Supersite

GoDaddy.com Launches New Hosted Microsoft Exchange

pthurrott — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:22:46 GMT

Here we go: This is, I believe, the first reasonably priced hosted Exchange service. Here’s the official press release:

GoDaddy.com, the world's largest domain registrar and largest hosting provider in North America, and Microsoft Corp. today announced that GoDaddy.com is delivering mobile and group e-mail plans with Microsoft Outlook, powered by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) improve worker productivity and communications regardless of physical location. The new e-mail plans from GoDaddy.com, including Personal Outlook, Outlook with Mobile, and Group Outlook with Mobile, give SMBs the ability to manage all of their online services from one place.

"We have many customers who currently use Microsoft Office Outlook for their e-mail. It was only natural that we expanded our offerings to include mobile and group e-mail plans with Microsoft Outlook," said GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. "Our goal is to be a one-stop shop for every customer. Business owners who want the advantage of Microsoft Outlook e-mail plans can rely on us, without worrying about system maintenance."

GoDaddy.com's e-mail plans allow small business owners to focus on improving the productivity of their business, instead of dealing with IT issues, by offering the following benefits:

-- On-the-go access to calendar, address books, tasks and e-mail on virtually any device, including the Web and mobile devices, as well as computers in the office or at home

-- Better collaboration through appointment scheduling, assigning tasks, delegating access to e-mail and a common address book - all core features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Entourage 2008

-- No upfront hardware and software costs for these services, which often can prevent SMBs from realizing the benefits of corporate-grade IT services and create challenges associated with help desk support and ongoing system maintenance

"This announcement with GoDaddy.com represents an exciting opportunity for business owners to leverage the resources of two industry leaders who understand the needs of businesses and their employees," said John Zanni, general manager of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft. "By expanding our existing partnership, GoDaddy.com is now providing its customers with the benefits of mobile e-mail and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, in addition to the reliable infrastructure and support that has made GoDaddy.com one of the top hosting services providers worldwide."

Pricing is $9.99 a month for a single account with 2 GB of storage, or $56.99 for up to five accounts with a total of 20 GB of storage.

MDOP 2008 R2 now available

pthurrott — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:44:49 GMT

Microsoft’s centralized desktop management tool has been updated to R2 and is now available to SA customers:

Just a week after my colleague Shanen Boettcher wrote about virtualization and its role in the Optimized Desktop, specifically announcing the RTM of Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, commonly called “App-V”, I’m proud to let you know that the entire MDOP 2008 R2 suite of products has officially reached RTM status! New and existing customers can get App-V 4.5 starting TODAY, and will be able to get the other MDOP 2008 R2 components the first week of October!

As Shanen noted in his blog post,” the Optimized Desktop eliminates the “tug-of-war” that exists between IT and end-user needs in a traditional desktop infrastructure.” We know that this is where IT is going, and today’s news plays a critical role in fulfilling that vision. In an Optimized Desktop, a partnership is established in which IT can constructively maintain control over the desktop infrastructure, without getting in the way of the users they’re supporting. With MDOP 2008 R2 and Windows Vista, you get a solution that’s greater than the sum of its parts…a “1+1=3” scenario where IT is controlled and managed, users are empowered and productive, and the pace of business accelerates.

There are a lot of new and very useful upgrades and improvements in MDOP 2008 R2 in addition to last week’s upgrade to App-V 4.5: Localisation, Asset Inventory Service 1.5, and Advanced Group Policy Management 3.0.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the end of our development cycle. Rather, it’s another milestone on our continuing mission to make 1 plus 1 always equal 3 (or more!) standard math when it comes to Desktops. Next, in the first half of 2009, we’re planning to release Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). MED-V, which will be the first Microsoft-branded release of the recently acquiredKidaro technology, will be a key addition to MDOP; it provides a secure, fast, manageable, local hardware virtualization solution that complements App-V, and will serve to further strengthen our “desktop to datacenter” virtualization story.

That MED-V release is really going to complete the circle. This is the future of Windows application compatibility. It’s amazing stuff.

The great virtualization experiment

pthurrott — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:05:42 GMT

I just purchased a Dell Optiplex 755 PC to use as a server in my home environment. This was necessitated by a few things, including the need to test Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 (see my recent screenshot gallery), Virtual Machine Manager 2008, Small Business Server 2008, and Essential Business Server 2008. These are complex products and they require a lot more on the hardware end than your typical software review.

The Optiplex has a 2.4 GHz quad-core processor (Intel Q6600) and 8 GB of RAM, and everything cost just over $1000 with taxes and shipping. It’s amazing how inexpensive PCs are these days. Right now it’s only got a single 250 GB hard drive, but I’m clearly going to need to increase capacity in the coming weeks. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Storage, of course, is very cheap as well.

I’ve only had the system for a day, but it’s proven to be nearly silent and amazingly fast. With the addition of a decent video card, it’d make a killer Vista x64 system. In fact, maybe I’ll head in that direction some day.

To save money, I purchased the system with Vista Home Basic and 512 MB of RAM, and purchased the 8 GB upgrade from Crucial. (The system was about $835 and the RAM was $175.) So what does Vista Home Basic look like with 8 GB of RAM (note that only 3.x GB is available since it was a 32-bit version)? It looks like this:

So that’s cute and everything, but the reason I got this box was to test Microsoft’s virtualization and server products. I loaded up Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 first and have to say, it’s a bit of a mess. It does nothing out of the box, and you have to manage it remotely. That’s fine, except that Microsoft’s downloadable Hyper-V Management tools for Vista don’t work out of the box either. You get a “can’t connect” message, and nothing in the documentation explains what you have to do to make it work. Searching the Web, I discovered that you have to enable a feature in what I consider to be a legacy control panel for DCOM, and, sorry, but that’s both silly and something the installation program for the tool should do for you. This stuff is head-scratchingly stupid.

