April 30th, 2009

Microsoft releases final Windows 7 system requirements

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 3:38 pm

Categories: Channel, OEMs, Resellers, System builders, Vista, Windows 7, Windows client

Tags: Disk, Microsoft Windows 7, System Requirement, Microsoft Corp., RAM, Graphics, Microsoft Windows, 64-Bit, Operating Systems, Software

When Microsoft released the Beta of Windows 7 in January, it released a set of recommended system requirements for the Beta (which its officials noted were subject to change). On April 30, concurrent with the beginning of the delivery of the Release Candidate, Microsoft released the final system requirements for Windows 7.

Here are the minimum Windows 7 requirements Microsoft offered in January when it released the Beta:

• 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1GB of RAM
• 16 GB of available disk space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)

Here are the minimum Windows 7 system requirements Microsoft released on April 30 when it made available the Release Candidate to MSDN and TechNet testers:

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 1 GB of RAM (32-bit); 2 GB of RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB of available disk space (32-bit); 20 GB of avaiable disk space (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Note: If you are planning to run Windows XP Mode along with Windows 7, Microsoft is recommending a PC with a minimum of 2GB of memory and 15 GB of additional disk space. “In addition, Windows Virtual PC requires a PC with Intel-VT or AMD-V enabled in the CPU, as it takes advantage of the latest advancements in hardware virtualization,” according to company officials.

I asked whether Microsoft had different requirements for the different SKUs of Windows 7 that it is planning to release and was told (via a spokesperson): “The system requirements are final and not SKU-specific.”

If you’re curious how these final Windows 7 requirements compare to Vista’s requirements, they aren’t all that different. Here are the final Vista system requirements:

• 1 GHz processor (32- or 64-bit)
• 512 MB of RAM (for Home Basic); 1 GB of RAM for all other versions
• 15 GB of available disk space
• Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory (for Home Basic); 128 MB of graphics memory plus WDDM support for all other versions

Microsoft also announced on April 30 that it is readying a beta of a new Windows Upgrade Advisor (WUA) designed to support Windows 7. A spokesperson provided the following information:

“Windows Upgrade Advisor will check any devices that are connected to the PC (with the appropriate driver installed) at the time of the scan. WUA will identify any known potential compatibility issues and will communicate this in the report. Our beta tester feedback has been critical in ensuring Windows 7 is a quality OS and we hope our testers can continue to partner with us on testing this software to ensure the best end-user experience.”

(I’ve asked Microsoft when it will release the new WUA beta. No word back yet.)

April 30th, 2009

Microsoft caught flat-footed by Windows 7 download rush

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 1:17 pm

Categories: Channel, OEMs, Resellers, System builders, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 /("Windows 7 Server"), Windows client, Windows server

Tags: Microsoft Developer Network, Microsoft Windows 7, Release Candidate, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft TechNet, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Mary Jo Foley

On April 30, Microsoft was slated to make the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) available to testers with subscriptions to MSDN, TechBeta and TechNet. But just like happened with the Beta in January, demand overwhelmed the Microsoft infrastructure.

As my ZDNet blogging colleague Ed Bott discovered, a SQL server database glitch was behind the meltdown. Bott said Microsoft fixed the problem after a couple of  hours.

There are a few things to remember if you’re interested in testing out the RC, which is the one and only Microsoft plans to make public before it releases the product to manufacturing. Microsoft is encouraging testers to do a clean install (and not just install on top of the Beta) for best results (and so the company can get better feedback on the RC). There aren’t a lot of visible differences between the January Beta and this late April RC (unless you are a real UI geek). Most of the tweaks seem to be focused on bug fixes and performance issues.

And don’t forget, it’s not just the Windows 7 client RC that’s available for test. The RC of Windows Server 2008 R2, a k a Windows 7 Server, is also downloadable for MSDN and TechNet subscribers today. Also available to MSDN and TechNet testers on April 30 (as a separate download) is the XP Mode and Virtual PC  add-ons for Windows 7.

Microsoft is slated to make the test build of all of these products available to the public on May 5, next Tuesday. Let’s see if the servers stay up then.

