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Oct

29

Post PDC Keynote: What are people saying about Windows 7?

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I thought it might be nice to do a little round-up of what folks are saying about Windows 7 after today’s keynote here at the PDC in Los Angeles. I’d like to share some of the best ones we’ve found so far. We’re not trying to “toot” our own horn here – many of these folks are extremely critical of what we do with Windows so what they say is very important to us.

This is what Ed Bott from ZDNet had to say:

“This loaner machine certainly doesn’t feel like it’s running pre-beta code. It’s wicked fast and eerily quiet thanks to a solid state drive. In a very long day’s worth of use it has yet to crash or display any of the flaky behavior you might expect from a beta.”

Ed, it was a pleasure seeing you again at PDC!

Peter Bright at ArsTechnica says:

“Windows 7 may not change much under the hood, but the extent of these interface changes makes it clear that this is very much a major release.”

That was from Peter’s post that has enjoyed the top spot on Techmeme today for most of the day.

Lance Ulanoff from PC Magazine says:

“It (MSFT) ignored the advice of dozens of pundits and is now playing out a script that, in the end, could make the company look like a band of geniuses.”

Paul Thurrott says:

“Well, let me ruin the surprise up front. Windows 7 is Windows Vista done right. If you're already a fan of Windows Vista, you'll love Windows 7 because it's a better rendition of that earlier OS. If you're a Vista hater, take heart: The makers of Windows 7 have reevaluated virtually everything about Vista and made changes small and large across the board. The result is a better Windows, no matter how you slice it.”

Today was Paul’s birthday - at least according to his Windows Live profile. Happy birthday Paul! Paul has been doing “exhaustive” reviews of Windows for a while now.

Jason Brooks from eWeek says:

“In the day and a half I’ve spent using Windows 7 on a Microsoft-provided Dell XPS M1330 machine preinstalled with Build 6801 of the OS, I’ve found its polish and performance a world away from the first Longhorn build I tried out at PDC 2003. At this point, Windows 7 feels more like a second beta or an early release candidate than a developer conference sneak peek.”

Andre Da Costa from ActiveWin says:

“It’s safe to say I am overwhelmed, overjoyed and most of all excited about Windows 7. This is the release of Windows everybody has been waiting for, it’s what Vista was meant to be and beyond that. Windows 7 puts the user first… This is an upgrade I am looking forward to and you should too.”

Robert McLaws from Windows-Now says:

“The Sunday before PDC, I was given the opportunity to join about 200 other journalists for a workshop on Windows 7. Lead by the dynamic (as well as unusually candid and often very self-effacing) duo of Mike Nash and Steven Sinofsky (surprisingly enough, he didn’t try to have me killed… sweet!), we were given a six hour tour of the much anticipated follow-up to Windows Vista. I didn’t know what to expect, and I walked away with the feeling I got after seeing Longhorn for the first time. yes, I believe it was just that good.”

Both Windows-Now and ActiveWin are Windows Featured Community members.

Wilson Rothman from Gizmodo says:

“…even the early build of Windows 7 feels like a fast, stable environment. There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make the OS more usable, one monumental improvement being how video memory is allocated for unseen windows. (Hint: It's not.) The result is a highly responsive machine that gets decent battery life.”

Now that folks have the Pre-Beta build of Windows 7 and with WinHEC coming up – we expect to see ever more discussion from folks on putting Windows 7 to the test.

Oct

28

The Complete Windows Experience – Windows 7 + Windows Live

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

I love Windows Live by itself with all the new Windows Live web services and the application suite. But the Windows 7 + Windows Live connection is looking even more exciting. Here at PDC we’re talking about how Windows 7 + Windows Live will “complete the Windows Experience” together. Because this *is* the Windows Experience Blog – I feel it is important to highlight and emphasize this a bit. Matter a fact, Steven Sinofsky highlighted this during his keynote today as part of Microsoft’s commitment to software + services.

Microsoft has learned that many end-user experiences need to be updated more frequently. Instead of waiting for the next Windows release, we began delivering updated versions of the Windows Live applications to improve those end-user experiences.

While this was a great way to improve the Windows experience for users, many of these updates in Windows Live Wave 2 seemed duplicative of applications already in Windows.

To address this, Microsoft will now only ship these applications (which include Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Windows Live Writer and now Windows Live Movie Maker) as part of the Windows Live Essentials Suite.


Windows Live Messenger


Windows Live Mail


Windows Live Photo Gallery


Windows Live Movie Maker

 
Windows Live Family Safety Filter

The Windows Live Essentials suite has been in public beta since September and available for you to try at download.live.com. You can read my post here on the new Windows Live experiences seen in these betas.

I look forward to talking more about the Windows 7 + Windows Live experience and how it completes the Windows Experience here in the future.

Oct

28

How Libraries & HomeGroup Work Together in Windows 7

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Windows 7 pre-beta build and I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are many new features that I personally am excited about that I hope to blog about over time. To kick things off I wanted to discuss the several new features in Windows 7 that make managing and sharing your files on your home network a much easier experience than ever before. Using Windows 7’s Libraries along with its HomeGroup network sharing feature, I was able to share content with other PC users on my home network. I’m going to go into detail on my experience with Libraries and setting up a HomeGroup on my network with Windows 7 to illustrate these new features for you. And believe it or not… it all starts with the relatively minor changes made to the naming of folders within User Profiles in Windows 7.

