, and indeed, a quick look at the Calculator application from Windows 2000 (1999), XP (2001) and Windows Vista (2006) reveals that they are, in fact, identical aside from the look and feel of the OSes themselves.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_calc.asp

So you want to get your hands on the VS2010 VPC?  Here you go:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=922B4655-93D0-4476-BDA4-94CF5F8D4814&displaylang=en

But, wait, you say it’s expired?  Then you need this:

http://blogs.msdn.com/briankel/archive/2008/10/27/visual-studio-2010-ctp-vpc-dealing-with-activation-messages.aspx

Most of our work finishing Windows 7 is focused on responding to feedback. The UAC feedback is interesting on a few dimensions of engineering decision making process. I thought that exploring those dimensions would make for an interesting e7 blog entry. This is our third discussion about UAC and for those interested in the evolution of the feature in Windows it is worth seeing the two previous posts (post #1 and post #2) and also reading the comments from many of you.

We are flattered by the response to the Windows 7 beta so far and working hard at further refining the product based on feedback and telemetry as we work towards the Release Candidate. For all of us working on Windows it is humbling to know that our work affects so many people around the world. The recent feedback is showing us just how much passion people have for Windows! Again we are humbled and excited to be a part of an amazing community of people working to bring the value of computing to a billion people around the world. Thank you very much for all of the thoughts and comments you have contributed so far.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/05/update-on-uac.aspx

Most of our work finishing Windows 7 is focused on responding to feedback. The UAC feedback is interesting on a few dimensions of engineering decision making process. I thought that exploring those dimensions would make for an interesting e7 blog entry. This is our third discussion about UAC and for those interested in the evolution of the feature in Windows it is worth seeing the two previous posts (post #1 and post #2) and also reading the comments from many of you.

We are flattered by the response to the Windows 7 beta so far and working hard at further refining the product based on feedback and telemetry as we work towards the Release Candidate. For all of us working on Windows it is humbling to know that our work affects so many people around the world. The recent feedback is showing us just how much passion people have for Windows! Again we are humbled and excited to be a part of an amazing community of people working to bring the value of computing to a billion people around the world. Thank you very much for all of the thoughts and comments you have contributed so far.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/05/update-on-uac.aspx

Much was made of this week’s slip-up by Motorola’s CEO that Windows Mobile 7 is due in 2010 (something that’s actually been expected for a few months now).

I’ve been  curious about how Microsoft plans to try to catch up with its mobile-phone competitors given the slow, plodding pace at which it has been rolling out new versions of its Windows Mobile platform. After asking around, it sounds like the Softies are definitely aiming to speed up development.

Full Article – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1908

Much was made of this week’s slip-up by Motorola’s CEO that Windows Mobile 7 is due in 2010 (something that’s actually been expected for a few months now).

I’ve been  curious about how Microsoft plans to try to catch up with its mobile-phone competitors given the slow, plodding pace at which it has been rolling out new versions of its Windows Mobile platform. After asking around, it sounds like the Softies are definitely aiming to speed up development.

Full Article – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1908

Many tend to forget that the same day the Windows 7 beta was released, the Windows Server 2008 R2 beta went public as well, and the same goes for the Windows 7 Ecosystem Readiness Program. The media is letting Windows 7 overshadow Server 2008 R2, but Microsoft isn’t taking much notice. As with any Windows Server release, the software giant is eating its own dogfood: the company recently finished rolling out the operating system on its homepage, though it’s not clear which build the company is running. Netcraft spotted the change:

Full Article – http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/02/microsoftcom-moves-to-windows-server-2008-r2-beta.ars

Over the past few years, I’ve felt like the lone voice in the wilderness trying to communicate that Windows Vista wasn’t as horrible as people had heard. Indeed, for the first year of that OS’s existence, Microsoft was largely mum, and it wasn’t until the software giant fixed the few real problems with Vista in Service Pack 1 (see my review) that the company finally turned its attention to marketing the fact that, yes, Windows Vista was actually quite good, thank you very much. Efforts like the Mojave Project, the Seinfeld/Gates advertisements, and the “I’m a PC” ad campaign did a lot to overturn Vista’s bad PR, and presumably Windows 7 will finally put all that nonsense to rest for good.

Full Article – http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft Corp. last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed today.

BeyondTrust Corp., which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin’s “Mitigating Factors” section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights “could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights,” BeyondTrust counted the bug.

Full Article – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127318&source=rss_topic125

Nine of out 10 critical bugs reported by Microsoft Corp. last year could have been made moot, or at least made less dangerous, if people ran Windows without administrative rights, a developer of enterprise rights management software claimed today.

BeyondTrust Corp., which touts its Privilege Manager as a way for companies to lock down PCs, tallied the individual vulnerabilities that Microsoft disclosed in 2008, then examined each accompanying security bulletin. If the bulletin’s “Mitigating Factors” section, the part that spells out how to lessen the risk of attack or eliminate it entirely, said that users with fewer rights “could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative rights,” BeyondTrust counted the bug.

Full Article – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9127318&source=rss_topic125

There’s been much debate recently on whether Linux will be able to strive in the netbook war once Windows 7 is released. Although it is too early to claim a preemptive death for Linux on netbooks, there are a couple of reasons that make it clear Windows 7 will become clearly dominant in the netbook war.

Netbooks are secondary computers

Even more so than laptops, netbooks are primarily for portable use and are not desktop replacements. Almost everybody that is purchasing a netbook most likely has another computer at home. If Microsoft is able to make a good impression of Windows 7 on the netbook, this could influence them to go out and purchase Windows 7 for their desktops at home, resulting in higher sales. Microsoft knows this and I won’t be surprised if they they are willing to minimize profits for this kind of exposure.

Full Article – http://windows7center.com/windows-7-news/why-windows-7-will-win-the-netbook-war/

Many posts start with a thank you and I want to start this post with an extra special thank you on behalf of the entire Windows team for all the installs and usage we are seeing of the Windows 7 Beta. We’ve had millions of installations of Windows 7 from which we are receiving telemetry, which is simply incredible. And from those who click on the “Send Feedback” button we are receiving detailed bug reports and of course many suggestions. There is simply no way we could move from Beta through Final Release of Windows 7 without this type of breadth coverage and engagement from you in the development cycle. There’s been such an incredible response, with many folks even blogging about how they have moved to using Windows 7 Beta on all their machines and have been super happy. The question we get most often is “if the Beta expires in August what will I do—I don’t want to return to my old [sic] operating system.” For a Beta release, that is quite a complement and we’re very appreciative of such a kind response.

This post is about the path from where we are today, Beta, to our RTM (Release To Manufacturing), building on the discussion of this topic that started at the PDC. This post is in no way an announcement of a ship date, change in plans, or change in our previously described process, but rather it provides additional detail and a forward looking view of the path to RTM and General Availability. The motivation for this, in addition to the high level of interest in Windows 7, is that we’re now seeing how releasing Windows is not something that Microsoft does “solo”, but rather is something that we do as one part of the overall PC ecosystem. Obviously we have a big responsibility to do our part, one we take very seriously of course. The last stages of a Windows release are a partnership across the entire ecosystem working to make sure that the incredible variety of choices you have for PCs, software, and peripherals work together to bring you a complete and satisfying Windows 7 experience.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/01/30/our-next-engineering-milestone.aspx