Biz bods: Tile-tastic Windows 8? NOOO. We lust after ‘mature’ Win 7
Windows 8 won't become an enterprise IT standard as customers dump Microsoft's legacy PC operating system XP. Instead, corporate IT departments will stick to what they know and install Windows 7.
That’s according to technology analyst Forrester, which reckoned Windows 7 is fast becoming the de-facto PC operating system for big businesses shifting users off Windows XP. Redmond plans to pull the plug on support for XP less than a year from now, on 8 April 2014.
Just over six months after Microsoft launched its new operating system, Windows 8 isn’t even showing up on company-issued PCs, while 48 per cent of PCs are running Windows 7, according to the Forrester report, IT will skip Windows 8 as the Enterprise Standard. Read more...
Microsoft finally ships Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7
Following a protracted development process, Microsoft has at last shipped the release version of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7, with the new browser due to begin rolling out to customers via Windows Update within the next few weeks.
In the meantime, customers who can't wait for the automatic update to arrive can download IE10 from Microsoft's website.
El Reg first got wind that Redmond was planning a "late February/early March" ship date for the Windows 7 version of its latest browser earlier this month, with sources attributing the accelerated schedule to the fact that the IE team could finally concentrate once all the Windows 8 hullabaloo died down. Read more...
Full upgrades to Windows 8 only from Windows 7
Microsoft will support full upgrades to Windows 8 only from the three-year old Windows 7, according to a report Thursday.
Yesterday, ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, citing unnamed sources, said that Microsoft has informed select partners of the upgrade paths to Windows 8.
Microsoft has not yet set a release date for Windows 8, but most analysts expect it to go on sale this fall, most likely in October.
The upgrade paths that Foley's sources spelled out were the same that Microsoft revealed in February when it released Windows 8 Consumer Preview, the first public beta. Read more...
Where’s IE10 for Windows 7?
While Microsoft has regularly touted the improvements in Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8, the company has said next to nothing about the browser and Windows 7, the operating system that powers 44% of all Windows PCs.
Last year, when Microsoft first introduced Internet Explorer 10 (IE10), it promised that the new browser would run on not only the new Windows 8's desktop mode, but also on 2009's Windows 7.
Even though the company has updated the previews of IE10 for Windows 8 six times, most recently May 31 when it shipped Windows 8 Release Preview, it stopped serving sneak peeks for Windows 7 more than a year ago.
The last preview capable of running on Windows 7 was issued June 29, 2011. Read more...
Upcoming Microsoft deal: Buy a Windows 7 PC, upgrade to Windows 8 for a mere $15
Microsoft, in a bid to keep Windows 7 PC sales strong through to the end of the operating system’s lifecycle, has a plan: offer people a dead cheap Windows 8 upgrade , thus making the option of waiting for the upcoming operating system to drop a poor decision.
How cheap will the deal be? According to Paul Thurrott, the bump to Windows 8 will cost a mere $15. Of course, this sort of promotion is hardly new – Microsoft does something similar every time it releases a new operating system. It helps people get onto the new code quickly, and ensures that Windows revenue doesn’t take a massive dive in the quarter preceding the new operating system’s release. Read more...
Nine Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts everyone should know
There’s nothing wrong with a mouse cursor, but for many tasks keyboard shortcuts are far more efficient than picking your hands up off the keyboard and pointing then clicking. Most users can name at least a few combinations off the top of their heads, and almost everyone knows the infamous Ctrl+Alt+Delete, but many of the best shortcuts are tragically overlooked.
So to round out your keyboard navigating skills, here are nine combos that every Windows 7 user should know. Read more...
Windows 7 is on a (slow) roll
Jim Thomas, director of IT operations at Pella Corp., expected to be wrapping up his Windows 7 deployment by now. The window and door maker, an early adopter of Microsoft's latest Windows PC operating system, began deployment in February 2009, just four months after the product shipped. Plans called for half of Pella's 5,000 desktop and laptop users to transition by the end of 2010, with the rest following by this December.
"We are not going to get there," Thomas concedes. Today, Pella has 1,800 machines running Windows 7. The rest remain on Windows XP, which celebrated its 10th birthday in August.
