Microsoft has an interesting problem on the horizon in trying to persuade netbook owners to upgrade to Windows 7 when said netbook owners’ netbooks don’t have optical drives. What’s a giant software company to do?
So there’s this leaked Best Buy memo that shows the store that I’ll never visit again selling Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrades for $49.99 and Windows 7 Professional Upgrades for $99.99. Does that mean that Microsoft will sell said Windows 7 upgrades for said prices across the boards? Eh, not really. I seem to recall Best Buy selling Vista upgrades for one price, then, when Vista actually comes out, it was going for a different price.
A leaked memo has outed June 26 as the starting date when Best Buy (and possibly other places, if this is a Microsoft-blessed program) will guarantee a free copy of Windows 7 at its launch if you buy a Vista-based system immediately. The memo itself is actually a bit catty, saying that Windows 7 isn’t just a “Vista that works” — cold as ice, Best Buy. But the point of that little crack is more that Best Buy employees should really be pushing this as a major update, to allay the fears of people who might be afraid 7 is just an updated Vista. Still, ouch.
A couple weeks ago we got an early demo of the Surface SP1 update, and saw that one of the goals of which was to improve Windows-Surface cross-compatibility and encourage developers to make their apps touch-compatible. Looks like that work goes both ways, as it appears that Surface content and functionality is going to be kicking it with Windows 7.
Check out the video inside. Everyone loves videos.
It’s happened again. As we reported in January, Intel and Microsoft have been limiting the size and software on netbooks for fear of cannibalizing their current larger laptop markets as well as showing poor performance due to battery and processor size. We wrote:
Intel offers “guidelines” on how big a netbook can be and still run an Atom chip. The maximum seems to be 10 inches, small enough to look like a netbook. Because these low-powered chips disappoint so many buyers - think MacBook Air - putting them into anything that resembles a real laptop is tantamount to admitting that the chip isn’t powerful enough to handle regular work. Hence the moniker “netbook” and the consistently diminutive names like “nano” and “atom.”
In case you’re still rocking Windows Vista dispite Win7 being a freebie, SP2 is now available for you to download right from Microsoft. Vista’s second service pack updates both the 32- and 64-bit versions. It’s probably best to ditch the crappy OS and update to 7 altogether, but it’s your call.

There’s nothing to suggest this is the true and final Windows 7 logo, or even that the OS will have such a logo. But it is an official Microsoft graphic, and it’s going in a different direction from the rest of the bannery, rounded logos they’ve been pushing the last few years with XP and Vista. I’m actually not convinced it’s for real; the extreme lens flare on it suggests to me that it may actually be the logo for Voltron 7.
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I’m down with Windows 7. I really am. It’s going to be a good, solid OS that will take us well into the next decade. Microsoft does this kind of thing every few years - they dump out a clinker (Windows ME) then amaze us all with something great (Windows XP). They’re not the richest company in the world because they’re dumb. They know what they’re doing.
The folks at DownloadSquad, however, note that XP mode isn’t just an admission of defeat by Microsoft. It is, instead, it is a way to allow folks to run POS systems on new hardware. Fair enough. But it is a cop out. It’s a cop out on the part of IT departments, just as it should be, in that it allows them to sit on tested - but old - software while updating their junky old hardware.
Everybody put on their downloading hats! Windows 7 RC 1 has dropped, a little ahead of schedule even. It had a limited release already, but now it’s free as a bird and waiting for your click.
What’s new? I don’t know, it isn’t finished downloading yet. Why don’t you ask again in the morning?
A new Windows 7 release candidate, to be available on May 5, will be free with no strings attached until June 2010, making the new OS available for one whole year for free. Updates and improvements will be included.
Why? Goodwill:
However, Curran believes that Windows 7 has already lifted much of the negativity that surrounded its predecessor. “The positive energy and momentum is quite a bit higher than it was in the Vista timeframe,” Curran conceded. “People are excited about Windows 7.”
A loose-lipped Acer spokesman appears to have put a date on Windows 7. Quoth Bobby Watkins from Acer UK:
23rd October is the date the Windows 7 will be available. There is a 30 day upgrade time so that customers don’t wait to buy a new computer, so if you buy during that 30 day period, you’ll get a free upgrade to Windows 7.
Gasp! And here we were expecting to maybe be able to order it around Christmas!
Ladies and gentlemen! Microsoft has officially released Windows 7 RC1—no more need for shady torrents, then. You have to be a member of MSDN or TechNet to download it today; the public at large will have to wait till May 5.
So there’s going to be an XP mode in Windows 7. What does that mean? For users of Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate - sorry, lower-end users! - you will get a full copy of Windows XP that will run under a virtual processor. However, instead of creating a new desktop environment, the XP mode will bring the application up as a window inside Windows 7. This means you can run applications like IE 6 “natively” without booting a virtual machine.
The virtual machine will also offer a desktop interface but applications you install under XP will show up in the Windows 7 start menu, an interesting move. The XP app will, in short, appear as a Windows 7 app with a bit more loading.
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We now have it straight from the horse’s mouth: the Windows 7 Release Candidate will be available for public download on May 5th. The Windows 7 beta team reports that they’ve had a feedback report sent to them at the rate of 1 every 15 seconds during the busiest periods. They also indicated that they have actually used this information, and it’s helped to improve some of the more bleeding edge features coming out.
Of the many flavors of Windows 7, due out this summer, the Starter Edition has received perhaps the most flack. It’s limited to running only three applications at a time, something most computer users find absolutely ludicrous. Microsoft isn’t targeting Starter Edition for your everyday desktop PC, though: they’re targeting it at netbooks.