April 29th, 2009

TellMe voice search ready for Windows Mobile 6.5

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:28 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Network service providers, OEMs, Resellers, Search, Windows Mobile

Tags: Phone, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Voice, Tellme Networks Inc., Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Handhelds, Wireless And Mobility, Software, Hardware

Microsoft will begin offering phone makers a native version of its TellMe voice search technology customized for Windows Mobile 6.5 starting on April 29.

According to CNet.com’s Download Blog:

“Tellme for Windows Mobile phones will be available beginning Wednesday to manufacturers that want to load it onto Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. Come autumn, the general public will be able to find it (in English) on the phones, in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and directly from Tellme’s mobile-optimized site.”

Up until now, TellMe was not available on Windows Mobile phones even though Microsoft purchased the voice-activated-search vendor two years ago. (A beta of TellMe for the Blackberry has been available since 2008.)

TellMe’s technology will be integrated with Windows Mobile 6.5 at the network level, but will be an optional feature. CNet reports that TellMe for Windows Mobile will make use of Live Search as its only search engine, not too surprising given the Microsoft connection.

Microsoft is slated to show off Windows 6.5 in mid-May at its TechEd conference in Los Angeles. Originally, the Softies were pitching May 11 as some kind of “launch” for Windows Mobile 6.5. But the Windows Mobile Team blog crew has since modified the original post, removing any references to the word “launch.” (I have a copy of their original text on my site.) So it’s now unclear whether Microsoft will actually release Windows Mobile 6.5 to manufacturing by the middle of May, still do some kind of a “business launch” of the platform, or simply show the same Release Candidate 1 demos of Windows Mobile 6.5 they’ve shown before.

The first Windows Mobile 6.5 phones aren’t slated to be available to users until some time this fall.

April 29th, 2009

Microsoft finishes Vista SP2

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 2:57 am

Categories: Service Pack, Vista, Windows Server 2008/ Windows Server Longhorn, Windows client, Windows server

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

Yesterday’s rumors were true: Microsoft has released to manufacturing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 R2.

SP2 hit the torrents on April 28, hours before Microsoft officially announced it was done (via a posting to the Windows Vista Team Blog). It’s tough to say exactly when SP2 will be available for sanctioned download. Originally it was expected by the end of April (which still could happen if Microsoft posts the code to one of its download sites by tomorrow). But it also could slip into early May.

All Microsoft is saying is it will start pushing the final Vista SP2 bits to customers via Automatic Update over the next few months. Customers who aren’t ready for it can use Microsoft’s service-pack blocking tool to postpone the delivery of the SP2 bits from Windows Update and WSUS.

Microsoft also noted in the same Vista Team Blog posting that, as of April 28, it has begun pushing Vista SP1 bits to users who previously had blocked it using the blocking tool.

Microsoft is advising users who are midway through deploying Vista SP1 to proceed with their deployments as planned, rather than to rush to deploy SP2 instead.

As noted previously, Vista SP2 includes security and performance updates, plus a handful of new features, including:

• Windows Search 4.0
• Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack
• Ability to record data on to Blu-Ray media natively in Windows Vista
• Windows Connect Now (WCN), which is designed to “simplify Wi-Fi Configuration”
• The addition of support for UTC timestamps in the exFAT file system

April 28th, 2009

More Windows 7 XP Mode questions and more Microsoft answers

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 3:44 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Virtualization, Vista, Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, PC, Microsoft Corp., Windows XP Mode, MJF, MED-V, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows XP, Operating Systems, Software

Over the past few days — since word of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC went public — Microsoft has provided so far only the barest of details about its planned Virtual XP Mode functionality for Windows 7. Slowly but surely the company has started releasing additional details.

I had a chance to ask Scott Woodgate, director of Desktop Virtualization and Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a few questions about the new Virtual XP virtualization service. Here’s a transcript of our email exchange:

MJF: Will  the new Virtual XP mode be available to Software Assurance licensees only? Which Win 7 SKUs will it be available for when it goes final?