Anyway, once you get things configured correctly, you can of course start installing virtual machines on Hyper-V Server, and remotely. And it works as advertised. But after doing that for a while, I decided to go with the full Windows Server 2008 system instead, adding Hyper-V to that. It’s just easier to sit down in front of the thing and get work done. The headless Hyper-V Server has some serious issues from a usability standpoint. Maybe that was on purpose, come to think of it. Sometimes you do get what you pay for.

Anyhoo… I’m loading up the server with virtual machines. I’ve got SBS 2008 up and running already, and will add Essential Business Server (Centro) this weekend. I’ve added a number of Vista clients as well, for testing. Here’s a shot from last night:

It seems really solid so far. More on this setup over time...

Nothing to see here: On the Zune experience popping up in other places

pthurrott — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:09:59 GMT

Smartphone Thoughts discusses a Steve Ballmer talk in London this week, in which the ever-leaky CEO mentions that the Zune experience will soon be popping up outside the traditional Zune ecosystem:

“At the end of the day, one of the big trends is that all content is going digital,” [Ballmer said. “And if we don't have the software and services that are useful, helpful and valuable for the consumption of music and video, we are sort of not really a player. Now, we built the Zune hardware with the Zune software - and what you'll see more and more over time is that the Zune software will also be ported to and be more important not just with the hardware but on the PC, on Windows Mobile devices, etc."

To be clear, this is no longer “news.” I first reported this in the “looking ahead” section of my own Zune 3 Preview, in which I wrote:

“Zune isn't just an MP3 player and a software experience,” Microsoft senior product manager Terry Farrell told me. “We think about what Zune means as a broader entertainment brand for Microsoft. So, sure, we can and will expand and refine the MP3 player business. We'll expand the software and broaden it out."

"But we also think a lot about connected entertainment. And that leads to external partnerships with groups like Windows and the Xbox. They're happing now, and that will move us beyond the base of just device owners. All this stuff we're doing isn't just for Zune devices going forward. We want to make the installed base excited, and we think we've done that with Zune 2 and 2.5, and we'll do it with Zune 3. But there's more going on there."

When pressed about what these secret plans might be, Farrell just laughed. "Sorry," he said. "That's a conversation for another day."

Compare the two quotes and you’ll see this was well-known a month ago. In other words, nothing new, sorry.

Plus Smartphone Thoughts ripped off my GMAIL/IMAP graphic, which I don’t really appreciate. :) j/k

Windows Cloud OS … And some new Office Live stuff

pthurrott — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:39:32 GMT

I’ve got a report coming today in WinInfo about Microsoft’s Windows Cloud OS plans:

Microsoft Confirms 'Windows Cloud' OS

At its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) event later this month, Microsoft will publicly unveil its 'Windows Cloud' Internet-based operating system, the company confirmed. I've been told several times by Microsoft representatives in the recent past that this system would in fact be the focus of PDC, this year.

"We need a new operating system designed for the cloud and we will introduce one in about four weeks," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said yesterday in London. "We'll even have a name to give you by then. But let's just call it for the purposes of today 'Windows Cloud.' Just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud look a lot like Windows Server.'"

This platform has been in the works for a long time, and the most obvious public face of Microsoft cloud work right now is the Live Mesh project that was championed by Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie. A session description for the PDC describes a "Microsoft cloud platform" that provides "scalability and availability" and "service isolation and protection."

In an official statement, Microsoft confirmed the coming platform. "Microsoft is investing heavily in its Software + Services vision, particularly as it relates to the services platform to deliver a set of solutions that address our customer's needs," an official statement reads. "We are working with many of our customers, partners and our broad developer community to understand their needs for extensible, scalable services platforms."

While Microsoft has been slowly and methodically embracing cloud computing for a few years now, this explicit admission that it is working on a Windows OS that runs in the Internet cloud should put an end to any naysaying. "We've gotta build a service that is Windows in the cloud," Ballmer said.

Yes you do, Steve. Yes, you do.

But there’s more. Zack Whittaker of ZDNet reports that Steve Ballmer also discuss some interesting upcoming additions to Office Live as well:

I asked him in the Q&A session about the future of Office Live and what’ll come next.

“Office Live has a few things left it needs to do. Number one, and probably most important, is to make sure that people using Office have greater ability to collaborate with one another. We have some of that today with [Office Live] Workspaces, as well as that we’ve got SharePoint; we can do more and some of those things will be better than the other alternatives.

Number two, is when we do Office Live, it has to be true to Office; you’ll need to be able to have full Office documents and programs and share them.

Number three, we have to make it so that - most people use Office most of the time from a single machine. But if you’re away from your desk, at a cafe, a kiosk or your school library, and you don’t have Office, you’ll want to be able to do something quickly; we have to make sure you can get it easily, stream it down, put it in a browser, something like that there… details coming in a few weeks.

So we have a number of things we’re doing. Exactly what we’ll announce I’m going to wait and let you guys sit it out until October 27th.”

Nice! :)

Is 360's Red Ring of Death finally fixed? Actually, probably not

pthurrott — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:17:53 GMT

I’ll believe it when I (don’t) see it, but CVG reports that Microsoft may have finally fixed its endemic Red Ring of Death (RROD) problems. Hey, the console’s only been out for three years.

