Ed Bott's Microsoft Report

January 5th, 2009

Five things Steve Ballmer won’t tell you about Windows 7

Posted by Ed Bott @ 7:00 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp., Hardware, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

On Wednesday night, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is going to step on stage at the Venetian Hotel’s Palazzo Ballroom to give the keynote address that kicks off the Consumer Electronics Show. It’s the first time for Ballmer, who’s taking the slot that his predecessor Bill Gates has had for years.

It’s widely expected that Ballmer will publicly unveil Windows 7 Beta 1, just as Gates used the stage to announce previous Windows versions. He’ll no doubt have an entourage of product managers to help him do the actual demos, hopefully inspiring a wow or two from the assembled throngs.

I’m looking forward to the demo, even though I don’t expect any surprises. Mostly, I’m going to be listening between the lines, paying attention to the things that Microsoft chooses not to talk about. In the spirit of the occasion, I offer up the following predictions of things that Ballmer will take great pains to avoid saying.

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January 1st, 2009

If you love Windows XP, you’ll hate Windows 7

Posted by Ed Bott @ 12:21 pm

Categories: Windows 7

Tags: Desktop, Box, Desktop Icon, Microsoft Windows 7, Control Panel, Jason, Run, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows XP, Operating Systems

My colleague Jason Perlow has been playing with Windows 7, and he hates it. The sad thing is, all the things he hates are improvements, in my opinion, which just goes to show that you really can’t please everyone. But what’s sad to see is that every setting Jason describes as broken is in fact easily customizable so it works the way he wants it.

The crux of Jason’s complaint is simple: “I learned how to use Windows in 1998. Don’t change a thing.” Here’s his main argument in a nutshell:

I find it difficult to believe that Windows 7 was created to be easier to use than Vista — if anything, they’ve introduced a number of UI changes that make the system much harder to navigate, particularly if you’ve never used Vista and are going direct to Windows 7 from Windows XP, which is the path that many users will experience.

Yes, there’s a learning curve. And if you insist on using those techniques you learned back in the last millennium with software that was designed differently, you will be frustrated. But I believe that an open-minded XP user who actually takes a few minutes to learn how the new UI works will be more productive very quickly. The secret is breaking old habits and developing new ones. Let’s take all three of Jason’s examples and work through them.

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December 29th, 2008

Surprises in the Windows 7 license agreement

Posted by Ed Bott @ 2:17 pm

Categories: Windows 7

Tags: Software, License Agreement, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Agreement, Tools & Techniques, Management, Ed Bott

Over the weekend, I had a chance to spend some quality time with the leaked Windows 7 build that’s zipping around the Internet. No one at Microsoft will confirm whether this code is the same as the beta due to be officially released in early January, but it bears every earmark of being the real thing.

One of the first things I did before installing the software was to read the end user license agreement (EULA), carefully. Most of it was boilerplate, but I found a few surprises hidden within the legalese, including a revision code at the end, “EULAID:Win7_B.1_PRO_NRL_en-US,” which indicates that this is indeed Beta 1. Here’s a summary of some other interesting additions:

• You can install as many copies as you want. The agreement specifically waives any restriction on the number of copies you can install:
  

  You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your premises to design, develop and test your programs for use with the software.

  I expect this wording is from a build specifically released to software developers. This wording might change to a more general “for evaluation only” clause in the public beta release.

• Don’t use it in a production environment. That’s generally good advice for any product with a beta label on it, but in this case it’s explicitly covered in the agreement:
  

  You may not use the software in a live operating environment unless Microsoft permits you to do so under another agreement.

• The software expires on August 1, 2009. Although I’ve read reports from other testers of a different expiration date, the copy I looked at includes a “Time-Sensitive Software” clause that reads in part: “The software will stop running on August 1, 2009. You may not receive any other notice.” That timeout date adds further credence to the notion that the final release will be ready in May or June.
• It’s OK to install in a virtual machine. The license agreement for the original release of Windows Vista includes some truly opaque wording about installing in a virtualized environment. This wording was significantly cleaned up for the Vista SP1 license agreement, and this same language appears in the Windows 7 EULA. The “Use with Virtualization Technologies” section is straightforward:

Instead of using the software directly on the licensed device, you may install and use the software within only one virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device.

• You’ll need to take a few extra steps to lock down your privacy. In section 4, the license agreement specifically notes that some features that normally require you to opt in are instead turned on by default:
  

  Because this software is a pre-release version, we have turned on some internet-based features by default to obtain feedback about them […] You may switch off these features or not use them.

  Most of the services on the list are fairly benign and involve little risk of divulging personally identifiable information. However, if you work with sensitive data files you might want to turn off the Customer Experience Improvement Program and automatic error reporting options.

