Tom Hall's Blog : Windows

Windows 7: Font Files - Thumbnail Preview

Tom Hall — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:16:22 GMT

I’ve just installed the first Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7 on my media centre and now my laptop. I wasn’t going to be bothering with upgrading because I believe Windows installations naturally require a fresh install every now and again – especially if you are like me, adding and removing tonnes of applications!

I’ve just about reinstalled most of my essential applications to carry out my job and have just come to install some of my favourite fonts – what a nice surprise – Windows 7 will show you a preview of the font as the font file icon if you are viewing in “Medium icons”, “Large icons” or “Extra large icons”:

If you like any of these fonts, you can find some/most of them here:
45 Beautiful Free Fonts for Modern Design Trends / Sixrevisions.com

Windows 7: Beta Build 7032 Desktop Screenshots

Tom Hall — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:09 GMT

If you are a bit of a tech head, then you’ll probably know about the next version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, that’s “Windows 7” which is set to be released late 2009 to early 2010.

Microsoft released a public beta, build 7000, for the general public on 7th January 2009, they issued 2.5million product keys so that any user that was interested could install it and explore. The availability of that beta ended yesterday (10th February 2009), and I would imagine Microsoft has received a tremendous amount of feedback in which we hope they will take on board to produce their best ever operating system?

As you can imagine, just because they issued a public beta didn’t mean the development stopped! The public beta build 7000 was built on 12th December 2008 at 14:00 as you can see from the version string - 7000.winmain_win7beta.081212-1400. The latest build to surface is build 7032 which was built on 29th January 2009 at 18:12 -7032.0.winmain.090129-1812. This gives good indication that development on the operating system is moving along quite rapidly, good news!

Here are some screenshots of the latest build:

The feature here (right) is the new “Play To” feature in Windows Media Player, and this is exactly what it says on the tin, you can select media on your PC and play to… a network-connected media device, this could be an Plasma/LCD Television, an Audio System, an Xbox games console, PS3 games console etc…

This technology relies on an industry standard DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) 1.5 digital media renderer which operates over a standard wired and/or wireless network.

Clearly the possibilities of this technology is very exciting and will without doubt change the way we use our media within the home.

More Info:

Windows 7 Screenshots and information: Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows
More about DLNA: DLNA Homepage, DLNA on Wikipedia

Event in London, UK:
Vista Squad 18th February 2009: Deploying Windows 7: Changes from Vista

Windows 7: Windows Features

Tom Hall — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:51:24 GMT

Having acquired the first public beta (Beta 1, Build 7000) of the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, I’ve been having a snoop around to see what’s new, what’s different, and one interesting thing (for developers) is that the .NET Framework is listed as version 3.5.1, this may seem confusing, but it is .NET Framework 3.5 SP1!

In the list of Windows Features, included is Internet Information Services Hostable Web Core, this is a new feature for IIS introduced in version 7.0 (Vista & Windows 2008 Server), this web core acts as a standalone Web Server for remote administration.

I’m not going to go into everything about Windows 7 since plenty of other people have done that, so if your looking for more information, look no further:

Consumer Electronics Show 2009

Tom Hall — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:25:25 GMT

In the tech world, the year always starts with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This is a trade show held every January in Las Vegas where manufacturers of electrical goods and software providers showcases new gadgets and gizmo’s for the coming year.

This years show is taking place from 8th-11th January.

Some of the things you can expect to see are Samsung’s new range of HDTV’s, Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7, and Xbox announcements…

You can keep yourselves updated: Official International CES | Neowin.net | G4TV | Engadget

Windows 7 Unveiled at PDC 2008

Tom Hall — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:37:00 GMT

As expected, Microsoft unveiled the next version of it’s Windows operating system, Windows 7 (formally codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna), at the Professional Developers Conference (PCD) 2008 which is being held in Los Angeles from 27th-30th October 2008.

There was a demonstration of the operating system, a pre-beta, build 6933, bearing a brand new thicker taskbar, improved system tray area and a slightly different start menu, and removal of the Windows Sidebar seen in Windows Vista. At first glance, it does look a bit Apple mac-ish, as seen below:

Windows 7 Screenshot Galleries on Neowin.net: Here and Here.

Attendees of PDC 2008 were lucky (or unlucky, you decide!) enough to receive a copy of this pre-beta of Windows 7:

Photo from qyblog.net on Flickr

It is said that Windows 7 will be released early 2010, and will come in several flavours, desktop client edition (32bit and 64bit) and server edition (64bit only).

For more information on Windows 7, here are some useful links: