In its first few days of sales, Windows 7 has obliterated the number managed by the previous version of the OS, Vista.
Admittedly it’s only sales in the US, but in the first few days of being made available to the public Windows 7 has sold 234 per cent more copies than Vista managed in the similar period.
Link http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/windows-7-234-better-than-vista-at-launch-647548
So we just shipped a preview of the first major redesign of the MSN Homepage in a long, long time. Check it out at http://preview.msn.com/. I’m very proud of my team’s effort to get this out. They worked many long hours, evenings, and weekends the last few months to get this to the state it currently is in. They are a great team.
Link – http://blogs.msdn.com/ronlo/archive/2009/11/04/new-msn-homepage-preview.aspx
Built on SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers higher mission-critical scale, more efficient IT, and expanded reporting and analytics through self-service business intelligence. SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces two new premium editions to meet the needs of large scale datacenters and data warehouses.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2-editions.aspx
Built on SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers higher mission-critical scale, more efficient IT, and expanded reporting and analytics through self-service business intelligence. SQL Server 2008 R2 introduces two new premium editions to meet the needs of large scale datacenters and data warehouses.
SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter
SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse
Link – http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2-editions.aspx
On November 3 2009, Sysinternals retired NewSID, a utility that changes a computers machine Security Identifier (machine SID). I wrote NewSID in 1997 (its original name was NTSID) because the only tool available at the time for changing machine SIDs was the Microsoft Sysprep tool, and Sysprep doesn’t support changing the SIDs of computers that have applications installed. A machine SID is a unique identifier generated by Windows Setup that Windows uses as the basis for the SIDs for administrator-defined local accounts and groups.
Link http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2009/11/03/3291024.aspx
In the minds of IT admins looking to enable a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) environment, Windows XP has by far been the preferred OS running in the VMs. However, with the arrival of Windows 7, IT admins have several important reasons, as outlined in this blog, to reconsider. In fact, an upcoming RDP Performance Whitepaper will provide a rich set of data to convince even the most skeptical critics that Windows 7, with its enhanced user experience, performance on the wire, and security outshines Windows XP as the virtualized guest OS of choice.
The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers a flexible, extensible and supported evaluation experience requiring minimal hardware and IT overhead. You can access the catalog of pre-configured Microsoft solutions in VHD format for test, evaluation, demonstration, training & education and proof of concept from www.microsoft.com/vhd.
Microsoft launched its much anticipated Windows 7 operating system last week to great fanfare. One of the features of Windows 7 is DirectX 11, which is a superset of DirectX 10.1 already used in Vista
Service Pack 2.
Windows Vista introduced the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM), which allowed new features such as virtualized video memory and scheduling of concurrent graphics contexts. Windows 7 also uses WDDM, albeit a newer version.
Two weeks ago we announced that Exchange 2010 was code complete and, as we get ready for launch, we’re seeing some amazing results from our early adopter customers. They are so good, that I can’t help sharing some of these early highlights – just a sneak peek of what is to come.
Link – http://blogs.technet.com/uc/archive/2009/10/27/exchange-2010-revving-the-engines-for-launch.aspx
Two weeks ago we announced that Exchange 2010 was code complete and, as we get ready for launch, we’re seeing some amazing results from our early adopter customers. They are so good, that I can’t help sharing some of these early highlights – just a sneak peek of what is to come.
Link – http://blogs.technet.com/uc/archive/2009/10/27/exchange-2010-revving-the-engines-for-launch.aspx
Microsoft has decided that its Office Accounting product just doesn’t add up.
The software maker said on Friday that it plans next month to stop distributing the accounting product line, ending the latest in a series of efforts to take on market leader Intuit.
The accounting product line was launched in 2005 amid some fanfare, but failed to grab much market share and was later pulled from retail shelves in favor of online-only sales.
The RDC 7.0 client update contains the following new features.
Remote Desktop (RD) Web Access now uses forms-based authentication to improve the user experience. Web SSO makes sure that after a user is logged on, no additional passwords are required for RD Gateway, RD Session Host servers and RemoteApp programs.
For security, Web SSO requires remote applications to be signed using a certificate from a trusted issuer.
Users can access personal virtual desktops when they use the new Remote Desktop Virtualization Host in Windows Server 2008 R2. Personal desktops are assigned to users on a one-to-one basis and maintain state over time.
Well, it’s come to this. My attempt to understand and document the ways in which you can clean install Windows 7 with Upgrade media (see my previous article on this topic) has opened the proverbial can of worms. While I wish that Microsoft had stepped up to the plate months ago and simply described the ways in which this process can work, they have not, at least not adequately. And with millions of people purchasing Upgrade versions of Windows 7 without fully understanding what they’ve gotten into, it’s pretty clear that someone needs to confront the challenge of figuring this all out.
A trademark application filed earlier this month has quietly revealed a new logo for Microsoft’s online content brand MSN and, presumably, also its many regional subsidiaries.
Unfortunately with only a black and white preview to work with, it’s not fair to judge the new logo just yet but its obvious it still retains the now iconic butterfly which was actually not that well received when it debuted in early 2000. And like many recent logo redesigns, this too seems to be all about simplifying the elements with the body of the butterfly removed and wings rounded off to roughly stretched ellipses.
Link – http://www.istartedsomething.com/20091028/say-hello-new-msn-butterfly-logo/
Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released to the world this morning. By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting
You can download the packages here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=151321
