Office 2010 Up-Close: Availability and Product Editions

Today marks the release of Office 2010 to the general public. Office 2010 offers a great number of features and creature comforts that make it the best productivity suite available today. However, before you go out and try to purchase a copy

New Xbox 360 and Kinect

Today, Microsoft unveiled some amazing news in their keynote speech at E3. As would fit the norm of E3 the discussion was based on multimedia and not business (that was last week, at TechEd).

Hotmail Features to Come, an E-mail from Microsoft

If you currently have a Hotmail, Live, or MSN e-mail account, you have probably already received this e-mail. However, for those who may not have one of these accounts, here’s what’s to come on the Hotmail side of things (click on the screenshot to enlarge it):

Yet another Bing’s Best Theme for Windows 7

Not sure exactly when this was released, but the next Bing’s Best theme, not unwittingly called Bing’s Best 3, is now available from the Microsoft Personalization Gallery. I wrote about the Bing’s Best 2 a while back when Microsoft announced that, plus there’s also, obviously, Best of Bing 1.

Tinkering with Windows: Weekly Wrap-up

I decided to create a new series on the blog dedicated to short little news stories of what’s going on in the Microsoft World and also what I’m currently doing with the site and my PCs. I hope to convey short little snippets of news stories that I either found interesting or relevant over the past week, along with different ideas of what I’m currently doing and what I plan to do in the coming weeks.

Office 2010 Product Documentation

To go along with my Windows 7 Documentation post, I thought I would also share with those who are interested in reading more about Office 2010. As with the Windows 7 Documentation, Office 2010’s Documentation is also available via Microsoft’s Download Center

Download Windows 7 Documentation (i.e. Manual) from Microsoft

Some of you may already know this, but for those who don’t, you can download the Windows 7 Documentation via Microsoft’s Download Center. The documentation spans 140 pages and is available either as a PDF or XPS document format.

Community Technology Preview release of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone‏

Somehow I missed this. An E-mail I received from Microsoft last week regarding the refresh of the Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone (CTP):

Windows Home Server “Vail” Beta Now Available from Microsoft

If you’re interested in trying out the next version of Microsoft Windows Home Server (Codenamed “Vail”) you can hop on over to the Microsoft Connect web site to sign up to test it. Here’s more from the official Windows Blog:

Office 2010 Installation Screenshots

Now that the final bits of Office 2010 are available via TechNet Plus and MSDN, I thought I would start my Office 2010 screenshot series.

Office 2010 RTM now available for TechNet subscribers

Today, Aprill 22, marks the first day that TechNet Subscribers will be able to download the final bits of Office 2010. So, if you have a TechNet subscription feel free to download and check out the final product.

 

I am currently in the process of writing a review for Office 2010, however, my schedule’s been a bit hectic of late. I should be back to my normal day-to-day writing for this site come end of next week. With that in mind, Office 2010 does offer some nice features that are definitely worth checking out. It’s a nice complement to Office 2007 and a must if you’re still running Office 2003 or earlier. If you currently do not have a TechNet subscription, you can still try out the Office 2010 Beta.

 

If you don’t currently have a TechNet subscription, you can always check it out at the TechNet website. They cost $349 for new subscribers and $249 for renewal subscriptions. The subscriptions last for one year. Microsoft is usually offering some sort of promotional code that can significantly lower the price of a subscription, so keep a look out for those.

 

del.icio.us Tags: office 2010,technet,office 2010 rtm,technology,blog,microsoft,windows

Windows 7 Home Premium Uses Only 6.40GB

As I’m currently tinkering with the service pack 1 pre-beta for Windows 7, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium into a Virtual Machine. After installing it, I looked at the size that Windows 7 actually took up, interestingly Windows 7 Home Premium only uses 6.40GB of hard drive space to install. Amazing? Sort of. This just goes to show that Windows 7 is truly the big improvement that we’ve all come to realize over time. So, without further ado, here’s a screenshot as proof:

 

 

I’ve noticed this before, but wanted to document this to everyone to show how efficient Windows 7 really is. How much space does Windows XP take up? Well, it depends. The RTM for Windows XP, which shipped in 2001, was about 1.5GB. Given the biggest hard drives back then were around 80 GB. Doing the match, Windows XP took up around 1.875% of the biggest hard drives in 2001. Step forward nine years and you find that Windows 7, after doing the math, only takes up 0.625%. Not too shabby for nine years of time.

