The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta helps keep your PCs and servers on the latest support level, provides ongoing improvements to the Windows Operating System (OS), by including previous updates delivered over Windows Update as well as continuing incremental updates to the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms based on customer feedback, and is easy for organizations to deploy a single set of updates.
The Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta will help you:
o Keep your PCs supported and up-to-date
o Get ongoing updates to the Windows 7 platform
o Easily deploy cumulative updates at a single time
o Meet your users' demands for greater business mobility
o Provide a comprehensive set of virtualization innovations
o Provide an easier Service Pack deployment model for better IT efficiency
The public beta is best suited for IT pros, tech enthusiasts and developers who need to test the service pack in their organization or with the software they are developing.
In order to download and install the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta you must currently have a Release to Manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 already installed. The Beta is available in English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish.
To learn more about piloting, deploying and managing Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series on TechNet.
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We are really excited to announce the availability of the Hyper-V Linux Integration Services for Linux Version 2.1. This release marks yet another milestone in providing a comprehensive virtualization platform to our customers. Customers who have a heterogeneous operating system environment desire their virtualization platform to provide support for all operating systems that they have in their datacenters.
Driver support for synthetic devices: Linux Integration Services supports the synthetic network controller and the synthetic storage controller that were developed specifically for Hyper-V.
Fastpath Boot Support for Hyper-V: Boot devices take advantage of the block Virtualization Service Client (VSC) to provide enhanced performance.
Timesync: The clock inside the virtual machine will remain synchronized with the clock on the host.
Integrated Shutdown: Virtual machines running Linux can be gracefully shut down from either Hyper-V Manager or System Center Virtual Machine Manager.
Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) Support: Supported Linux distributions can use up to 4 virtual processors (VP) per virtual machine.
Heartbeat: Allows the host to detect whether the guest is running and responsive.
Pluggable Time Source: A pluggable clock source module is included to provide a more accurate time source to the guest.
Download here
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is no slouch -- he knows Apple iPads are exceptionally popular and that the tablet PC has arrived. Sure, iPads have been available since April, but some Windows 7 slates will be coming out soon.
"They'll be shipping as soon as they're ready," Ballmer said today at Microsoft's Financial Analyst Meeting in Redmond. "This is Job 1 around here. Nobody is sleeping at the switch."
Ballmer thinks Microsoft is in a good position for the emerging tablet market. Windows 7, which has built-in touch-screen support, can be installed on numerous form factors -- slates, hybrids, ultralights ...
People will want options. And right now, as far as tablets, Apple's just got the iPad.
"They've sold certainly more than I'd like them to sell," Ballmer admitted.
So when Windows 7 slates start coming out -- in about month, Ballmer hopes -- there should be many options. And Microsoft thinks that's a good position to be in.
Continue at seattlepi
Microsoft is readying a beta of its Internet Explorer (IE) 9 browser that it will roll out in September, according to Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.
Turner shared the beta date during his morning keynote at the annual Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) on July 29.
According to several recent leaks, Microsoft had been targeting August as its beta delivery target for IE 9. This beta is expected to be public (as the test previews have been), and to feature more of the user interface elements.
On July 29, Neowin.net reposted some screen shots from what they believe to be a newly leaked test build of IE 9. That build includes a new download manager, but doesn’t yet feature the new user interface.
Full story at All About Microsoft
Tracking your energy use and saving money just got easier today. Microsoft and Blue Line Innovations have joined forces to give consumers real-time information about their energy use down to the minute and the dollar. The companies have combined Blue Line’s popular energy tracking device with Microsoft Hohm to give consumers information about their household energy use — and its cost — at a glance, with easy-to-use graphs that show where you can save the most energy and money.
“With a utility bill you may only see your energy usage once every month or even every two months,” said Troy Batterberry, product unit manager for Microsoft Hohm. “The Blue Line PowerCost Monitor and WiFi Gateway provide updates every 30 seconds, so you’re getting real-time data so you can take real-time action. It’s kind of like online banking for your energy bill, offering 24x7 access to your usage.”
The Blue Line PowerCost Monitor attaches to a household power utility meter; no wiring is required, and no need to call in an electrician. The WiFi Gateway device wirelessly transmits energy use data to the consumer’s Microsoft Hohm account and can provide personalized energy recommendations. Hohm also offers social networking communities on Facebook and Twitter to help users compare notes and get tips for ways to improve their energy efficiency.
