All posts tagged Windows

Microsoft Takes Desktop Management to the Cloud: Introducing Windows Intune

We’ve talked a lot about the benefits to optimizing your Windows desktops and how Microsoft can help large companies reduce their TCO and have a more dynamic IT environment. But today I’d like to focus on smaller businesses, specifically the midsize businesses with 25 to 500 PCs in their environment and show them some love.

Many of these companies don’t have the resources or budget to setup and maintain an on-premise desktop management infrastructure and they want enterprise-class solutions. They’ve been coming to us asking for a solution that will meet their specific needs and budget. At the same time, we are seeing medium-sized businesses increasingly turn to cloud solutions. They are doing this because it gives them new IT capabilities with lower upfront investment and without the restrictions of traditional on-premise infrastructure.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2010/04/19/microsoft-takes-desktop-management-to-the-cloud-introducing-windows-intune.aspx

Windows Server 2008 R2 to Phase Out Itanium

I’ve written previously about 64-bit and Windows Server and the long, steady adoption of 64-bit computing over the years.  Having been involved in Windows Server support for Alpha processors in the past, and seeing many of the early chapters of 64-bit Windows Server written on Intel’s Itanium architecture, it’s with a sense of nostalgia that I pass on some important news.

Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the last version of Windows Server to support the Intel Itanium architecture.  SQL Server 2008 R2 and Visual Studio 2010 are also the last versions to support Itanium. 

Link – http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2010/04/02/windows-server-2008-r2-to-phase-out-itanium.aspx

Pushing the Limits of Windows

Mark Russinovich: This is the first blog post in a series I’ll write over the coming months called Pushing the Limits of Windows that describes how Windows and applications use a particular resource, the licensing and implementation-derived limits of the resource, how to measure the resource’s usage, and how to diagnose leaks.

Here’s the index of the entire Pushing the Limits series. While they can stand on their own, they assume that you read them in order.

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Physical Memory

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Paged and Nonpaged Pool

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Processes and Threads

Pushing the Limits of Windows: Handles

Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 1

Pushing the Limits of Windows: USER and GDI Objects – Part 2

Demo Apps from MIX10 on Windows Phone 7

Some of you may have seen the Windows Phone 7 Series demo apps that were shown during the MIX10 keynote. If you missed them, here are videos of the demos that were shown during the keynote.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/wpdev/archive/2010/03/30/demo-apps-from-mix10-on-windows-phone-7.aspx

Themes in Windows Phone

A theme is a visual definition of the look & feel for common controls in an Operating System. 
Themes are usually end-user selectable, changing the theme at the OS level, impacts the look & feel of running applications that are ‘theme aware’.  As an example, on Windows Vista and Windows 7, a popular/desired theme is the Aero theme.

Link – http://blogs.msdn.com/jaimer/archive/2010/03/30/theming-in-windows-phone.aspx

Windows Phone 7 Series Icon Pack

This download contains a set of 64 application bar icons that you can use when developing applications for Windows Phone. In addition to the 64 icons in PNG format (32 dark and 32 light), this package also contains vector versions that can be easily imported into Microsoft Expression Blend 4 Beta when using the Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone.

Link – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=369b20f7-9d30-4cff-8a1b-f80901b2da93&displaylang=en

First Windows Phone 7 commercial

Windows Phone 7 handsets might be a few months away, but we already have the first commercial.

Windows Phone 7 Dev tools now available

At MIX today, Windows Phone 7 Development tools were announced to the public. You can download these from here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/phone/

Windows Phone Developer Tools includes:

· Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone

· Windows Phone Emulator

· Silverlight for Windows Phone

· XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP

No Windows Phone 7 upgrade for Windows Mobile 6.x devices

Microsoft’s tight hardware spec for Windows Phone 7 smartphones means that Windows Mobile 6.x devices – including HTC’s just-launched HD2 – can’t be upgraded.

Owners of HTC’s highly-praised HD2 touchscreen smartphone will be unable to upgrade the device to Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7 software when the OS is released towards the end of the year.

Link – http://apcmag.com/microsoft-no-windows-phone-7-upgrade-for-windows-mobile-6x-devices.htm

Microsoft launches Windows MultiPoint Server 2010

Today Microsoft is launching Windows MultiPoint Server around the world. Windows MultiPoint Server is available for purchase through OEMs and Microsoft Academic Volume Licensing (VL) customers on March 1, for schools and educational institutions (mainly for use in classrooms, labs and libraries).

Windows MultiPoint Server, based off Windows Server 2008 R2, is designed to enable multiple people (students) to share access to a single host PC through a “station” simultaneously. A station is a device that connects to a host PC running Windows MultiPoint Server via USB and connects to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Windows MultiPoint Server shares out an “instance” of Windows to a specific station via Remote Desktop Services (formerly known as Terminal Services) technology built in to Windows Server 2008 R2. If you have 1 host PC with Windows MultiPoint Server, you can support up to 10 people connecting to it and using it at the same time (hardware permitting of course). Each person independently controls familiar Windows experience.

Link – http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/archive/2010/02/24/windows-multipoint-server-2010-brings-more-affordable-computing-for-education.aspx

Windows Phone 7 Revealed

Today’s announcement of Windows Phone 7 series is certainly greeted with a lot of positive sentiment.

You can go hear to watch the press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowsphone/

Also check out this site for demos, screenshots, etc…: http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

And this article on Gizmodo is one of the best I’ve read: http://gizmodo.com/5471805/windows-phone-7-series-everything-is-different-now

Windows Phone 7 Series Screenshots

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Windows 7 Battery Notification Messages

Over the past week we have seen a little bit of blogosphere activity regarding Windows 7 and batteries, specifically the new Windows 7 message “Considering replacing your battery”. Since this is related to the engineering of Windows 7 we’re going to use this blog to provide an update to people. As we have talked about many times, we have a relentless focus on the quality of Windows 7 and we take seriously any reports we receive that indicate a potential problem that could result in a significant failure of the OS.

Link – http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2010/02/08/windows-7-battery-notification-messages.aspx

A look at Windows Home Server "Vail" (Build 7360)

Windows Home Server "Vail", the next major version of this product, will be based on the current generation Windows Server platform (Windows Server 2008 R2) and will share a number of features and capabilities with Small Business Server and Essential Business Server. Unfortunately, Microsoft has been tight-lipped about Vail and the quality of information we have today is lacking, to say the least. Fortunately, a recently leaked build of Vail – tagged build 7360 – has shed some light on what the WHS team has been working on.

Link – http://www.withinwindows.com/2010/02/02/a-look-at-windows-home-server-vail-build-7360/

A look at Windows Home Server “Vail” (Build 7360)

Windows Home Server "Vail", the next major version of this product, will be based on the current generation Windows Server platform (Windows Server 2008 R2) and will share a number of features and capabilities with Small Business Server and Essential Business Server. Unfortunately, Microsoft has been tight-lipped about Vail and the quality of information we have today is lacking, to say the least. Fortunately, a recently leaked build of Vail – tagged build 7360 – has shed some light on what the WHS team has been working on.

Link – http://www.withinwindows.com/2010/02/02/a-look-at-windows-home-server-vail-build-7360/