Windows

Anything concerning Windows be it Windows client operating system, Windows Server operating system, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone and more.

Windows 7 Laptop Battery Issues

Richard Green on 10th February 2010

Due to a growing amount of chatter on blog sites and the like, Steve Sinofsky, President of the Windows and Windows Live divisions at Microsoft Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Head of Windows 7 has posted on the Engineering Windows 7 Blog about the problems.

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2010/02/08/windows-7-battery-notification-messages.aspx

Having been a user of Windows 7 since Build 7000 Ã¢â‚¬â€œ The first Beta, I have had no such problems with the batteries as a result of Windows 7, but as a result of the batteries themselves.

I use a Dell Latitude D630 which is about 18 months old now. From new, I could get about five hours usable battery life from my extended life 9-Cell Dell battery, however over time (While running XP and Vista) this degraded to about three hours as is to be expected when the laptop is connected to a docking station for the majority of the day. The battery continued to worsen and it got down to about two hours before Build 7000 became available.

Sky Player for Windows Media Center

Richard Green on 24th November 2009

It’s been visible for sometime, however today is the first day that the Sky Player functionality in Windows Media Center works. I’ve never used Sky Player online before so I had a bit of work getting my account setup and the rights to access our subscribed channels but after about 15-30mins I had it all working.

The UI is clean and mostly in-line with the style of Windows Media Center. Some elements such as the TV Guide I felt where not sympathetic to the Media Center UI and should be updated to give a better feel of integration.

Windows Home Server Review

Richard Green on 13th November 2009

Windows Home Server is not a new product by any means Ã¢â‚¬â€œ It was first released to RTM in July 2007. Power Pack 2 is the current update release and Power Pack 3 has been in Beta via Microsoft Connect for some time with no clear release date in site still.

What is Windows Home Server?

Windows Home Server (WHS) targeted as SOHO markets for people with multiple computers, media sources and devices who want to centralize, share and backup their files and media.

Windows Home Server, commonly found pre-installed on devices like the HP MediaSmart Series of devices, which are small form factor computers which more closely resemble Network Attached Storage (NAS) due to their ability to house many disks.

Windows Home Server is no new operating system however. It is actually Windows Server 2003 Small Business Server (SBS) with a pretty shell GUI on top and a few modifications.

The design of WHS however is that you never actually access the server. The access is completed via the Home Server Console which is a GUI installed on client computers, which serves a double purpose. One, it provides administrative access to the server for someone in the house with the admin password. The second purpose is that it configures the client to work with the home server allowing it to access the shared media and files and to work with the backup features.

Microsoft My Phone Premium Service Pricing Confirmed

Richard Green on 8th October 2009

On a posting yesterday on the Microsoft My Phone forum, a worker from Microsoft confirmed that once the trial for Premium services ends that you can buy the service in full for $4.99.

There is no word on a UK pricing in the thread, but I have posted to ask this to them. The thread is here for anyone interested:
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/MyPhone/thread/0a1b9a27-9c8a-433c-9eba-5f064f089f44/

The best bit for me is that this looks to be a one time only price, as my original concern was that this was going to be a monthly subscription service.

The fee will be payable via the Windows Marketplace either on the device or from your My Phone account online.

Let’s jut hope that they can fix the locate my phone feature for the Touch HD:
http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-AU/MyPhone/thread/5bf44059-ddb0-45cf-a069-45171293138a

Disk I/O Performance Improvements from Partition Alignment

Richard Green on 8th October 2009

Disk or partition alignment is something new to me. I have heard of it before but I have never used nor understood it’s meaning until a colleague at work brought it to my attention for a customer we are trying to help out.

The information in this post is taken from a blog posting entitled Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server by Jimmy May and Denny Lee at Microsoft.

Yes, Windows Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit Only

Richard Green on 7th October 2009

I got asked a question yesterday at work regarding the architecture of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Just for the record and to ensure anyone else to who may be interested knows, Windows Server 2008 R2 is available in two architectures:

64-bit (x64)
Intel Itanium (ia64)

There is no 32-bit (x86) version of Windows Server 2008 R2, nor will there be 32-bit versions of any future Windows Server operating systems.

This move to a pure 64-bit architecture is also following suit in the server technologies and products including Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server and more to come no doubt.

I would also anticipate that Windows 7 is the last client operating system to be available in 32-bit and I think that Windows 8 or however it manifests itself will also likely be a 64-bit only architecture operating system.

I don’t know what architect Microsoft Midori will be based on but that’s a totally different subject and one I don’t know anything about yet to comment on.

Windows Phone (Windows Mobile 6.5)

Richard Green on 6th October 2009

Windows Mobile 6.5, now called Windows Phone is the latest mobile OS revision from Microsoft, and it’s a vast improvement from 6.1

I’ve been using it in Beta form on my Touch HD for about six months courtesy of the folks on XDA-Developers and Miri’s WM6.5 ROM for the Touch HD.

The first thing you notice is the Today screen, now referred to as Titanium. This has been inspired by the Zune interface. The whole thing has designed to be finger friendly and require a stylus as little as possible.

Sprawl of Windows Phone

Richard Green on 6th October 2009

Yesterday (if your American or today if your British) is the official launch of Windows Phone, Windows Phone Marketplace and Microsoft My Phone.

I’ve been using Windows Phone (Windows Mobile 6.5) and Microsoft My Phone for sometime now Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Not the Marketplace though as this only opened today.

I’m going to review all three starting with Windows Mobile 6.5, then Marketplace and finally My Phone.

Enjoy x

Office 2010 WebApps Available to Everyone

Richard Green on 22nd September 2009

Microsoft have been touting invitations to their Office 2010 WebApps for about a week now, and I was quite disappointed that I didn’t get one, namely because I get Technical Preview invitations to most things but I discovered this little flaw / opening in the system today.

Using your own Windows Live ID sign into login.live.com and then access SkyDrive using the link in the More menu. (PS: This will work with any account registered as a Windows Live ID, contrary to what other reports claim Ã¢â‚¬â€œ I used my @baby-green.co.uk email address and it worked just fine).

Once you logged into SkyDrive upload a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document.

Once you have the document uploaded you’ll find a notification waiting for you asking you to join Office WebApps Technical Preview.

Just remember that during Technical Preview, only PowerPoint and Excel have editing capability. Word is view only and OneNote is currently unavailable.