Last week I wrote about a subtle change in Windows Update, delivered to me (naturally) via Windows Update.

Today, after installing a clean copy of Windows 7 Build 7057 on a test machine, I was surprised to see that Microsoft has made another change to Windows Update, as evidenced by this pop-up notice from the system tray:

In addition to this on-screen indication, there was also a message waiting in the Action Center. This represents at least a partial solution to a longstanding Windows annoyance, where a user discovers in the morning that the system rebooted over night, with unpredictable consequences for open files. Previously, the only indication that an update was waiting to be installed was a gold shield icon overlaid on the Shut Down menu.

In this case, I was able to go to Windows Update and install the two waiting updates manually, thus eliminating the need for a restart. Nice fix!

John C. Dvorak has always been the P.T. Barnum of PC pundits, willing to write deliberately provocative things to draw attention to himself. But his most recent column in MarketWatch is an unfortunate example of how that tendency can go horribly wrong when it’s combined with factual errors.

Dvorak’s main thesis is pretty ho-hum stuff: Microsoft’s future rides on Windows 7. But then he drops this little bit of Barnum in there:

Microsoft may be pulling a fast one with the beta release because this is not the finished product. Let me explain.

As a beta program it probably does not have any of the security measures built into it the way a release product would. For one thing security is not too important with a beta product since hackers have not targeted it in any way, nor will they until the final product ships.

All that zippy performance that everyone is jacked up about will disappear once the burden of security precautions and patches begins.

For all we know the whole OS could turn into an incredible pig after this happens.

That is, to put it as kindly as possible, pure crap. The security features you see in the beta release of Windows 7 are those you will see in the final product. The idea that there’s a big pile of code being held back is ridiculous.

It’s really sad that some readers of this column (which is aimed at investors, not techies) will actually believe this nonsense. The question for me is, does Dvorak really believe this nonsense? In other words, is he cynical or senile?

Update: I just went back and read the column again. I was especially struck by how crude and juvenile the writing is. It’s similar to what I see in comment threads from anti-Microsoft zealots. I wonder if JCD is having this column ghost-written?

In the comments to yesterday’s post on subtle changes to the Windows Update feature, Bob noted something that I take for granted. He was disappointed that the new dialog box was missing the underlined characters indicating keyboard shortcuts:

The old dialog has an underlined “s” and “f” for keyboard users. But the new dialog box doesn’t have any keyboard equivalents.

This I hope is just an oversight that will be remedied in later releases. Keyboard users get used to being slighted but these keyboard accelerators are also used by the physically impaired that can’t manipulate a mouse.

Good news, Bob. Those keyboard accelerators are still there. In Vista and in Windows 7, many program windows and dialog boxes hide keyboard accelerators and menus by default. To make them visible, tap the Alt key (the same one you would use to execute the keyboard shortcut – Alt+F or Alt+S in this case).

Continue reading “Windows tips and tricks for keyboard aficionados” →

Emil Protalinski at Ars Technica apparently spent his weekend just as I did, doing a side-by-side comparison of changes from Windows 7 beta to build 7048. He found a few I missed (and missed a few I found). If you’re obsessed with the minutiae of Windows 7, it’s a good read.

Windows is funny sometimes. Yesterday at ZDNet I wrote about 21 changes I noticed from the December Windows 7 beta to the most recent build 7048 (see "A sneak peek at the Windows 7 Release Candidate").

A few minutes ago, another new feature appeared in real time. I noticed the Windows Update icon in the notification area and clicked it. This dialog box appeared:

I chose the top option and then compared the new dialog box with the old one, as it appeared on another machine running the Windows 7 beta.

Here’s the relevant section from the old dialog box:

And here’s the changed text after I agreed to the new Windows Update option:

The first change is clearly just a usability change. The second, however, suggests that Microsoft might be paving the way to deliver “new featured programs” such as those in Windows Live (Messenger, Mail, Writer, etc.).

Apple, of course, offers new featured programs like Safari whether you ask for them or not, a practice I have criticized previously (see "What Microsoft can teach Apple about software updates").

I like the fact that this new setting requires Windows users to opt in (Apple, are you paying attention?). I’ll be curious to see what sorts of “new featured programs” are included as part of this option and how well Microsoft does when it comes to disclosure of what’s in each one.

No, I haven’t got any inside information about when Microsoft plans to refresh the current beta release of Windows 7 with the promised Release Candidate. But I have taken a hard look at the leaked build 7048, currently floating around the Internet. It includes a slew of post-beta changes checked in as part of the Release Candidate development cycle.

I’ve been working for several days on this mammoth post for ZDNet, complete with image gallery. (Did you know there are 13 new sound schemes included with the latest build?) Go check it out and let me know what you think:

Post

A sneak peek at the Windows 7 Release Candidate

Image gallery

21 changes to look for in the Windows 7 Release Candidate

You want to know how much things have changed from Vista to Windows 7? Even Creative is getting on board the Windows 7 driver bandwagon months ahead of its official release. See this just-released Windows 7 Driver Availability Chart, which has beta drivers for the entire X-Fi product line and several Sound Blaster products, with many more updates promised before the end of this month.