New Xbox 360 models have been spotted using upgraded components, said to make the infamous Red Ring of Death a thing of the past.

The newest 360s are fitted with new 'Jasper' motherboards, says a report on Joey Gadget, as well as a new and improved graphics chip.

The upgraded components are smaller and emit less heat, according to the techies, which in turn should mean no more red lights on your 360, and less postman visits to send your console off to Xbox repairs.

The question, of course, is … is this even true? Looking at the comments section to the linked Joey Gadget site … probably not. Ah well.

Having recently purchased a 60 GB Xbox 360, I was however curious to see if it fell within the supposed range of Jasper-equipped systems mentioned above. It does not.

Thanks Sebastian V.

Gears of War 2-themed Zune 120

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:36:31 GMT

Cesar Menendez over at the Zune Insider took some pictures of the Gears of War 2-themed Zune 120. Which goes to show you: Microsoft continues to cross-market the Xbox 360 and Zune products even while the two don’t interoperate in any meaningful way. Which is a shame.

It’s a cool-looking Zune though. :)

Related: Press release

Related: Pre-order it on Amazon.com (It’s $30 more than a regular Zune 120??)

Microsoft Select Plus licensing arrives

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:16:10 GMT

From Microsoft via email:

In July 2008, we announced Microsoft Select Plus was coming on the horizon, and now we are excited to let you know the program is available to mid-sized and enterprise-level customers in on October 1, 2008. This new program will be one of the most customer friendly volume licensing programs to date, and enhance the process for customers by creating simpler contracts that never expire and providing more flexibility and manageability.

Starting October 1, 2008, Microsoft Volume Licensing will be offering Select Plus, providing customers with more flexibility, better asset management, a way to balance growing technology needs with predictable costs, and a smooth path to achieving better ROI with Software Assurance.

Customer Focused -- Driven by customer research, Microsoft Select Plus is designed for midsize and large customers who want to purchase their software licenses and services at any business unit level, while realizing advantages of one organization. Since the agreement never expires, customers do not need to renegotiate and renew agreements every three years.

More flexibility -- When it comes to buying software licenses and getting the most value from their software investment, customers have asked for a Microsoft Volume Licensing solution that offers more flexibility, better asset management, and a way to balance growing technology needs with predictable costs.

This evolution has kept Microsoft Licensing at the forefront of the industry, setting a standard of value for their customers that other technology vendors strive to achieve. The market is changing and our goal is to anticipate the evolving needs of our customers.

A few examples of how Microsoft has been doing this over the last several months include: The revision of virtualization licensing policies to improve application mobility, and the continued addition of valuable services to the Software Assurance program with SharePoint Deployment Planning Services.

More information about Select Plus and other Microsoft Volume Licensing programs is available at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing as well as http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/SelectPlus.

Microsoft updates its application server technologies

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 17:44:12 GMT

From Microsoft via email:

Today, the Connected Systems Division announced a set of new enhancements coming in .NET Framework and Windows Server, including key enhancements to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in the .NET Framework 4.0 release and an enhanced set of application server capabilities in Windows Server codenamed “Dublin.”

Windows Communication Foundation 4.0: Microsoft is adding new capabilities to WCF to further simplify the creation of RESTful services, including REST Singleton & Collection Services, ATOM Feed and Publishing Protocol Services, and support for an HTTP Plain XML Service. Additional messaging and correlation enhancements enable customers to work with the most recent transports and protocols. By further extending WCF to enable seamless integration between WF and WCF and enabling a unified XAML model, developers can build an entire application in declarative XAML code from presentation to data to services to workflow.

Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0: Applications built using WF will realize significant improvements in performance (on the order of ten-fold performance enhancements) and scalability. There are also new workflow models and pre-built activities (PowerShell, messaging, etc.). An updated visual designer will be easier to use by developers to use and be easier to rehost by ISVs.

“Dublin”: This consists of a set of enhancements to Windows Server application server capabilities that – when combined with WCF/WF 4.0 –represent a major step forward for our application server. “Dublin” will offer greater scalability and easier manageability, and will extend Internet Information Services (IIS) to provide a standard host for applications that use workflow or communications.

Taken together, these enhancements will extend the power of Microsoft’s application server and simplify the development, deployment, configuration, management, and scalability of composite applications. Microsoft will be providing a first CTP of these technologies at PDC, and we encourage customers and partners to take the opportunity to evaluate and provide feedback on these new capabilities. We will also be releasing some of the REST enhancements separately via Codeplex to allow for early trial and adoption via our WCF REST Starter Kit.

For more information on this announcement, please visit Steven Martin’s blog.

Apple drops the iPhone NDA

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:57:27 GMT

Let the leaks begin. :)

Apple:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Thanks Sebastian.

Tonight: Windows 7 presentation

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:59:18 GMT

I’ll be discussing Windows 7 (and a few other topics; see below) at the Boston Area Windows Server User Group this evening, so if you’re in the area, come on down. Here are the details about the location and event:

Boston Area Windows Server User Group
Wednesday October 1, 2008 6:00 PM
Microsoft Waltham- 201 Jones Road - 6th Floor MPR-A
Directions:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/info/usaoffices/newengland/waltham.mspx

Paul Thurrott - Paul is the guy behind SuperSite for Windows (www.winsupersite.com) and is WindowsITPro's News Editor. Come hear Paul discuss Windows 7.