 

A couple notes here, the 6.40 GB size does not include SP1 pre-beta, it’s just the RTM of Windows 7 Home Premium. Also, I installed 32-bit Windows 7, as I’m still certain that VMWare does not support 64-bit Operating Systems. If I’m mistaken on that one, you can let me know…

 

To make a short story even shorter, it’s just great that Windows 7 takes up so little hard drive space, I think. This gives users the ability to, of course, install more “stuff” onto their computer. Doesn’t Windows 7 just make everyone’s life easier? :)

 

del.icio.us Tags: Windows 7 Home Premium,Windows 7,Microsoft,Tinkering With Windows,Windows,Service Pack,Small,Tech,Blog

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 – A Little Info

It’s here, it’s now…well, sort of. The official news is that Windows 7 SP1 has leaked and is now available through the nets…it’s build 6.1.7601.16537. It’s an alpha release, so obviously this is not something you want to be installing on a work/production machine. However, in order to further review this update I’m installing it as we speak in a Virtual Machine, I’ll also install it on one of my test PCs. I’ll let you know what I find, if anything, later today or tomorrow.

 

Also of note is although this release doesn’t offer too many significant changes for Windows 7, it will offer some significant (sort of) changes for Windows Server 2008 R2…Which I’ll be looking into as soon as I put the two together (i.e. WS 2008 R2 + SP1). I’ll let you know what I find.

I’m currently also reading the documentation for this release (there’s actually quite a bit) and will hopefully get a little more information from there. Interesting stuff so far.

 

If I’m correct in remembering this, Service Pack 1 should be released about one year after Windows 7’s official release. That is, around October 22, 2010. Unlike some service packs in the past (Windows XP SP2 anyone?) this release won’t necessarily add new “features,” instead, it will fix any problems and include old security updates for Windows 7. In essence, it will be what a service pack is supposed to be.

 

del.icio.us Tags: windows 7,microsoft,service pack,windows 7 service pack 1,beta,downloads,tinkering with windows

Microsoft Security Updates: April 2010

Every month I’d like to publish a post in which describes the security bulletins, to some degree, that Microsoft has released for that specific month. It’s funny, though, that this month, the first month I start, Microsoft issues several security bulletins…11 to be exact. If you want to read more about them, feel free to check out the official site for the security bulletins. Click on the Executive Summary to see a brief overview of each bulletin.

 

 

First, you may notice that if you’re using Windows 7 as your operating system, only 2 out of the 11 security bulletins are actually critical while one other is considered to be moderate. This just shows that keeping an up-to-date system, you should be able to avoid certain security vulnerabilities, in this case eight vulnerabilities. (By the way, if you’re still on ole trusty XP, you’ll have to deal with 10 out of 11 updates, in which four are critical, three are important and one is moderate.)

 

Here’s a quick overview of the exploits:

 

Bulletin	Title	Severity Rating
MS10-019	Vulnerabilities in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (98210)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-020	Vulnerabilities in SMB Client Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980232)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-025	Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Media Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980858)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-026	Vulnerability in Microsoft MPEG Layer-3 Codecs Could Allow Remote Code Execution (977816)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-027	Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (979402)	Critical Remote Code Execution
MS10-021	Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (979683)	Important Elevation of Privilege
MS10-022	Vulnerability in VBScript Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981169)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-023	Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Publisher Could Allow Remote Code Execution (981160)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-024	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange and Windows SMTP Service Could Allow Denial of Service (981832)	Important Denial of Service
MS10-028	Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Visio Could Allow Remote Code Execution (980094)	Important Remote Code Execution
MS10-029	Vulnerabilities in Windows ISATAP Component Could Allow Spoofing (978338)	Moderate Spoofing

 

As always, you should make sure to have automatic updates enabled for Windows. Once again, I’d like to point out that although this month looks bad, if you have a recent version of Windows, such as Windows 7, you will not be as affected as an older version, such as Windows XP. Hence, one of the reasons to upgrade to Windows 7.