Woodgate: Windows XP Mode is an optional feature (ie. Customers can choose to use it or not) that is available as part of  Windows 7 Professional and above. Windows XP Mode is best experienced on a new PC from an OEM, but will also be available to retail customers. Specifically, Windows XP mode does not require Software Assurance.

MJF: When will the beta begin? Public or private?

Woodgate: The beta begins on April 30 for to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and broader availability begins May 5.

MJF: When is the final product slated to ship? Will it be an add-on to Win 7 final that is downloadable if and when users want it (like the Windows Live Essentials)?

Woodgate: We are targeting Windows 7 GA (General Availability) for the final ship date while also recognizing that we are just entering beta of the product and we want to be receptive to feedback we may receive from beta testers.  We expect small businesses will mostly experience this feature on new PCs but it will be also available through download to Windows 7 Professional and above customers.

MJF: Will Virtual XP also work with Vista? If so, which SKUs? Will it be available for Vista in the same timeframe as for Win 7?

Woodgate: Windows XP Mode is a feature of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise.  It isn’t available for Windows Vista. Specifically, Software Assurance customers of Windows Vista are able to run this scenario due to the 4 VM (virtual machine) right in Software Assurance.

MJF: What are the differences between Virtual XP and MED-V? Will MS continue to offer MED-V as part of a paid MDOP once Virtual XP ships? If so, why would biz users want MED-V vs. Virtual XP?

Woodgate: Top-level answer:

* Windows XP Mode is designed to support SMB customers who do not use management infrastructure and need to run Windows XP applications on their windows 7 desktops.

* MED-V is designed for larger organizations who use management infrastructure and need to deploy a virtual Windows XP environment  on Windows Vista or Windows 7 desktops.

Detail:

* Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses users to run their Windows XP applications on their Windows 7 desktop.

* Windows XP Mode is available as part of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 28th, 2009

Could Verizon be a (or 'the') carrier for Microsoft's Pink?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:38 am

Categories: Channel, Corporate strategy, Mobile services ("Pink"/"Rouge"), Network service providers, OEMs, Resellers, Telecommunications, Windows Mobile

Tags: Phone, Verizon Communications Inc., Microsoft Corp., Carrier, Pink, Telecom & Utilities, Mary Jo Foley

As I noted recently, Microsoft’s Pink is looking more and more to be not just a bunch of premium consumer-focused services, but the phone associated with those services, too.

For the latest proof, check out the April 28 Wall Street Journal story, which suggests that Verizon may be one of the service providers (if not the one provider) for Pink.

Pink is shaping up to be a phone (which the Journal says will likely be branded as a Microsoft phone, even though manufactured by a third party) plus Zune services, Windows Mobile Marketplace access,  My Phone services and various consumer-focused services from the Danger team now residing inside Microsoft’s Mobile unit. It’s highly likely to be Windows-Mobile-7-based, but diferent from other Microsoft-partner-backed Windows Mobile 7 phones.

If Windows Mobile 7 phones are slated to launch in the spring of 2010 (at last check), will Pink launch at the same time — or possibly earlier than the rest of the pack? And how will Microsoft’s partners like competing with a Microsoft-branded phone (if that is the way Microsoft ends up going)?

Remember: Microsoft oficials repeatedly have said Microsoft isn’t making its own phone. The word was that Microsoft was providing a reference specification and possibly a chassis, at most. If a third party manufacturer makes a Microsoft-branded Pink phone, I guess that gives Microsoft a plausible, albeit lame, path for denying its intentions….)

Update (April 29): Yes, Microsoft is still denying there is a Zune phone or a Microsoft-manufactured phone in the works. But if my sources are right, Pink is neither of these. It will be made by a third party vendor for Microsoft (even if it carries the Microsoft brand). And it won’t be a “Zune phone” per se. It will be a phone that runs Zune services. The Softies have to walk a fine line on this one so as not to upset the Windows Mobile ecosystem.

April 28th, 2009

Office 2007 Service Pack 2 available for download

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:05 am

Categories: Office, Office 2007, Service Pack, SharePoint Server, Vista, Windows client

Tags: Microsoft Office 2007, Service Pack 2, Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office, Office Suites, Software, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft recently committed to making Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) available for download on April 28. And, as promised, it is out there.

