Windows Archive

Two weeks ago, I published an article in which I explained what was wrong about Randall Kennedy's "Windows 7 Unmasked" article. This was noted by Infoworld's editor-in-chief Eric Knorr, who suggested that Randall and I enter into an email debate regarding the various points made in our articles. We agreed upon publishing this email thread as-is, unedited (I didn't even fix the spelling errors), on both Infoworld and OSNews. We agreed that Randall would start the debate, and that I had the final word. Read on for the entertaining email debate (I figured it would be best to give each email its own page, for clarity's sake. My apologies if this makes each individual page much shorter than what you're used to from OSNews).

One of the main problems with Windows Vista (and earlier versions) is that Windows consumes quite a lot of diskspace, with few means to trim down the installation. To make matters worse, Windows tends to accumulate a lot of megabytes and even gigabytes of space during its lifetime, leaving users at a loss as to how to reclaim this lost space. In a post on the Engineering 7 weblog, Microsoft program manager of the core OS deployment feature team (...) Michael Beck explains what Microsoft is doing in order to reduce the disk footprint of Windows 7.

"The Windows Research Kernel (WRK) packages core Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 kernel source code with an environment for building and testing experimental versions of the Windows kernel for use in teaching and research."

"Depending on where you look, Windows 7 is being called a savior for the embattled Vista, or a disaster waiting to happen. Regardless, certain interface features in Windows 7, whether brand new or streamlined, have been mostly applauded by experts who have tested the pre-beta. Which features are the most interesting and controversial? Here are five that deserve your attention."

Back in 1983, 25 years ago, the world was quite different. The market for the home computer - still a fairly new market - was wide open, but Apple was about to make a major splash with its Macintosh. It was also the year in which a company from Redmond first introduced its "Windows" operating system. What is this Windows you speak of?

Last week, we reported on a crude hack which allowed users of build 6801 of Windows 7 (the build handed out at PDC) to use a slightly botched version of the new taskbar. Rafael Rivera created a new tool that enables many more protected features, such as gestures, panning, and desktop slideshow. It's as simple as the click of a button, and also works on Windows 7 installations which already had the previous hack applied. I can confirm that the tool works.

Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) is in full swing this week, hot on the heels of the recent PDC. The main subject is, of course, Windows 7. This being a conference focused on hardware makers, Microsoft made a whole slew of announcements related to how Windows 7 will deal with hardware.

I collect manuals. I have so many of them, that I'm starting to wonder where on earth I'm supposed to put them all. Somewhere in the back of a closet, I keep all my manuals in three huge boxes, with manuals dating from the early '80s to just a few days ago when I bought a new mouse. However, none of them are as dear to my as my extensive, fully illustrated Dutch manuals for Windows 3.0, which accompanied my parents' first PC in 1990. An enormously detailed manual covering every aspect of Windows 3.0 - with special sleeves for the various floppy disks that held the Windows 3.0 operating system. I still have those original floppies, and they're still fully functional. Last week, the era of Windows 3.x finally came to an end when Microsoft ceased to give out licenses for the operating system.

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference might be over, but that doesn't mean news about Windows 7 suddenly stops coming in. We have news for you on the elusive MinWin kernel, which created a sort of crazy hype a year ago, and Rafael Rivera found a way to enable the new taskbar on the pre-beta build handed out to PDC attendees. This build, carrying number 6801, didn't have the latest taskbar revamp - you needed a newer build for that, build 6933, which hasn't been released to the public.

And yet some more information about Windows 7 has found its way to users. Ars Technica is present at Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, and they dove into the new Device Stage feature, as well as the new Libraries feature in the Windows Explorer file manager.

When Office 2007 came out with its new ribbon-based interface, a lot of people were up in arms because Microsoft deliberately left out a legacy switch - you couldn't go back to the old-fashioned Office user interface. Now that Windows 7 is getting a major UI overhaul, many wondered if Microsoft would build a legacy switch into its new operating system. Ars talked to Steven Sinofsky about this one, and got an answer. They also discussed the new jump list feature.

Windows Vista's most prominent - and most hated and misunderstood - feature was most likely User Account Control, designed specifically to not only make the system more secure, but also to annoy users and developers, forcing them into making applications that do not require administrator privileges. In Windows 7, Microsoft has done a lot to alleviate the annoyances.

I've been running Windows Vista Ultimate on my Acer Aspire One netbook (with 1.5GB of RAM, and a 30GB hard drive) for a while now, without any problems or performance issues. I have the full Aero Glass experience, and I didn't need to do any performance tweaking or fiddling with services. I even made a few very crappy videos to show it all off. Apparently, Steven Sinofsky thinks Vista - and therefore, Windows 7 - can run just fine on a netbook too, and that's why he demonstrated Windows 7 running on a netbook this morning during the Windows 7 keynote. In an interview with Ars he gave a little more details.

Windows 7 is out and about. Microsoft has been unusually secretive about Vista's successor, but now that PDC is under way, they have unveiled the various enhancements to the user interface. Windows 7 might not have any significant under-the-hood changes (in fact, all your applications and devices will still work), but on the outside, Windows 7 represents the biggest change for the Windows user interface ever since Windows 95 came out.