6:00-7:00 - Pizza, Networking, Meeting Formalities, "Tech-Tips Live"
7:00-7:50 - Paul Thurrott on Windows 7, Part 1
7:50-8:00 - Short Break
8:00-9:00 - Paul Thurrott on Windows 7, Part 2
9:00-9:10 - Standard Raffle (including 5 signed copies of Paul's latest book "Windows Vista Secrets")
9:15ish - Premium Member Raffle! Premium members have a chance to win an iPod Nano.

I had hoped to be able to show a recent build of Windows 7 by the time of the presentation, but that won't be happening, so I’ll focus the discussion on what’s permissible, and I’ll be posting the actual presentation to the SuperSite tomorrow. But I’ll also be discussing Microsoft’s strategy around its Essential Server Solutions products—Windows Home Server, Windows Small Business Server 2008, and Windows Essential Business Server 2008—and how these products compare and can be used in different environments. I also hope to have time to discuss a virtualization project I’m working on involving Hyper-V and some of the aforementioned ESS products.

In any event, I hope you can make it. If not, the presentation will be posted tomorrow.

Some NBC and Fox Online Shows have Closed Captioning

pthurrott — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:50:09 GMT

Lance Pickett notes that some TV networks are adding closed captioning to the Web-based versions of their TV show episodes:

I'm a big fan of NBC's Heroes and I was very excited when I found out that NBC offered Closed Captioning on selected shows (Heroes is one of them)! I'd like to personally thank NBC for making Closed Caption possible on some shows, especially Heroes.

Fox also has some online videos with Closed Caption options available to a limited selection of online videos. But hey, it's a start! I'm just excited to see the CC technology grow. I will continue to hope that the CC video libraries online will continue to grow.

So again, my sincere thanks to the studios that offer Closed Caption. Anyone reading this can check it out at www.nbc.com andwww.fox.com. I prefer the NBC Captioning style and TV shows selections better. Now, if only I could figure out how to get those shows with CC into my AppleTV or iPhone.

Bravo. And thanks to R. Brian W. for the tip.

Windows 7 sessions at PDC

pthurrott — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:53:49 GMT

Those interested in the next version of Windows can find a few clues to its contents in the descriptions of the Windows 7 sessions planned for next month’s PDC in Los Angeles. These include:

Windows 7: Web Services in Native Code

Windows 7 introduces a new networking API with support for building SOAP based web services in native code. This session discusses the programming model, interoperability aspects with other implementations of WS-* protocols, and demonstrates various services and applications built using this API.

Windows 7: Extending Battery Life with Energy Efficient Applications

A single application can accidentally halve battery life for the average laptop. This session demonstrates best practices for designing energy efficient applications and shows utilities for diagnosing common application battery life problems. Learn about how Windows 7 makes it easier for developers to design energy-efficient applications which do not negatively impact mobile PC battery life.

Windows 7: Developing Multi-touch Applications

In Windows 7, innovative touch and gesture support will enable more direct and natural interaction in your applications. This session highlights the new multi-touch gesture APIs and explains how you can leverage them in your applications.

Windows 7: Writing Your Application to Shine on Modern Graphics Hardware

This session centers on the new enhancements to DirectX that enable Win32 applications harness the latest innovations in modern graphics hardware. Learn how to use the Windows 7 graphics infrastructure to enable your applications to display graphics content on different generations of graphics hardware, across multiple displays and on a remote desktop. Also learn how you can test your application for DPI awareness, what to look for, and how to make it provide the best experience on high-DPI displays.

Windows 7: Unlocking the GPU with Direct3D

Learn how to use the latest version of Direct3D to unlock the rendering and computing power of the GPU and to target the wide variety of hardware used by your customers. Learn techniques for integrating this high-performance 3D graphics pipeline within your Win32 applications.

Windows 7: Building Great Communications Applications

TBD

Windows 7: New Shell User Experience APIs

TBD

Windows 7: Benefiting from Documents and Printing Convergence

Discover how updating your printing infrastructure to XPS allows your application to seamlessly bridge across both electronic and physical paper and benefit from new document workflow and interoperability scenarios.

Windows 7: New APIs to Find, Visualize, and Organize

TBD

Developing for Microsoft Surface

This session introduces the newly available Microsoft Surface SDK. Hear about the unique attributes of Microsoft Surface computing, dive into vision-based object recognition and core controls like ScatterView, and learn how the Surface SDK aligns with the multi-touch developer roadmap for Windows 7 and WPF. Additionally, learn how you can become a part of the expanding partner ecosystem for Microsoft Surface and leverage your existing investments in WPF and Visual Studio to build engaging end user applications. Attendees will receive access to the Microsoft Surface SDK.

Windows 7: New Text and Graphics APIs

TBD

Windows 7: Designing Efficient Background Processes

Inefficient background activity has a dramatic impact on system performance, power consumption, responsiveness, and memory footprint. This session demonstrates best practices for background process design and dives deep on the capabilities of the Service Control Manager (SCM) and Task Scheduler. It also covers how to use new Windows 7 infrastructure to develop efficient background tasks.

Windows 7: Design Principles for Windows 7

Together, we can increase customer enthusiasm, satisfaction and loyalty by designing user experiences that are both desirable and harmonious. In this session we introduce the Windows User Experience Principles approach to shipping software. Along the way we share stories and lessons learned along the journey of designing the user model and experience for Windows 7, and leave you with a set of principles that you can apply as you build your applications for Windows.