• Activation and validation are alive and well. Anyone who was hoping that Microsoft would back off from its hard-line antipiracy initiatives might be disappointed. The license agreement specifically describes activation and links to a privacy statement that says activation is required for Windows 7. The lengthy section on validation is identical to the one in Vista SP, including the bold-faced warning:  “You are not permitted to circumvent validation.”
• No benchmarks allowed. As in previous beta releases of Microsoft operating systems, the license agreement includes a prohibition on speed tests:
  

  You may not disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval.

Of course, most people don’t bother to even read license agreements, so it’s unlikely that this one will be followed strictly. In fact, I suspect that some people have been clicking their stopwatches feverishly over the past few days in anticipation of another round of benchmark results, regardless of what the EULA says.

December 21st, 2008

Which sites will make the IE8 Compatibility Hall of Shame?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 3:01 pm

Categories: Internet Explorer

Tags: Web, Page, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Web Site, Site, Web Site Development, Channel Management, Web Browsers, Web Technology, Internet

According to Microsoft, a release candidate of Internet Explorer 8 is just around the corner, and with it comes an urgent call to web designers to get their act together and tweak their sites so they’ll render properly under the new browser.

Back in August, I began using IE8 Beta 2 full time on the Windows PCs I use for everyday work. Over the last few months, I noticed a shocking number of web sites that displayed incorrectly in IE8. The only way to view those pages as the web designer intended is to click the Compatibility View button (described in great detail here).

Apparently, I wasn’t alone in having to click that button. According to IE8 Program Manager Scott Dickens, that Compatibility View button has been getting a workout this fall:

Despite all the outreach to sites, we saw from the telemetry data that IE8 Beta 2 users still have to use Compatibility View a lot. Looking at our instrumentation, there were high-volume sites like facebook.com, myspace.com, bbc.co.uk, and cnn.com with pages that weren’t working for end-users with IE’s new standards compliant default.  We could also see from our instrumentation that not all IE8 visitors to those sites were clicking the Compatibility View button.  So, large groups of people were having a less than great experience because they weren’t aware of the manual steps required to make certain sites work.

I’ve been running a near-final build of the IE8 release candidate on Windows Vista for the last week or so, and it seems like I’m clicking the Compatibility View button less often since installing the upgrade. But I’m still seeing pages that have cosmetic glitches like overlapping text and graphics or scrambled layouts. In extreme cases, these tweaked pages are practically unreadable. The reason? The designers expect legacy behavior out of any version of Internet Explorer, so CSS style sheets are tweaked accordingly. Ironically, those IE-specific design tweaks actually break layouts on the much more standards-compliant IE8.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

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December 19th, 2008

That Windows 7 bootleg is a ticking time bomb

Posted by Ed Bott @ 5:17 am

Categories: Security, Internet Explorer, Windows 7

Tags: Beta Release, BitTorrent, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Security Administration, Patches, Operating Systems, Web Browsers, Security

Bootleggers, beware.

Judging by my inbox, lots of you downloaded a bootleg copy of Windows 7 build 6956 from BitTorrent, and now you have it running. But no matter how hard you try, you can’t update its built-in copy of Internet Explorer 8 with this week’s extremely critical out-of-band security update, which Microsoft turned around in record time.

That’s the downside of running software from unauthorized channels. You see, the build zipping around the BitTorrent tubes right now is a random “daily build,” one of many that was produced during the run-up to the upcoming beta release of Windows 7. Anyone who would have had authorized access to that build (Microsoft employees, OEM partners, a tiny corps of trusted beta testers) already has authorized access to more recent builds (including, rumors say, the final beta release itself) that can be updated with a supported version of this crucial IE8 patch. So, logically enough, Microsoft’s security team doesn’t release an update for that leaked version, just as it didn’t release an update for build 6952 or build 6961. As a result, you’re vulnerable if you visit a compromised website using the unpatched version of IE8.

Do you feel lucky? Maybe you might want to use a different browser (or even a different operating system) for the next few weeks…

December 17th, 2008

Windows Live drops the ball on support

Posted by Ed Bott @ 12:08 pm

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Microsoft Windows Live, Online Support Resource, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

Microsoft has rolled out an impressive array of apps and services under the Windows Live banner, including the new Windows Live Essentials package (see Mary Jo Foley’s write-up for more details on what’s in this new release). I’ve been using the new Windows Live products for several months and have become a big fan. But the glow wears off fast if you need support.

About two weeks ago, I began experiencing a problem with my new Windows Live home page. I got in touch with Windows Live support, opening a ticket by filling out a form at https://support.live.com/. That page is nearly impossible to find via any Windows Live app or service. To get there, you have to read an online Help topic in your browser, then click the Get More Help link in the lower right corner of the topic pane, and then click a small, boldface Get Support link in the middle of the page. That’s a usability fail, big time.