Existing Office 2007 users can grab SP2 from the Microsoft Download Center.

SP2 provides the usual security, performance and reliability fixes that SPs deliver. SP2 is especially tuned to update Outlook and SharePoint Server, according to the company. SP2 also includes support for more file formats, such as PDF and ODF, Microsoft oficials said. Here’s more from Microsoft’s release on Office 2007 SP2:

“(SP2) Users should notice the improved performance and stability of Outlook, better charting functionality in Excel, and more control over the appearance of SmartArt graphics.

“On the server side, IT professionals will notice several enhancements to the security and performance of SharePoint Server 2007, including support for read-only content databases, improvements to forms-based authentication, and an STSADM command-line utility that enables administrators to scan sites that use the variations feature for errors. SharePoint Server will also feature better support for newer versions of the Firefox browser.”

Microsoft is planning to start pushing Office 2007 SP2 via Automatic Update “no sooner than three months from now,” (so, on or around July 28),” according to the company, and with no fewer than 30 days notice.

On a related note, it looks like Vista SP2 might not be availble in April, after all, as many had been expecting. The new possible release date is early May, some Microsoft enthusiasts are now speculating. But others are claiming that Vista SP2 has RTM’d, and thus could possibly be released sooner.

April 28th, 2009

'Private cloud' = just another buzzword for on-premise datacenter?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 8:36 am

Categories: Azure, Channel, Corporate strategy, Management tools, OEMs, Resellers, Robotics, Security, System Center, System builders, Utility/cloud computing, Virtualization, Windows server

Tags: Data Center, Microsoft Corp., Cloud, Data Centers, Storage, Virtualization, Hardware, Data Management, Mary Jo Foley

VMware made its big “private cloud” pitch last week with its introduction of vSphere. Not to be outdone, Microsoft is fleshing out its private cloud positioning at the annual Microsoft Management Summit this week in Las Vegas.

Whether or not they admit it publicly (or just express their misgivings relatively privately), Microsoft officials know the “private cloud” is just the newest way of talking about an on-premise datacenter. Sure, it’s not exactly the same mainframe-centric datacenter IT admins may have found themselves outfitting a few years ago. But, in a nutshell, server + virtualization technology + integrated security/management/billing  = private cloud.

Microsoft’s “official” description of the distinction between private and public clouds basically says as much. From a press release the company issued this morning:

The private cloud: “By employing techniques like virtualization, automated management, and utility-billing models, IT managers can evolve the internal datacenter into a ‘private cloud’ that offers many of the performance, scalability, and cost-saving benefits associated with public clouds. Microsoft provides the foundation for private clouds with infrastructure solutions to match a range of customer sizes, needs and geographies.

The public cloud: “Cloud computing is expanding the traditional web-hosting model to a point where enterprises are able to off-load commodity applications to third-party service providers (hosters) and, in the near future, the Microsoft Azure Services Platform. Using Microsoft infrastructure software and Web-based applications, the public cloud allows companies to move applications between private and public clouds.”

Microsoft recently got tripped up by the public cloud lingo when company execs gave off confusing mixed signals regarding whether or not Microsoft planned to make its Azure cloud operating system available to IT customers to use on-premise. In the end, the Softies admitted Azure was not something Microsoft planned to allow others to run in their own datacenters, but promised they’d make a solid private cloud platform, based on Windows Server, Hyper-V and other Microsoft wares, available to customers who were less enthusiastic about moving their data and apps to a Microsoft-hosted datacenter.

Is there more Microsoft could and should do to make the concept of the “private cloud” more meaningful? One reader says there is:

“It would take a helluva lotta development and testing to emulate Azure’s automatic scale-out and scale-up, semi-automatic app deployment and other ‘autonomic’ Azure features to enable multi-tenant services. This is especially true with SQL Data Services (SDS) moving to a fully(?) relational model and needing some way to automate partitioning of SQL Server instances.”

