The PC Report

According to the latest report from Tech ARP, the first service pack for Windows 7 could be hitting us sometime in Q4 of this year. Originally Microsoft had planned for a 22 month development period for SP1, longer than the dev times for Vista and XP’s SP1s. According to the report though, MS has pushed this date forward to the last quarter of 2010 due to new bugs that need to be fixed.

For those of you using Windows Update frequently, don’t worry because these bugs will no doubt will be patched via an update. However, for businesses that may only update to a new Service Pack, they will need a release sooner rather than later. Many businesses also don’t adopt new operating systems until a Service Pack has been released to ensue that all the bugs have been squashed before they update their systems.

If you’re still running the Release Candidate (RC) version of Windows 7 then your machine will begin shutting down every 2 hours. This is an intentional annoyance placed by Microsoft to encourage you to upgrade to the fully fledged version of Windows 7. On June 1 of this year the RC will be completely phased out so we urge you that if you’re still using the RC you really should upgrade to the full version right away.

Remember that Windows 7 Activation Technologies update we mentioned a few weeks ago? Well, it’s now out for everyone as KB971033 via Windows Update marked as Important. Take it or leave it, it’s entirely up to you.

Remember the browser ballot screen for EU Windows 7 machines that has caused Microsoft so much trouble? Today we all get to see what the browser ballot screen will look like when it hits countries across Europe starting with the UK, Belgium and France next week and then spreading throughout the rest on March 1. The top 5 browsers on the screen (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari and Opera) will be randomized to be fair, as well as the next 7 browsers.

If you live in the EU, and you’re running Internet Explorer, you will be alerted that there is “an important choice to make” and you will be redirected to the browser ballot screen where you can choose a new browser to download or stick with IE. Hopefully the browser ballot screen will inform more people of the other browsers available out there and give them some much need market share out of IE’s chunk.

A new Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7 is coming that is said to check for 70 known activation exploits. The update will be optional, but marked as Important in Windows Update when it is distributed later this month. You will also be able to get a copy via the Genuine Windows site starting from February 16th. The update is said to not jeopardise user’s privacy by giving Microsoft’s servers personal details.

If it turns out that you have used an activation exploit and it is found via the update, it will notify you that you have a non-genuine copy of Windows and change your desktop wallpaper to plain black. Periodically it will also remind you that your copy is pirated and you will be stuck with a permanent watermark on your desktop.

Microsoft is continuing to bask in the glory of their latest (and greatest) operating system, Windows 7, with new claims that suggest that it is the fastest selling operating system in history. While no actual sales numbers have been given, Craig Bellinson, the Director of Marketing for Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, shares with us that PC sales went up 50% the week after 7 was released, Black Friday sales were up 63% and year-over-year PC sales were up by more than 50%.

After the flop that Vista was, it isn’t surprising to see that Windows 7 sales are so good as people flooded to use the new operating system to rid themselves of Vista. Good reviews and positive comments also would have helped Windows 7 successfulness. It also wouldn’t be surprising to see Microsoft’s next big OS leap over Windows 7 and see better, and faster, sales.

Don’t you just love it when someone discovers thing such as God Mode for your every day operating system? God Mode for Windows 7 is actually pretty useful; it’s a folder than when opened, gives you all the possible settings for Windows that are accessible as a search string. Not only does it show the settings, it categorises them and shows you what application they came from and all the keywords that ,when searched, direct you to them. There are roughly 265 settings in 50 categories (it varies depending on the OS), very handy if you need to change lots of settings in multiple locations.

All you have to do is create a folder and name it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} – however as we’ve discovered it’s only the hex string that follows GodMode that actually matters. You could call the folder SettingsList.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and it would still function the same, just some person thought that God Mode would suit the feature well as a name.

Apparently you can create this folder in both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, as well as the 32-bit version of Vista. 64-bit users of Vista luck out; if you create the folder it will send Explorer into a crash loop that you can recover by entering Safe Mode command prompt, navigating to the parent folder of the god mode folder and executing rd /s God[Tab] – so don’t attempt it.

Consumer helpdesk firm iYogi decided it was about time to get some solid feedback on the issues with Windows 7, so they surveyed 100,000 customers about what issues they were experiencing in Windows 7. The top offender was installation issues, which 31% of people having issues with Windows 7 reported as experiencing. However, as 95% of people moved to Windows 7 by buying a new computer, this isn’t as bad as it may seem.

Second to this was people’s confusion over where applications such as Windows Mail, Movie Maker and Photo Gallery went, which 26% of people experiencing issues reported. Of course, these apps were replaced with the Windows Live Essentials, which can be downloaded in Windows 7 via the link that appears if you search for any of the old programs.

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The Windows 7 installation isn’t suited to netbooks really: their lack of DVD drives makes it difficult to install and you had to go through a complicated process of making a bootable flash drive through partitioning and other software, copying the contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto it and booting into it to install. Quite a pain in the ass if you just want the latest Microsoft operating system on your netbook.

Lucky for you though, Microsoft has decided to officially release a simple tool that makes the process quite simple. The open-source Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool will do all the work converting your Windows 7 ISO into a bootable USB flash drive ready to install Windows 7. Grab the easy to use tool now from Microsoft’s CodePlex.

Enjoying the great new Windows 7? Well, so is Microsoft – according to the NPD Group, Windows 7 opening few days’ sales are up by 234% over Vista’s opening few days’ sales. This is pretty impressive; more impressive than the mere 82% revenue growth over Vista. Interestingly, PC sales weren’t as strong during the Windows 7 launch as they were during the Windows Vista launch.

Unfortunately, the amount of sales of computers that had older operating systems than Windows 7 was high during the launch: 20% of PCs sold during the Windows 7 launch had an older operating system on them, compared to 6% during the Vista launch.” Aside from Vista being stronger in PC sales (probably due to people realising you need a new computer to run Vista), it looks like the Windows 7 launch was a great success. Congratulations to Microsoft.