One of the things you’ll notice first is the User Profile folder structure in Windows 7 has changed a little bit from what was seen in Windows Vista.

In Windows Vista: Documents, Downloads, Photos, Videos, and Music

In Windows 7: Personal Documents, Personal Downloads, Personal Photos, Personal Videos, and Personal Music.

The naming also changed in the Public User Profile: Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Photos, Public Videos, and Public Music.

These folder structure changes were made to accommodate a new Windows Explorer feature in Windows 7 called Libraries. Libraries exist in the Navigation Pane of Windows Explorer which has been updated for Windows 7. In Windows 7, users are given Libraries that consist of multiple “library locations” or folders from both their User Profile and Public User Profile.

For example: the Documents Library in Windows 7 consists of your Personal Documents folder under your profile and the Public Documents folder – or 2 “locations”.

By default, my Libraries consisted of the following folders:

· Documents: Personal Documents and Public Documents

· Downloads: Personal Downloads and Public Downloads

· Music: Personal Music and Public Music

· Photos: Personal Photos and Public Photos

· Videos: Personal Videos and Public Videos

There is a very specific reason why each of these Libraries consists of a Personal folder and Public folder. It ties in with HomeGroup and specific permissions which I will talk about very soon… keep reading ;-)

When I view the Documents Library – it displays all files and folders from any folder I have included in this Library in a single Windows Explorer view.

In the above screen shot, the EXAMPLE folder in the red box is a folder in the Public Documents folder while the rest of the folders are from my Personal Documents folder.

To add locations to a Library, all I needed to do was hit the location button in the top right-hand corner. To create custom Libraries, all I needed to do was right-click on “Libraries” in the Windows Explorer Navigation Pane and choose “New”. I decided to try adding a folder from my Windows Home Server to my Document Library. I had a folder full of documents on my Windows Home Server that would be perfect for my Documents Library. To my excitement I was easily able to add the folder to my Documents Library just fine. So Network locations such as Windows Home Servers are in for “library locations”!

Either way – creating custom Libraries or adding folders to a Library are very easy.

These Libraries can easily be shared with other people on your Home network through a new network sharing feature in Windows 7 called HomeGroup.

In creating a HomeGroup I was also able to choose which Libraries I would like to share out to the HomeGroup.

A few things I discovered about HomeGroup when setting a HomeGroup up:

· In order to setup a HomeGroup, my PC’s Network Location needed to be set as “Home” in Network and Sharing Center. Just like in Windows Vista, a Network Location for networks your PC is connected to can be a Home network, Work network, or Public where Windows automatically applies certain settings to keep your PC safe (for example if you are on a Public network, Windows locks down your PC appropriately so you aren’t sharing important files with the world).

· If a HomeGroup had already been created on PC on this network – instead of asking me to create a HomeGroup, it would have asked me to join a HomeGroup and which Libraries I would like to share.

· There can be only 1 HomeGroup per Home network as far as I can tell and each HomeGroup is password-protected.

· Users on any Windows 7 PC) on my Home network can join the HomeGroup and are required to enter a password for that HomeGroup they are joining. This is great because if you have friends come over to your place – they can’t just jump on to your HomeGroup and access your stuff.

· Once a Windows 7 PC is joined to HomeGroup – any user on that Windows 7 PC can participate in HomeGroup. You can continue to access files from a User on a Windows 7 PC even if a different user is logged in to the PC.

So how does Personal Folders VS Public Folders tie in with HomeGroup?

I discovered that when sharing Libraries into my HomeGroup, the Public folders and Personal folders within the Libraries have different read/write permissions and are completely customizable.

In general, Public folders have read AND write permissions – meaning users in your HomeGroup can add and remove files to the folder.

Personal folders have read-only access. For files in your Personal folders within a Library – users in your HomeGroup can only view them – not edit, delete, etc.

To add a file to a Library being shared out via HomeGroup, all I needed to do was simply drag the file into the specific Library they want to add it to. That’s it. The file appears in that Library to everyone in the HomeGroup. But when I drag files to a Library someone is sharing in HomeGroup, the files are physically added to the “public” folder and not their “personal folder” (because of the permissions setup I mentioned above).

So let me give you a “real-world” example of how it works.

As you saw in the above screenshot, the user “Bruce Wayne” from the PC named MYUMPC was in my HomeGroup. I decide I want to add a photo to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library. I dragged and dropped a photo onto his Photo Library. The photo appeared within that Library as it should. When Bruce Wayne checks out his Photo Library, he will see that photo I just added. However because of the read/write permissions of Personal and Public folders – the photo I *just* added to Bruce Wayne’s Photo Library actually sits physically within his Public Photos folder on his PC (the PC named MYUMPC).

Essentially PC users on your HomeGroup can add files to your Libraries but they physically sit in your Public folders on your PC and not your Personal folders. Your personal folders are preserved for only your important data. You don’t want people adding photos to your Personal Photos folder and messing up your photo collection – and the same with your music.

The way that Libraries are set up with the Personal and Public folders allows users to be in control of their personal data. You can choose to let folks in your HomeGroup view your data in your Personal folders within your Libraries or you can completely turn off access to your Personal folders all together giving only access to the Public folders within the Library.

With Windows 7’s new Libraries feature as well as the new HomeGroup feature – I discovered I am more easily in control of my data at the same time am able to easily share things out to people.

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