 

If anyone has any comments or suggestions feel free to send them to me at tinkeringwithwindows at live dot com.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft Windows,Windows 7,Windows XP,Windows Update,Security Bulletins,Security,Office,Maintenance,Update

Windows Phone Dev Tools Not Compatable With Final Release of Visual Studio 2010 – but they will be soon

Mary Jo Foley offers an interesting tidbit of information for those who eagerly downloaded the final bits of Visual Studio 2010 yesterday (as I did), they’re not compatible yet with the preview version of the Windows Phone Development Tools.

If you’re using the preview version of the recently announced Windows Phone Developer Tools and are chomping at the bit to get the final Visual Studio 2010 bits, you might want to hold off for a few more weeks.

It turns out the final VS 2010 product is incompatible with the Windows Phone Developer Tools Community Technology Preview (CTP), as Microsoft officials acknowledged in a blog posting on April 12.

However, if you’re still using the RC of Visual Studio 2010, you should have no problem using the Windows Phone Development Tools. Apparently Microsoft will have a fix for this in a couple of weeks according to the report.

 

My take on this? Either stick with the RC or leave Visual Studio 2008 on your computer until the problem is fixed. I’m currently just leaving the RC on my computer, as I am diligently working with these tools and trying to learn as much as I can about the Windows Phone Development before it actually releases. You can also sign up to have Microsoft notify you when there is a patch/update for this.

 

Thanks goes out to Mary Jo Foley over at ZDNet for this tip. You can read her All About Microsoft Blog here, which offers very interesting news and information regarding Microsoft and its competitors. Very interesting stuff.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Visual Studio 2010,Mary Jo Foley,ZDNet,Windows Phone Development Tools,Tinkering with Windows,All About Microsoft,Windows,Microsoft

Customize Windows 7 with Best of Bing 2

Back before Windows 7 even RTM’ed, Microsoft launched the Windows 7 version of its Personalization Gallery, in which users could download and install additional themepacks for their Windows 7 computers. This site is still alive going along very well, and lately they added a new theme, the Best of Bing 2. This new theme is a compilation of Bing.com’s background images that appear on the website every day. The theme comes with 21 pictures from Bing. It is also a continuation of Bing’s Best that Microsoft released a while back, and if you download both you can have a total of 40 different lively backgrounds. The only downside to these themes is you do have a Bing logo in the lower right corner of the screen, not too big of a deal, I think.

 

View Full Album

 

There are over 60 themes at the Microsoft Personalization Gallery that you can choose from. I’ve downloaded several of them and haven’t been unimpressed yet. Once you download the file you can simply double-click on it to open, it should automatically install itself. Additionally, you can only use themepacks with Windows 7, however, you can always extract the images from the themepack file by using a ZIP extraction utility, such as WinRAR or WinZIP, which then the images themselves can be used on any computer.

 

del.icio.us Tags: windows,bing,update,best of bing,windows 7,themes,background images,free,downloads

My Take On Microsoft Pink – Before the Announcement

Today Microsoft will be announcing and releasing it’s first Microsoft Pink device. The device, targeted towards teens and those in their early twenties, will allow for better social communication (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.). Microsoft has already partnered with Verizon Wireless--my ultimate favorite wireless provider--to sell the device. The announcement will be held at 1:00PM EST today.

 

What’s the point?

I don’t mean to sound condescending here with this question. But, really, what is the point of Microsoft Pink? Microsoft first began working on Pink somewhere around 2008 when it acquired Danger, Inc. There is currently a lot of speculation as to what this device will enable for most users, especially when one of its main competitors is the iPhone and the Android. Further down the road this year, I could see Windows Phone becoming yet another competitor towards Microsoft Pink. So, what really is the big deal here? I mean, why would Microsoft create two mobile platforms (Windows Phone and now Pink) to compete with each other in the market. After-all, the iPhone has only one platform and personally I think that that is one of its advantages.

