Microsoft has made energy efficiency a key design element of Windows 7, focusing on better power management for end users and centralised tools for IT pros, company executives said Friday.   Company engineers sought to make power management features more accessible than previous versions of Windows while at the same time, giving people the ability to customise settings.   The operating system, which will be released in October, by default is smarter about what to turn on when, according to c

In a move to basically outflank the EU antitrust investigation, Microsoft has announced that all version of Windows 7 shipped in Europe will not include Internet Explorer 8 by default. This is reminiscent of the Windows XP N editions, which did not include Windows Media Player, but the difference here is that Microsoft will not ship versions of Windows 7 with Internet Explorer 8 in Europe.   more > http://www.osnews.com/story/21657/Windows_...lorer_in_Europe

Microsoft's original plan was to release Windows 7 three years after Windows Vista, which would put the release date somewhere in January of 2010. Microsoft already made it clear that it would ship sooner, before the holiday season, but we've now got what is most likely the official release dates. Windows 7 will be released to manufacturing at the end of July, with the actual release date being set for October 22 - 2009, that is.   The release dates were first unveiled by Ina Fried, and later

The geek world might be all over Windows 7, and the rest of the world might be sticking to Windows XP for now, but there is also this Windows Vista operating system lingering around. Microsoft has just released the final version of the second service pack for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.   Fixes > http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library...036(WS.10).aspx   For Windows Server 2008 customers, there's also a list of improvements. Hyper-V will now be a part of Windows Server 2008

Windows 7 Starter Edition, a sort of My First Operating System, always carried with it a massive braindead bug feature that limited the amount of applications you could simultaniously have open at just three. Yes, past tense, because someone over in Redmond apparently looked up and smelled the roses, and suggested removing this silly limitation. And so they did, according to Paul Thurrot.   via > http://www.osnews.com/story/21547/Microsof...Three_App_Limit

download it from here   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en   while you are at it get the Microsoft® Hyper-V™ Server 2008 R2 RC as well here   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Steven Sinofsky has said that Windows 7 will enter the "release to manufacturing" stage in about three months from now, meaning August '09. This means that the actual Windows 7 release would be well in time for the holiday season. " If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 7 match our expectations then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 3 months. If we are successful in that, then we tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 7 available this Holiday season."

When you run Windows 7 with the default UAC level, a technique using code injection and several components in Windows 7 that can auto-elevate can totally own your system. Microsoft gave several components in Windows 7 special privileges (like notepad.exe and calc.exe) in order to reduce the amount of UAC prompts in Windows. The end result, however, is that these components can be used to bypass UAC completely, and basically get full access to your machine. This works even on the RC.   The proo