Windows 7: Integrate with the Windows 7 Desktop Taskbar

This session dives into new APIs that enable integration with the latest Windows desktop features. Learn about new extensibility methods to surface your application's key tasks. Discover how enhancements to the taskbar, Start Menu, thumbnails and their desktop elements provide new ways for you to delight your users. This talk is a must for application developers who wan to provide the best user experience for their applications on Windows 7.

Windows 7: Welcome to the Windows 7 Desktop

The Windows desktop is evolving--is your application ready to evolve also? This session sets the stage for exciting enhancements to the taskbar, Start Menu, and other desktop elements.

Windows 7: New APIs for Building Context-Aware Applications

TBD

Windows 7: Deploying Your Application with Windows Installer (MSI) and ClickOnce

If you are a developer involved in the creation of application deployment packages using Windows Installer (MSI) or ClickOnce, this session is for you. Learn how you can take advantage of new features in Windows 7 to shorten application installation times, reduce UAC prompts, write less custom code, take less time to write installations for complex packages, and much more!

Windows 7: Deep Dive: What's New with user32 and comctl32 in Win32

Hear about the lowest level user interface components (user32, comctl32) that appear in almost every Windows application. Learn about "recent" changes and enhancements in these subsystems, plus be subjected to some philosophical musings on how foreground activation is like love. (No really, it will actually help you write better software.)

Windows 7: Programming Sync Providers That Work Great with Windows

Learn how you can enable your application to synchronize with other applications that use the Microsoft Sync Framework. This session covers how to implement sync for contacts and other PIM data, how to package sync providers for distribution and installation, and how to register sync provider for use on Windows.

Windows 7: Using Instrumentation and Diagnostics to Develop High Quality Software

Learn how to enhance the quality and supportability of your software during developing and deployment using the Windows 7 instrumentation and diagnostic platforms. This session focuses on key aspects of the event and performance counter infrastructures, and discusses best practices around adding instrumentation to your code. We introduce the new Windows PowerShell-based diagnostic platform, and how it enables you to easily monitor multiple data sources to empower the end user and IT pro to detect and resolve software problems.

Windows 7: Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User

The application development requirements in Windows 7 for UAC-compatibility are exactly the same as in Windows Vista: Vista-compatible applications will interact with UAC in Windows 7 without any modification. No new APIs are required or provided. The UAC improvements for Windows 7 will impact the user's experience but not the application interface. Logo requirements regarding UAC compatibility are the same as in Vista.

Windows 7: Writing World-Ready Applications

This session centers on globalization features for Windows 7, including sorting and string comparison, locale support, and coverage for new languages, with an eye to helping developers extend their applications to a global user base. This session introduces the Extended Linguistic Services API, the next step in the evolution of globalization support for Windows developers. This session also covers the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) technology inside Windows 7 and .NET, and walks you through an end-to-end look at how to make your application MUI-enabled so that you can easily take your application worldwide and extend your customer base into new language markets.

The number of TBDs in there is sort of interesting. My guess is that this is a secrecy thing, though the general language used in some other session descriptions suggests its possible to describe something without describing it at all, so why not just do the same for all of these?

New Windows Live Hotmail arrives…

pthurrott — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:19:19 GMT

… just not for everyone. Apparently, Microsoft is rolling it out in phases because of the enormous size of their user base. Here’s a post from the folks at Windows Live Wire (the official Microsoft Live blog) describing the update, which does indeed look sweet:

Hotmail update coming soon

It’s late September already, and time for that inevitable question: what did you do on your summer vacation? Well, this summer, the Hotmail team and I were hard at work on a new version of Hotmail, and we’re super excited to start rolling it out to you very soon.

Here’s a sneak peak at some of the changes.

A great new look – We’ve done a little remodeling, and we think Hotmail looks much, much nicer and is easier to use. We did a lot of testing around the world to see what people liked and didn’t like. We’re really excited about the final results, and we hope you like it too! There’s also a whole new set of vibrant themes that replace our old color schemes.

Classic & Full, together at last! – Our clever developers figured out how to take the performance of the Classic version of Hotmail, and combine it with features of the Full version, in a single experience. Now everyone gets the same features. You don’t have to trade off speed for functionality or decide which version is better for you. If you have been using the Full version, you’ll see much faster page load times, and if you have been using Classic, you now get to use the reading pane, drag & drop, and other features formerly limited to the Full version.

A contact list that’s more than just contacts – Our contact list is now much more useful. Besides a new layout and improved look, we added features that are both fun and time-saving.

Fun - If your Messenger contacts have a display picture, that picture will appear in your list.

Time-saving - When you view a contact, you can see recent e-mail they’ve sent you, send them a message from right in the contact page, and view items from across Windows Live that you’ve shared together.

Now THAT’s something to write home about! – We completely redesigned the experience of composing a new message. We have brand new auto-complete functionality for e-mail addresses, and a new contact picker that even detects commonly misspelled addresses. There is a new way to attach files and a new spell-checker that we think are much easier to use (especially if you were using Classic – no need to go to a new page to attach files anymore!). The text editor is completely rewritten, and we fixed a bunch of bugs – right-click now works!

Updated Calendar beta – If you aren’t using the Calendar beta yet, now’s a great time to try it. Calendar sharing, an automatically generated birthday calendar for people in your contact list, a holiday calendar, iCal subscriptions to public calendars, to-do lists, and much, much more await you. Go to http://calendar.live.com, or go to Hotmail and click Calendar under “Related places” to sign up.

There is more to this release that I haven’t yet mentioned, including greater speed and more powerful spam fighting, and even more improvements coming soon (but I’ll save those for a later post that my boss is going to do.)