As far as I can tell, you have to go through the same cumbersome procedure to submit a support request for any member of the Windows Live family. And then you have to wait for the wheels of e-mail to grind, slowly, and hope that someone takes ownership of the issue and offers a solution.

You want peer support? Good luck. Online support resources are disorganized, to say the least. When I go to the Microsoft Discussion Groups Home, I find only four groups under the microsoft.public.windows.live heading – one for Messenger, one for Windows Live Mail Desktop, and Live FolderShare and Live Sync groups that appear to cover the same product under its old and new names (see the illustration at right).

The Help menu from Windows Live Photo Gallery has a Search the Photo Gallery Newsgroup option, which leads to a completely different Microsoft Discussions Group page, this one containing groups for Photo Gallery, Messenger, and Windows LiveID.

The Help menu from Windows Live Writer leads to a Microsoft Forums page, where the Windows Live heading has a couple of lightly trafficked groups for Windows Live Writer and another for the old, apparently deprecated my.live.com portal page.

I can’t find any Microsoft-sanctioned support resources for SkyDrive, or Family Safety, Windows Live Groups, or the Windows Live home page and profile, as well as other members of this massive Wave 3 release.

Ironically, Microsoft has created a new site called the Windows Live Solutions Center at windowslivehelp.com. That sounds like a one-stop support resource for the various Windows Live apps and services, right? Wrong. For now, at least, it’s just the Hotmail Online Solutions Center by another name. The Windows Live Team Blog promises that “other Windows Live services will be part of the site in the future.”

What baffles me is that Windows Live Wave 3 has been under development for … well, it seems like forever. The software side has run exceptionally well, hitting its dates and delivering a generally excellent product. So what happened to customer support? From this vantage point, it looks like management treated support as an afterthought and is only now beginning to build the support resources it should have had in place months ago.

December 16th, 2008

A new record for Godwin’s Law

Posted by Ed Bott @ 3:45 pm

Categories: Microsoft, Apple

Tags: Apple Inc., Godwin, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Ed Bott

Everyone knows Godwin’s Law, right? The longer a heated discussion goes on, the probability that someone will compare someone else to Hitler or the Nazis approaches certainty. The original rule applied only to Usenet newsgroups, but it has since expanded to include any sort of online discussion, including comments on blogs.

Usually, when Mac-versus-PC arguments are involved, it takes some slow simmering, followed by a few back-and-forth insults that eventually burst into flames, before someone lets fly with the Hitler references. And I’m usually gone by that point, because flame wars between mindless fanboys are, frankly, boring.

But today’s comment section beneath a post on BusinessWeek’s Byte of the Apple blog sets a new record for invoking Godwin’s Law. The discussion centers around an article in today’s Wall Street Journal that claims Apple’s sales declined year-over-year in November, indicating that perhaps Apple is subject to the same economic pressures as every other company selling pricey consumer goods.

Even Apple Inc. is beginning to suffer in this year’s dismal holiday season, and worries are mounting the recession will weigh on its business next year.

Apple, which has outpaced the overall personal computer market this year despite its strategy of eschewing discounts, showed its first signs of weakness in November.

Sales of Macs in U.S. stores last month declined 1% from a year ago, while industry-wide PC sales rose 2%, according to research firm NPD Group Inc., which tracks retail sales.

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek disagrees that this means bad news for Apple, arguing that the comparison is skewed by unique factors, including the launch of new MacBooks in October of this year. Obviously, when interpreting economic data, reasonable people can disagree.

Oh, wait. Did I say reasonable people? The very first comment beneath this post heads straight for Godwin-land. Here’s what commenter Zato wrote:

The Wall Street Journal will say whatever it can get away with to discredit Apple and Google. Both are marked for elimination in Rupert Murdocks [sic] and Microsofts’ plan to control the internet and build the fourth Reich.

In 20-plus years online, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen someone go Godwin on the very first post. An awesome performance indeed. A mere two weeks before the end of the year, I believe we have a winner.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with my decision to skip CES and Macworld next month. Anyone taking bets on which show folds first? And how long will it take before the TalkBack section beneath this post slips into Godwin territory?

December 9th, 2008

DirecTV kills its Media Center tuner project

Posted by Ed Bott @ 12:19 pm

Categories: Digital media, Windows 7, Media Center

Tags: Media Center PC, DirecTV, Media Center PCs, TVs, Tv & Home Theater, Microsoft Windows, Personal Technology, Home Entertainment, Operating Systems, Software

If you’re a DirecTV subscriber and a Media Center fan, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you: DirecTV has pulled the plug on development of its long-rumored HDPC-20 tuner.