So, what is Pink’s advantage? Well, its target market for one. Although many teens and young adults enjoy and rave over the iPhone, there is still a lot that can be improved with the iPhone. In some regards, they may want something that’s simpler, or connects with their friends better. That, I believe, will be Pink’s greatest advantage. It will perform the basic tasks and keep its user connected to the world (i.e. social networking). In fact, it almost sounds too good to be true, for a kid anyways.

 

The device’s main goal, I think, is to provide a new and better way to communicate with friends and family. Of course, you can always do this with many other phones, especially the iPhone, but why not make it simpler than that. Microsoft has also always tried to make platforms for businesses and home users. Microsoft Pink isn’t necessarily designed specifically for the average home user, but it will leave out many of the enterprise features that Windows Phone will include. However, it will probably keep, and perhaps add on to, the many multimedia features that are present in Zune.

 

The Device’s Platform – My Thoughts

With the Pink platform launching nearly 5 months before Windows Phone leaves many users to wonder what type of platform this device will run. I personally believe, and some would agree with me, that Microsoft Pink will be somewhat based off of the Zune HD + components of Windows Phone. In other words, it won’t be able to capture all of the Windows Phone elements, for one, because it seems like it’s a slimmed down version of Windows Phone and it comes out way before Windows Phone OS is even ready.

 

I also believe that this device is not meant to be the next big thing--that will be Windows Phone come five months from now—instead it will more than likely be a device that takes the best of both worlds approach. A nice overall UI (Zune + Windows Phone) along with the multimedia capabilities of Zune and finally, the ability to increase social networking and connecting with friends and family.

 

Keep in mind that when I discuss the phones capability of connecting with friends and family easier than previous phones, I do not mean that it will be easier to text or send messages. Any phone can do that. This phone will instead be able to connect via social sites online and get to specific information quickly and reliably. I think one feature that will hopefully be in Microsoft Pink will be the “Hubs” that are introduced in Windows Phone, or at least some variation of them. Something, for example, that allows a user aggregate all of their social information into one main, upfront location. In other words, when the user turns on their phone they will be able to see their latest Tweets, Facebook comments, Foursquare updates, etc. all in one-place, such as the welcome screen. Aggregation is the future, which is why Windows Phone is going this route and why I believe Microsoft Pink will follow suit as well.

 

Further Thoughts

I don’t personally believe this will be a huge game changer, especially with Windows Phone coming up the heels of Pink, but this device, I believe, is still fairly interesting. I won’t be buying one of these as my primary phone, I just don’t see the point in having a device that further allows me to connect with people whom I may not want to talk to. Plus, who really wants a device that’s targeted towards teens.

 

Keep in mind, however, that this entire post is based on speculation, whether or not Microsoft Pink is actually what I think it is will remain unanswered until the announcement later today. Though, I believe I am pretty close in thinking that this device will enable users to connect with friends and family much easier than any other previous devices. I’ll be looking at the announcement later today, 1:00PM EST, and will more than likely come up with a response to this article with, hopefully, more information.

 

del.icio.us Tags: tinkering with windows,microsoft pink,windows,development,windows phone,phone,verizon,cloud,social networking,facebook,twitter

Windows Genuine: A Quick Look at Activation and MSE

Today I woke up and turned on my computer to find that my 30-day grace period expired (I often forget to activate Windows within the 30-day grace period and don’t opt for auto-activation when installing Windows onto a PC, so this happens to me quite often). OK, I thought, I’ll put in my product key and away I go. I grabbed one of my many Windows 7 keys, put it in and activated Windows 7. Everything seemed OK, until I checked Microsoft Security Essentials. The little bugger still needed me to validate Windows 7. I had always thought that MSE would automatically perform this crucial step after activating Windows, apparently not. I believe the key reason for it going into this mode is because I waited so long to actually activate Windows 7 and wound up past the 30 day grace period. So, I thought that I would make a post regarding this specific issue (though, this isn’t a bug in any way, it still can be a nuisance). So, if you have recently gone past the 30-day grace period for Windows 7 and have recently activated it, you may need to re-validate MSE as well. Here’s how.

 

 

If you see this screen, and you actually have a legal copy of Windows 7 with a legal product key, then you probably forgot to activate it and you must re-validate MSE after activation. To do so, simply click on “Run a validation check.”