If you haven’t used your Hotmail account in a while, check out the changes at http://mail.live.com. You can also sign up for a new account from there.

I think this version is a big improvement in both appearance and performance, so I hope you love it!

- Mike Schackwitz, Lead Program Manager, Windows Live Hotmail

Microsoft has been working on combining the "Classic” and “full” Hotmail experiences for years; in fact, their goal was to do so in the original revamp from a few years ago. But they got a lot of complaints from Hotmail old-timers. My guess is this won’t end.

Still, it looks great. I just wish I could use it.

Xbox Live, Zune services down today

pthurrott — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:24:27 GMT

And for some reason, the conspiracy theorists are out in force. But there’s nothing to it, really: Microsoft says it is just updating its infrastructure to support the November launch of the new Xbox Experience. (Zune and Xbox run on the same back-end.)

Here’s the Zune perspective (via email):

The Zune service will be down for scheduled maintenance on Monday, September 29, 2008 from 12:01am Pacific Time, for up to 48 hours. During the downtime, Zune Social, the forums on Zune.net, and all of Zune Marketplace will be offline.
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause you.

Please check back soon. We look forward to sharing our picks, plays, and recommendations with you in the Zune Social and in Zune Marketplace shortly!

Sincerely,
Your Friends at Zune

And from the Xbox guys:

Xbox Live Service Maintenance

On Monday, 9/29/2008 from 12:01 AM PST for up to 24 hours, Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, Xbox LIVE and the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions.

This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available later this fall.

Let me reiterate: When the service returns, you will not have any new features and you will not have the new Xbox experience update. That will happen later this Fall.

Nothing to see here, in other words.

Halo 3 updates

pthurrott — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:31:23 GMT

So a year after Microsoft shipped Halo 3, its developer, Bunjie, is teasing people with information about a just-released Title Update 2 (TU2), which adds a number of new multiplayer-related achievements to the game, and an upcoming new mini-campaign, which has yet to be named. Here’s the info:

TU2 FAQ

There are a lot of common questions surfacing in our forums in the wake of the recently released title update. In an effort to address these queries in one fell swoop, here is the official TU2 FAQ. We will update this with new information as needed.

Q: Bungie only talked about 10 achievements and 250 gamer points but Xbox.com shows many more achievements for Halo 3 now and a total of 750 new points to earn. What’s up with that?

A: The work for the Halo 3 Title Update and the new achievements began long, long ago. At that time, we had one view of the future of Halo 3 and a general plan for how, when and where some of the remaining multiplayer maps would get released. Those plans have since changed. We do have new maps still coming to Halo 3 but the release specifics are still being worked out with our partners. We didn’t want to delay the release of TU2 as there are still a lot of cool things about it that do benefit players immediately so we decided to forge ahead. The downside is that you now have to stare at mysterious achievements with no context until all is revealed at a later date. Rest assured though that they aren’t going anywhere, they will still be there, ready to be earned when the time is right.

Teaser Trailer

We hope you haven't dedicated too much time and stress to this 12-hour long countdown event.
We're excited to finally share this with you.
Enjoy this CG-teaser.

Um. OK.

The Cell Phone Wars

pthurrott — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:47:32 GMT

Slate has an interesting comparison of Apple’s very closed model with the iPhone and Google’s very open model with Android:

In the two months since the App Store's launch, Apple has rejected several programs for seemingly arbitrary reasons that it won't disclose. Developers havegrumbled about this capriciousness, but until now they've had no real alternative—iPhone and iPod Touch owners have already downloaded 100 million apps through the App Store, making Apple the Wal-Mart of mobile software.

And then along came Sergey Brin and Larry Page. On Tuesday, the Google founders unveiled the G1, the first phone based on Google's new mobile operating system, Android. The phone, which will go on sale in late October, is manufactured by the Taiwanese company HTC and is being offered exclusively through T-Mobile, but Google's software will soon make its way to other phones and other carriers across the globe. Google says that Android embodies principles of "radical openness." Unlike Apple, the company will let developers create any mobile apps they please. Google has also persuaded carriers to allow users to run any apps they like—including voice-over-IP software like Skype, which carriers have traditionally resisted because it lets you make calls without running up cellular minutes.

Watching Google and Apple carve out space in the mobile business, one can hardly avoid thinking that history is repeating itself. In the 1970s and '80s, Apple created the first great personal computers. But because Apple closed its platform, it was IBM, Dell, HP, and especially Microsoft that reaped the benefits of Apple's innovations. The Mac's operating system ran only on Mac computers; Windows ran on lots of lots of different companies' hardware. This made non-Apple computers both cheaper than Apple's machines—competition between hardware manufacturers pushed down prices—and more useful, as third-party developers flocked to write must-have programs for Windows. Apple seems to be following a similar restrictive strategy with the iPhone.

Google's Android OS is "open" in two distinct ways. First, Google has released the software under an open-source license, allowing hardware manufacturers to customize Android for different phones. Second, Android is open to third-party apps; Google and the carriers will make sure that apps do not violate the law or harm people's phones, but other than that, they promise to impose few restrictions.

There's [nothing] defensible about Apple's rejections of iPhone apps. It got rid of I Am Rich, a $1,000 program that did nothing, and Pull My Finger, a fart-joke app, for "limited utility"—which would be understandable if so many iPhone Apps weren't pretty limited. (How did Apple decide that a program that turns your phone into a flashlight is more useful than a program that turns your phone into a whoopee cushion?) Apple also rejected a comic book app called Murderdrome because its contents were too violent—even though it offers extremely violent movies in the iTunes Store. And it blocked an e-mail client because it competed with the iPhone's built-in e-mail app, a transparently anti-competitive move.