The device was first announced at CES in January 2006, and I noticed that a driver for the device was included with build 6801 of Windows 7, which was handed out at PDC. The folks at Engadget HD even spotted some of the hardware in action at Microsoft’s labs. But alas, it is not to be. Via e-mail, I just received this official statement from DirecTV Chief Technology Officer Romulo Pontual :

DIRECTV has suspended the development of the HDPC-20 tuner project that was designed to integrate DIRECTV service into Windows Media Center after assessing the impact of missing the August 2008 release of Windows Media Center update and considering timing of the next release.

Both DIRECTV and Microsoft understand the desirability of offering consumers an all encompassing DIRECTV programming solution via Windows-based PCs. We are continuing to explore ways to integrate DIRECTV service with Windows-based PCs in the future.

The HDPC-20 tuner that appears on the driver list of a pre-Beta build of Windows 7 is an artifact that was listed prior to the decision to suspend the tuner project. As our plans progress toward a Windows Media Center-compatible product, we will make an announcement at the appropriate time.

Windows 7 incorporates all the infrastructure needed to bring satellite signals from DirecTV and its competitors into Media Center. But without the necessary hardware, the two won’t be meeting anytime soon.

December 2nd, 2008

Windows 7 Beta 1 to arrive January 13?

Posted by Ed Bott @ 4:21 pm

Categories: Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Corp., Beta, DVD, Keith, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Bott

At the Professional Developers Conference in late October, Windows chief Steven Sinofsky announced that Windows 7 Beta 1 would be ready “early next year.” A Microsoft insider has now confirmed the actual date, which is indeed very early next year. In a comment on his blog, Keith Combs has revealed that Windows 7 Beta 1 will be available on or around January 13, 2009.

Keith’s post links to a promotional announcement for the MSDN Developer Conference series, where every registrant “will receive a Windows 7 Beta 1 DVD.” The first event in the MSDN series is next week, on December 9, in Houston. So does that mean the next Windows 7 beta will be ready for public distribution this month? According to Keith, the answer is no:

My understanding is that the DVD will not be ready for the first few show dates but will be mailed to each attendee. 

We are targeting to have the DVD’s in the materials from 1/13/2009 on.

So I would imagine the folks attending the Houston, Orlando and Atlanta shows this month will receive their DVD’s around mid January as well.  That’s an assumption on my part.  Could be earlier or later, but they will get them.

Reading between the lines, I’ll predict publicly what I’ve been saying privately for the last month or so: Windows 7 Beta 1 will be publicly unveiled at CES. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is giving the pre-CES keynote address on January 7, 2009, the night before the show opens (Bill Gates has had this time slot for the past few years). There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ballmer will be showing off Windows 7 at CES. It’s reasonable to assume that Microsoft will provide an early update to key media sources, including reviewers who attended the Microsoft-sponsored workshop at PDC in October.

Any public release would come only after that first demo, which makes the January 13 date a nearly perfect fit for public availability.

An even better indicator? As members of Microsoft’s Windows team know, they have an uncanny ability to release major updates while I’m on vacation. Next year, I’ve decided to skip CES and head for a tropical beach. My vacation ends on … January 13.

December 1st, 2008

With Vista SP2, Microsoft is back on track

Posted by Ed Bott @ 5:05 pm

Categories: Windows Vista, Microsoft, Windows XP

Tags: Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows Vista, Service Pack, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows XP, Operating Systems, Software

Update 2-December: An alert reader points out that the original version of the graphics for this post used an incorrect date for the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. I have corrected the graphics to reflect the correct release date and interval between RTM and the estimated arrival of SP2.

From the other side of the world comes a report that Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will be released to manufacturing in April 2009, roughly a year 14 months after SP1. The Malaysian website TechARP has a pretty good track record with this sort of prediction, and my sources tell me that schedule sounds about right.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S.A., some people are inferring more Vista doom and gloom from this schedule. My buddy Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle says “SP2 is being rushed out the door” to keep up Vista’s momentum. Eweek’s Channel Insider calls SP2 a “last-ditch attempt to drum up sales for [the] beleaguered [Vista] operating system.” The Register says “Microsoft seems to be in a hurry with this release.”

They all need to dust off their Windows history books to see that the reality is exactly the opposite. If Vista SP2 does make its official appearance in April, it will mark a return to normal development and release cycles for Microsoft, which lost its way badly with Windows XP.

I’ve got the proof, in easy-to-read chart format. Here’s a timeline of every Windows service pack Microsoft has delivered since the release of Windows NT 4.0 in July 1996. Each color-coded bar represents the number of days between each service pack and its predecessor (RTM, in the case of SP1 releases). See any patterns?

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