 

 

MSE will connect to one of Microsoft’s servers to verify your activation and product key. This should really take no longer than 10 seconds.

 

 

If all goes well, Microsoft will verify your Windows activation and you can go back to using MSE as your favorite anti-virus product. By the way, I highly recommend MSE as a personal anti-virus program. For the most part, it keeps out of your way and gets the job done without too much fuss. In rare circumstances, such as this one, user interaction may be needed. However, this is probably the first time that I’ve touched MSE since I installed it, about 30 days ago. Hopefully this helps anyone with MSE validation issues and why they may be having them. To learn more about why having Windows Genuine is a good thing you can read more at Microsoft. I hope to write an article/post sometime in the future about Windows Genuine Technologies and why Microsoft uses them.

 

As always, you can contact me via Twitter (@jctierney) or leave a comment below. I’ve also started a new e-mail address for this site, tinkeringwithwindows @ live dot com. Feel free to drop me a line every now and then. I welcome anyone who has a question, comment, suggestion, etc. to feel free to e-mail me at that address.

 

del.icio.us Tags: genuine advantage,mse,microsoft,activation,windows 7,windows

Getting Ready for April 12

Update: Alright, I got the release date for Office 2010 wrong. Not sure why I did this, but it is really going to be released on May 12, not April 12. The rest is accurate. Still, Office 2010 will be a great product once it’s released.

A lot’s happening on April 12 in the Microsoft land. First up, of course, is the release of Office 2010 (will actually be released May 12 NOT April 12, sorry for the confusion), which I might add I am thoroughly excited for. I’ve been using Office 2010 since the Technical Preview back in July of last year. I’ll just say this, I’m impressed, and you will be too. However, as excited as I am about Office 2010, there’s even more happening come April 12.

 

It’s also apparently been confirmed that April 12 will be the official release of Microsoft Pink devices. What are these? Well, the world’s not too sure yet. However, it does seem like these devices, targeted towards the younger generation (such as myself, twenty-somethings), will be geared more towards social networking. Why we need yet another social device is beyond me, but Microsoft is creating one. Go Microsoft, go! (Once I get more information as to what Microsoft Pink really is, I’ll write up a description, so keep in touch.)

 

Hold on to your knickers, there’s even more. April 12 will also be the release of Visual Studio 2010. Although I don’t use Visual Studio as much as Office, I have written some small programs in the new 2010 Technical Preview and Beta. Once again, I can say that I am overly impressed with the new version. Programming has never been easier, and I can almost say that anyone who understands computers to some degree should be able to write a program with Visual Studio 2010. It’s that easy.

 

That’s about it for now. I’ll try to get some more articles up later this week. This has already been a pretty busy week, yesterday was beyond a full work-day. So, if I don’t get an article out every day, then you should know why.

 

As always, you can contact me via Twitter (@jctierney) or leave a comment below. I’ve also started a new e-mail address for this site, tinkeringwithwindows @ live dot com. Feel free to drop me a line every now and then. I welcome anyone who has a question, comment, suggestion, etc. to feel free to e-mail me at that address.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Microsoft,Office 2010,Visual Studio,Pink,Social Networking

Windows 7 Up-Close: HomeGroup

This information applies to the following Windows 7 Editions: Starter (Join only), Home Basic (Join only), Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise

New to Windows 7 is a unique feature called HomeGroup.  This little feature will help even the most novice of users with the task of networking two or more PCs.  Using HomeGroup users will be able to share Documents, Videos, Music, Pictures, and Printers (among some other devices) across a network easily and with virtually no networking experience.

 

If you are currently connected to either a wired or wireless network with two or more PCs you can easily setup a HomeGroup between these computers.  The setup is relatively simple and pain-free, for the most part.  If you are having issues you may want to check out my section titled A Few Showstopper Experiences. Throughout this section I will detail how to first setup up a HomeGroup and then add devices to the HomeGroup.  If you feel even braver I’ll also detail how to change some of the default settings, such as changing the password, changing the default file locations, and enabling streaming video, music, and pictures over HomeGroup.  The last of these is probably my favorite feature of HomeGroup, but we’ll get to that one later.