Pella has plenty of company. Nearly two years after Windows 7 was released in October 2009, users in most enterprises remain on Windows XP, this despite Microsoft's ending mainstream support for XP over two years ago. (Most skipped Vista, XP's unpopular successor.)
In a September survey of Computerworld readers, 88% of respondents said they have begun or are planning a move to Windows 7. Of those who said they have already moved to Windows 7, or will, some 82% say their organizations are still running XP -- down from 93% in our January 2010 survey -- and 73% say they're running Windows 7.
But 55% of those still running XP expect to fully transition to Windows 7 by the end of 2012, and 34% said they would transition some time before Microsoft ends extended support for XP in April, 2014. And 11% said they would continue to run XP after that date. (During extended support, no-charge incident support ends, warranty claims won't be honored and design changes and feature requests aren't available.) Read more...
Windows 7 posts enterprise gains, but XP retains 60% share
Although enterprises are in the midst of migrating more machines to Microsoft's Windows 7, the aged Windows XP still accounts for nearly 6-in-10 PCs in corporations, according to a recent report by research firm Forrester.
Windows 7 powered nearly 21% of all business PCs used to reach Forrester's Web site in March, the most recent month for which the firm has data.
While that's more than double the 9.5% logged by Windows 7 a year before, the 10-year-old Windows XP remains the most widely-used enterprise operating system by a wide margin: In March, systems running XP accounted for 59.9% of the 400,000 machines that visited Forrester.com.
Ben Gray, a Forrester analyst who co-authored the report on operating system and browser trends, called Windows 7's adoption "accelerating," but at the same time noted that XP retains a majority. Read more...
Windows 7′s malware infection rate climbs, XP’s falls
Data released today by Microsoft showed that Windows 7's malware infection rate climbed by more than 30% during the second half of 2010, even as the infection rate of the 10-year-old Windows XP fell by more than 20%.
"Infection rates have jumped [for Windows 7]," admitted Jeff Williams, the principal group program manager with the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC). "We attribute that to the increased presence of malicious software attacks out there."
For the second half of 2010, 32-bit Windows 7 machines were infected at an average rate of over 4 PCs per 1,000, a 33% increase over the approximately 3-per-1,000 infection rate during the first half of the year.
PCs running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 fared slightly better, with an infection rate of 2.5 per 1,000 during all of 2010.
The infection rates were tabulated from scans conducted by the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT), a free utility updated monthly and pushed to Windows users via Microsoft's update services. MSFT detects and deletes selected malware, including fake antivirus programs, worms, viruses and bot Trojans. Read more...
Unpatched DLL bugs let hackers exploit Windows 7 and IE9, says researcher
Although Microsoft has patched multiple DLL load hijacking vulnerabilities since last summer, Windows and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) can still be exploited, a security company warned today.
Microsoft confirmed that it's investigating the claims by Slovenia-based Acros Security.
Researchers from Acros will demonstrate the new attacks at the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam later this month. Read more...
Windows 7 share tops XP for first time in U.S.
Windows 7 has passed the 10-year-old Windows XP in U.S. usage share, according to data from an Irish Web analytics company.
In the first 10 days of April, Windows 7's average daily share was 32.2 percent as measured by StatCounter, besting XP's average of 30.7 percent.
It was the first time that Windows 7's U.S. usage share was higher than Windows XP's. Read more...
Windows 7 Service Pack 1 RTM Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 Of
Microsoft continuously improves Windows
7® and Windows Server® 2008 R2 by providing ongoing updates while working with software and hardware vendors to deliver application compatibility and hardware compatibility improvements. Service Pack 1 (SP1) is another vehicle through which Microsoft provides operating system improvements to customers.
SP1 is an update to both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that, along with improvements delivered to users via other channels, addresses feedback from our customers. As with previously released updates, SP1 contains changes that are focused on addressing specific reliability, performance, and compatibility issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also continues to improve upon the IT administration experience. SP1 is not intended to be a vehicle for releasing new features; however, some existing components do gain slightly enhanced functionality in SP1. Read more...