Graphs and charts make it easy to identify usage patterns and potential problems. For example, the electricity usage chart below shows that power consumption spiked when the user turned on the air conditioner at various times of the day. With this type of insight into energy usage, consumers are empowered to make immediate choices about how to manage their household power consumption.
Full Story here
Here at Hotmail, we’ve been busy getting our latest release out to our customers – upgrading server clusters, building the new indexes for conversation threading, and making tweaks to our site metrics and deployment software. This deployment was complex, but it has been one of the smoothest in Hotmail history. We know many of you have been anxious to get the new Hotmail for your own accounts ever since we announced the new features, and we appreciate your patience and your feedback.
I’m very happy to report that we are picking up the pace of the rollout. In fact, as of this morning, we have over 100 million customers using the new Hotmail, and we’re upgrading even more users as we speak. We expect to upgrade nearly all of our customers within the next week.
Once the rollout of the new Hotmail is complete, we’ll start preparing for the release of Exchange ActiveSync for Hotmail, which will allow you to sync your email, calendar, and contacts with your mobile phone. That release will happen later this summer – keep watching this blog for details.
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/07/27/hotmail-rollout-picks-up-steam.aspx
In this release of Windows Live, you can now see your friends’ activity in all the social networks you use. Last week, for example, Douglas Pearce blogged about what this means for the new Messenger. He discussed how Messenger Highlights is designed to be the most complete view of what your friends are doing across the web. Messenger Companion is an exciting extension of that effort. Messenger Companion is a browser plugin which lets you quickly share and discover what your friends have shared online. It lets you view the links your friends are sharing, comment on them, and even share something fun you’ve come across. And if you’ve connected your social networks to Windows Live, Messenger Companion works across all of them.
Discovering what your friends have shared:
We want to make it easy for you to discover what your friends are sharing online, so if you have your Windows Live ID connected to your social networks, it doesn’t matter where a friend shares information. When you visit a website, Messenger Companion will let you know if your friends have shared any new links on that site by subtly flashing in the top right corner of your browser window. This will open up Messenger Companion and show you all the links recently shared by your friends in any of your connected social networks.
Joining in the conversation
Shared links can spark an interesting conversation where friends join in to comment and give their two cents. Messenger Companion shows you the conversation about a shared link, while letting you view the link and comment back.
We don’t want you to worry about where the activity is happening, so sharing is seamlessly integrated into your Windows Live experience. When you join in a conversation, your comment gets posted back to the social network your friend used to share the link.
Sharing with your friends
The story wouldn’t be complete if there was no way for you to share interesting things you come across online. Not only can you use Messenger Companion to share with your friends, but Messenger Companion provides one-click sharing!
Full Story at windowsteamblog
Socially engineering attacks like malware are a growing threat on the internet and are one of the most common risks to people’s safety online. We introduced malware protection in Internet Explorer 8 as part of the SmartScreen Filter and have talked about it on the Windows Experience Blog a couple of times over the last year.
Here are a couple of quick facts about Internet Explorer and malware as we hit this 1 billion blocks milestone:
- NSS Labs have recognized the Internet Explorer 8 SmartScreen Filter as a leader in protection against Socially Engineered Malware in their August 2009 and March 2010 reports which compared Internet Explorer 8 to Chrome, Firefox and others.
- Our malware block rates continue to improve because we continue to improve the SmartScreen service back-end. For example, in August 2009 we had blocked about 70 million attempts to download malware or about 18 million blocks per month. At the time, according to Net Applications, about 15% of the internet population used Internet Explorer 8. In the last two months, we’ve blocked 100 million attempts to download malware. Last month, according to Net Applications, nearly 26% of the internet population uses Internet Explorer 8. There are 1.7 times more users on Internet Explorer 8 than August 2009 but we’re blocking 5 times more malware month on month.
1 billion malware blocks is an amazing milestone and an example of two things. First socially engineered attacks like malware continue to be a real threat for users on the web. Second, to help keep you safe online your browser needs to continually enhance and improve its service.
Full Story at windowsteamblog
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IT has a number of options to enable remote access for employees wanting mobile access to email and work applications from their iPads. There are however pros and cons for each option as well as some prerequisite questions to consider.