Read the rest of this entry »

April 28th, 2009

Microsoft Hotmail blocking GMX mail for some in Europe

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 4:13 am

Categories: App Compatibility, Windows Live

Tags: Customer, Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Wiki, Network Technology, Networking, Operating Systems, Software, Online Communications

Some European customers of the free GMX Mail service have been reporting ongoing problems with GMX Mail-Hotmail interoperability.

Every time Microsoft seemed to have solved the issue, it ended up recurring a day or two later, with GMX mail users claiming that they’re largely unable to send mail to anyone with a Hotmail address. The issue was noted in the Windows Live Help online forums in late March and has continued to crop up throughout April. (When I searched the forums for “GMX,” I saw previous reports of this same problem from late 2008, as well.)

I’ve asked Microsoft for updates a couple of times during the past two weeks about the GMX mail problems readers have been reporting. Last week, a spokeswoman sent me this explanation:

“Over the weekend, our systems and Windows Live Hotmail customers detected another increase in spam coming from GMX’s network. In order to protect customers, Microsoft temporarily blocked some of GMX’s IP addresses from sending mail to Windows Live customers. We have since removed the temporary block. Microsoft and GMX are working together to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate temporary blocks imposed on GMX’s IP addresses due to spam issues. As we work through this process, mail from GMX customers to Microsoft Live Hotmail systems may again be temporarily blocked in the interest of protecting our customers. We sincerely apologize again for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

(This was the same statement the spokesperson sent me a week earlier when I first contacted Microsoft about the problem, and officials subsequently reported the GMX issue was resolved.)

GMX Mail is a free webmail service provided by GMX (Global Mail Exchange), a subsidiary of United Internet AG. According to Wikipedia, the GMX FreeMail service is a sizeable one, with 10 million active users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Given the ongoing reader complaints I’ve been receiving about this issue (along with requests to publicize it more broadly in the hope that the squeaky wheel might get some grease), I decided to post this item. Let’s see if it helps….

April 27th, 2009

Microsoft to begin public test of Twitter-like notification service

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 11:01 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Research, Web 2.0, Windows Live

Tags: Facebook, Dashboard, Microsoft Corp., Twitter, Service, Vine, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is taking reservations starting April 28 for a limited beta of a new public-information service called Vine.

The service, slated to go to testers in May, uses alerts, reports and a personal dashboard to allow users to stay in touch, particularly during crisis situations.

The Vine service initially was developed by the Windows Live team, post Hurricane Katrina. I heard a bit about the service back in June 2008, after which the service — like a number of Windows Live properties — seemed to just disappear. It turns out the concept was passed over to Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie’s division and incubated like other technologies in Microsoft’s Start Up Business Accelerator group. “Eventually, products and services started in the accelerator will transition into one of Microsoft’s existing business divisions,” a spokesperson said.

Here’s Microsoft’s description of what Vine is and how it will work:

“Stay in touch with family and friends, be informed when someone you care about needs help. Get involved to create great neighborhoods, communities or causes. You select the people and places you care about most. Use alerts, reports and your personal dashboard to stay in touch, informed and involved.

“Information associated with the places you have chosen will appear on your map, including articles culled from 20,000 local and national news sources as well as public safety announcements from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Information associated with the people you care about who are in your Vine network will appear on the dashboard too. You will know when they send you an alert, post a report or update their Facebook status information.”

For users accessing Vine via the Internet, the software component of the beta service requires a PC running XP SP2 or Vista; and 600 MB of hard disk space (100 MB for Vine and 500 MB for the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1).

“The baseline offering of Microsoft Vine will available at no charge,” a spokesperson told me. “Over time, you can expect to see premium services added on to the baseline offering, for a fee.”

Microsoft is targeting Vine at small groups of people who want to stay in touch, like families, neighbors, sports teams, volunteer groups and the like. Vine can work with Twitter, Facebook e-mail, mobile phones or landline phones, according to the Softies. It requires users to create yet another profile that will be shared with group members.

Just don’t call Vine another social-networking tool. Microsoft prefers it be known as a “societal networking” service.

Whatever you call it, I’m already on social-networking overload myself. What about you? Do you think Vine has a chance to propogate alongside Twitter, Facebook, etc.?