Apple seems to be pursuing a strategy of just-open-enough—permissive enough to keep programmers writing code and to keep customers buying software but still locked-down enough to let Apple control the platform's larger direction.

It’s hard for me to defend Apple on this one, mostly because they’re not being transparent about what is and is not allowed. And the anticompetitive nature of not allowing a third party email application should be obvious to anyone, even the iCabal. That’s just not right, no matter what your concerns are. I certainly don’t want to be locked into Apple’s disastrous MobileMe/Mail.app/iTunes system. Who would?

The Android platform, of course, is interesting specifically because there are no restrictions. It’s even doubly interesting to me personally because I happen to use a lot of Google services, but let’s be honest here: Android will be a better platform for all non-Apple services, specifically because Google won’t move to block a Hotmail-compatible native email application like Apple will, or whatever.

Of course, this is all slice-in-time stuff. I’m not switching to T-Mobile just to get a G1. But I do see an Android phone in m future, unless Apple-or Microsoft—wakes up and does this right thing.

Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1

pthurrott — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:40:05 GMT

Microsoft is updating its Expression Blend product to support Silverlight 2. Here’s the info:

Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 will directly and seamlessly patch the previously installed version of Expression Blend 2 to utilize the newest designer/developer technology and enhance overall user experience. This will be a free of charge service pack for Blend 2 that will provide full authoring support of Silverlight 2. Customers who have been using either the Expression Blend 2 Trial or Expression Blend 2.5 Preview will receive an additional 60 days to test Expression Blend 2 once the Service Pack has been installed.

This Service Pack will provide, at no extra cost, full support of Silverlight 2, similar to the authoring environment that Expression Blend 2.5 Preview users have been experiencing. In addition, the Service Pack will not disrupt developer or designer workflow, and will continue to support current Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight authoring.

By leveraging the full power of the desktop and Web, Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1 will allow developers and designers to work together to deliver big-impact, high-performance Web user experiences that drive brand recognition and repeat use.

To find out more about Expression Studio 2 and Expression Blend 2, please visit the Expression Studio website at:www.microsoft.com/expression.

Virtual Earth 6.2

pthurrott — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:20:09 GMT

Microsoft sends word of a new version of Virtual Earth: Microsoft released some updates to the Virtual Earth platform and Live Search Maps today. For more information, you can visit Virtual Earth Technical Evangelist Chris Pendleton’s blog post:

If you follow Microsoft Virtual Earth I'm sure you've picked up some blog posts that posted some of the features for this release, but those posts mysteriously disappeared. Information leaked out and you wondered, "Was that real?" Well, finally the definitive source on the new Virtual Earth Web Service and the new Virtual Earth Map Control 6.2 I deliver to you. If you want to skip the descriptor and just get coding you'll be happy to know the Virtual Earth AJAX Control SDK on MSDN, as well as, the Virtual Earth Interactive SDK have both been updated.

New Mobile Support
Users can now build mobile applications with Virtual Earth, which offers more features and enhancements to support mobile platforms such as, Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry and Apple iPhone. Rich imagery creates immersive mobile end-user experiences that bring location-based information to life.

Enhanced International Opportunities
This latest release of Virtual Earth provides more support and more detail for more countries around the world. Enjoy the functionality and features of Virtual Earth in a broader range of countries.

Richer Data: See More in the Platform
The Virtual Earth platform is designed for the enterprise and public sector user, from features to support. This 6.2 release enhances the platform infrastructure with new geocoding and parsing improvements, as well as more detail revealed in relevant ways.

Enhanced Functionality: Do More in the Platform
The latest release of the Virtual Earth platform offers a richer user experience and more intuitive functionality. There are more ways for customers to search for more types of mapping information, in ways that are tailored to their individual needs.

HP MediaSmart customers can add RAM without voiding warranty

pthurrott — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:49:10 GMT

Huge announcement from HP today, at least for those who have first-generation Windows Home Server-based MediaSmart Servers, which ship with 512 MB of RAM. HP is allowing customers to upgrade the RAM, an involved process that involves delving into a pretty tight and intricately-packed space, without voiding the warranty. This is a big deal because if the past year has proven anything, once you start installing add-ons in WHS, RAM becomes a serious issue. Here are the details:

HP customers can now upgrade the memory on HP MediaSmart Servers without voiding the HP warranty.

Based on customer feedback, HP will now offer a path for consumers to upgrade the memory on the HP MediaSmart Server without voiding the hardware warranty. HP customer feedback and research shows that some customers are installing multiple add-ins and/or additional software to the MediaSmart Server, which can lead to a need for additional memory.

Details

Upgrading the memory, in and of itself, will not void the warranty on the MediaSmart Server. Damage to any part of the MediaSmart Server during the upgrade may violate the warranty, however, leaving the cost for repairs the responsibility of the customer. Customers should perform a backup to an external device before adding additional memory.

HP is only providing information on a customer memory upgrade path at this time, and customers will not be able to send their MediaSmart Server to HP to perform the upgrade. Customers may be able to find technical assistance for the memory upgrade, however HP is not recommending or training authorized resellers to conduct the memory upgrade on a MediaSmart Server. HP has not qualified any particular DIMMs, but compatible memory includes 1GB or 2GB - DDR2 667 MHz DIMMs. Customers should not upgrade beyond 2 GB of memory. Other than disk drives, HP does not support any other hardware upgrade paths, such as processor upgrades, on the MediaSmart Server.

