Tag Archives: windows 7

Windows 7 release candidate date confirmed!

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The Windows Blog yesterday confirmed the release dates for the Windows 7 Release Candidate. They have said there has been a lot of question as to when the release candidate is coming out, so they decided to post the date online.

Anyway, the Release Candidate will be available to MSDN/TechNet customers from April 30th 2009, and it will be available to the general public from May 5th.

Looking good Microsoft, but remember the havock that arised when the Beta was launched. Hopefully Microsoft will think about this and organise downloads a little better.

Anyway, something to look forward to. I’ll be reviewing it as usual in a couple of weeks time.

Mainstream support has been ended for XP, but it’s nothing to worry about… yet.

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Basically, as planned, Microsoft ended Mainstream Support for Windows XP today. As far as I am aware, this means that Microsoft will no longer provide non-security updates to private users. As Extended Support is still available (and will be for years to come), Microsoft is still going to provide security updates for free as and when they are required. Microsoft is not planning to cut security updates for XP until April 8, 2014.

The company is also going to continue providing support both over the phone and on the web.

Basically, there’s not much to worry about. However, when Windows 7 is released, I would suggest that people start to think about moving to that rather than hanging on an earlier version of Windows that will only provide security fixes for a limited period.

The same Mainstream Support has ended for Office 2003, so users may also consider upgrading to Office 2007 or waiting until the next version of Office is released with Windows 7.

Update: It also seems to have become apparent that you need to be on Windows XP SP3/Office 2003 SP3 to continue to receive important security updates.

Windows 7 will offer downgrade to Windows Vista and XP

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Microsoft has confirmed to news site The Register that Windows 7 will offer a downgrade to Windows Vista and Windows XP for up to 6 months after general availability. The news page seems to suggest that the downgrade will be available for Windows 7 Pro and Windows 7 Ultimate.

I would guess that the downgrade availability would be becuase there are still a large group of people who prefer Windows XP to Windows 7 and Vista.

So, if you still love Windows XP, you don’t need to worry about buying a new computer. Personally, I think Windows 7 will be much better than any previous Windows version, so see what you think before you downgrade.

Windows 7 Release Candidate now set for May according to Microsoft

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There is news spreading on the internet that a div at Microsoft has published (supposedly by mistake) on the Microsoft site that the Windows 7 release candidate was due in May 2009, which has blown some people’s ideas that the RC would be available in April.

Are we to suspect that Microsoft is falling behind schedule? It’s not like Microsoft has fallen behind before – remember what happened for Windows Vista. Remember how late that was?

We’ll have to see what happens to the release candidate. It begs the question will the final release be delayed. Microsoft has been constantly reminding us that they want Windows 7 out by January ’10 at the very latest, but we all know what they are like.

Oh and by the way, I would like to apologise for the slight lack of posts lately – I’ve been doing websites for a few people and GEEK! fell a little behind. Don’t worry, the websites are now finished and I can concentrate on GEEK! again 🙂

I’ve got a really nice budget ADSL2+ router coming in for review in the next couple of days, so stay tuned.

Microsoft pulls in more features to Windows 7

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Microsoft has today mentioned on their MSDN blog a long list of new features (27 to be precise) that will be added into the Release Candidate of Windows 7 when it arrives.

To see what they’ve come up with, click here.

From a quick skim through, I can see they have made a few improvements to the Control Panel –  I like the ‘recently used’ idea as I regularly use the display options when I use different monitors. Also, they’ve added multi-touch zoom support for Windows Explorer which will be great if you have a touchscreen monitor. And apparently, according to the blog, turning off the logoff and shutdown sounds can speed up shutdowns by up to 400ms. In Microsoft’s words, “Every little bit counts”.

In addition, the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ feature that has been in many older versions of Windows has now been renamed to simply ‘Eject’ and Microsoft have also said they have added support for some firewire cameras which wouldn’t work in Windows 7 Beta.

They have also managed to shrink the page file in Windows 7 RC which means you’ll have a little bit of extra hard drive space to play with. And of course, Microsoft finished by saying they have enhanced the driver support in Windows 7 a little further.

All things to look forward to. You’ll be updated here on GEEK! as soon as any more news arrises.