Slimmer Xbox 360 spied in the wild? Sorry, but no

pthurrott — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:19:21 GMT

So I was amused to see an Engadget story today about what appears to be a slimmer new Xbox 360 in the background of a photo I took of a Microsoft Arc Mouse. (I was actually just trying to show how small the mouse was, but whatever.) Anyways, here it is...

We received an interesting tip that we thought we'd share with the group. Windows expert and all-around bon vivant Paul Thurrott recently previewed Microsoft's new Arc mouse on his personal blog, detailing the device with a handful of photos. In the final shot of the series, what appear to be two Xboxes side-by-side can be seen in the lower right-hand corner... but one of those consoles looks thinner than the other. The appearance of what might be a slimmer Xbox 360 has (needless to say) sparked a debate amongst our editors here. Some say it's nothing -- a matter of angle -- while others argue that this could be just the scenario in which you'd see a leak of a new form factor. Either way, you can't simply brush off the differences here, and a little Photoshop matching on our end proved that these edges are decidedly different in angle. So we put it to the Engadget reader: is this a sign of things to come, or just our imaginations running wild?

Oh, I wish this were a slimmer Xbox 360, I really do. But it isn’t, sorry. And I can prove it, since nothing has changed down on the floor of my office since I took that original photo (including the MU, which is still sitting on top of my red-ringed 360). Here are the same two Xbox 360s from a different angle:

But thanks for the kinds words.

VMware Server 2.0 and VMware Workstation 6.5 RTM

pthurrott — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:41:51 GMT

If you’re of the VMWare persuasion, you will be interested to know that the final versions of VMware Server 2.0 and VMware Workstation 6.5 are now available for download.

You can find both releases on VMWare’s Download pages (Workstation | VMWare Server).

Thanks to Yogesh S. for the tip!

STAR WARS The Force Unleashed ... for the iPhone??

pthurrott — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:27:17 GMT

So I’ve begun playing STAR WARS The Force Unleashed on the Xbox 360 and will review it soon, hopefully. But I noticed the other day that there was a version of the game for the iPhone and, since I’m an idiot STAR WARS fan, I thought, what the heck. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. (The Xbox 360 game, so far, seems average. But it nicely advances the STAR WARS storyline in excellent fashion.)

Well, go figure, but this game is pretty amazing. The graphics are excellent. It actually supports the accelerometer fully, so you can play it in either portrait or landscape mode, your choice, and you can switch on the fly at any time. Obviously, the game can’t duplicate the full game play of the console versions. But I like what they’ve done. Essentially, you use certain finger swipes across the screen to control various Force powers. It’s decent, and it’s a neat example of fitting an existing title into the form factor and processing restrictions of a very different platform. In some ways, it’s quite a bit more impressive than the console version.

Here are a few shots.

OK, I realize these are just introductory screens. But seriously. I’d love to see someone try that on a Windows Mobile device. It’s pretty impressive.

Microsoft actually updates Ultimate Extras (Updated)

pthurrott — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:52:14 GMT

It must be a full moon or something because Microsoft actually updated Windows Vista Ultimate Extras today for the first time in, well, forever.

There are three updates:

Microsoft Tinker – A new game

Ultimate Extra Sounds from Microsoft Tinker – A new sound theme based on the game

Windows DreamScape Content Pack #4 – Three new animated backgrounds

I’ll be back in a second when I know what this junk is. :) But my guess is, yeah, it’s junk.

Update: Tinker is a game. Here’s a shot:

And if the game isn’t lame enough, that DreamScape content pack includes three almost identical backgrounds. Geesh. They look like this:

OK, everyone. Back to sleep. :) Sorry about that.

How to set up a new PC in one easy session

pthurrott — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:57:59 GMT

Ed Bott takes on the task of starting off fresh with a new PC and, always, offers up some great advice. This is one to file away for that eventual do-over.

Over the years, I’ve done this process dozens of times for business clients, family members, friends, and neighbors. I’ve got the process down to a series of checklists, all built around some core principles. First, this is a great opportunity to get rid of clutter and get a fresh start. Second, the best way to transfer data from the old machine to the new one is by physically attaching the old hard drive to the new PC. And finally, spending time upfront figuring out what needs to be transferred and what doesn’t can save hours of time and headaches later.

Trying to do large-scale data transfers with USB flash drives and cables can be problematic, especially on old, slow, problem-plagued machines. Why spend hours moving tens or hundreds of gigabytes of data from the old machine to a USB drive only to have to do it again with the new PC? Skip the two-step and do what I do: bring along a SATA/IDE-to-USB converter. Newegg sells Syba’s version of this device for around $20 including shipping. I own a couple and can recommend them without hesitation. An external power supply feeds the DC connector on the drive, and a two-headed adapter lets you connect any SATA or IDE drive directly to a USB port on the new PC. While the contents of the old computer are transferring to a folder on the new PC, you can tackle other tasks.

That tidbit alone is worth the price of admission. Good stuff!

...

This [entire process] rarely takes more than a few hours, and when I’m done the client has usually learned some important skills along the way, making it more likely that they’ll be able to steer clear of trouble in the future.

Exactly. Anyone who makes more of this is just wasting their time. I have to continually re-install PCs because of all the testing I do, and while certain tasks (installing Windows, apps) do take some time, that’s not something a typical user will do very often. This isn’t as painful as people make it out to be.