That’s a far cry from the Vista timeframe, when drivers were unavailable for months after RTM.

Over at Technologizer’s Digital Media Central site, HP is sponsoring a contest with a pretty nice prize: one of the new HP MediaSmart Servers that just started shipping a few weeks ago. The idea is pretty simple: Submit your three favorite bits of media – a song, photo, or video – and collect votes and comments. The tie-in to the MediaSmart Server is a logical one; if you’re a fan of digital media, this is definitely a product I recommend enthusiastically.

As a participant in the project, I’m not eligible to win, but I did submit my three favorite pieces of media, including my favorite cat picture ever:

Go cast your vote and see if you can push my entry up the charts a little. And then add your own three, with a link in the comments so I can vote for you.

A Microsoft employee posted this update using the official MSWindows Twitter account a while ago:

ZOMG. LOL. EPIC FAIL. Et cetera.

Whoever decided to tweet that needs to be whapped about the head and shoulders with a clue-by-four. That link goes to an ancient article originally written about Windows XP and probably originally published seven years ago. It has been updated in the last year to include a generic reference to XP Service Pack 3, but that’s about it. In every other respect, the advice is hopelessly retro.

Does the Windows community in 2009 really need to be told to empty the Recycle Bin and run the defrag utility? Sheesh.

The worst part is the collective disappointment that the 4,313 followers of that account are going to feel when they see this article and realize that someone from Microsoft actually thought this information is relevant or useful.

Update: In the comments, Mike points out that this link is actually pulled from the Microsoft.com homepage. He’s right. It even has a gigantic graphic, which I’ve reproduced in miniature form here:

That’s several orders of magnitude worse than the Twitter flub. Microsoft’s home page is one of the most popular destinations on the Internet. It’s prime online real estate. And this ancient article is getting marquee treatment?

Just to add insult to injury, here’s the link to the same story that appears in the master list of Microsoft At Work articles:

Is anyone at Microsoft paying attention to this stuff?

I’ve got a new post up at ZDNet: Five things every Windows beta tester should know.

I tried really hard not to take any personal shots at anyone, including Paul Thurrott, who was highly vocal last week in a pair of posts on the subject. But Paul decided to call me out in the headline for his reply this morning:

Ed Bott: The end justifies the means

That’s pretty inflammatory, and it’s based on some interesting selective quoting. Here’s the chunk of my post that Paul quoted,. Notice what he chooses to emphasize in bold:

Frankly, I’m having a hard time working up any level of sympathy for those doing the complaining, partly because I heartily approve of the way Windows 7 development is going right now and partly because I have seen the feedback process up close and personal. Microsoft is getting a bad rap from a group of people who are mourning the reality that they’re no longer being treated as privileged elites.

It’s almost like he didn’t notice the second part of that sentence, the part he chose not to boldface. Here, let me do it: “partly because I have seen the feedback process up close and personal.” Funny how that just slipped past. No, I don’t think the end justifies the means. I disagree with Paul’s thesis that Microsoft isn’t listening. On the contrary, I think they’re doing a better job of incorporating feedback today than they did in the Vista era. Smarter, too.

The reality is a lot of people, including Paul and me, have been talking with Microsoft developers about Windows 7 for a long time. A little over a year ago, I had an NDA meeting with the Media Center team where they showed me some of the stuff they were working on and asked for my opinion on it. Some of that feedback has made it into the product, and some hasn’t. I has a chance to sit down with usability professionals that week as well, and saw firsthand how they were working closely with users to flesh out the goals and design of how Media Center would work in the next release. We also talked a lot about blogs and forums like The Green Button and went into some of the detailed feedback from those sources, much of it solicited directly from forum members by Microsoft developers.

Now, that’s just one example, but it’s a good illustration of something that Sinofsky wrote about in his E7 blog post:

Feedback about Windows 7 of course starts before we’ve written any code, and by the time we’ve got running code thousands of people outside of Microsoft have provided input and influenced the feature set and design of Windows 7.  As we’ve seen, the input from even a small set of customers can often represent a wide variety of choices–often in alignment, but just as often in opposition.  As we’re developing the features for Windows 7 we work closely with PC makers, enterprise customers, and all types of customers across small business, education, enthusiasts, product reviewers and industry "thought leaders", and so on.  We shape the overall "blueprint" of the release based on this wide variety of input.  As we have design prototypes or code running, we have much more targeted and specific feedback by using tools such as usability tests, concept tests, benchmark studies, and other techniques to validate the implementation of this blueprint. Our goal with this level of feedback is for it to be representative of the broad set of Windows customers, even if we don’t have a 1:1 interaction with each and every customer.

Once upon a time, it might have made sense to get design feedback from a widely released beta. That is not true today. If you’re building an entire operating system just to get feedback on its design, you’re setting yourself up for failure. The Windows 7 design was largely set before the beta code was released and that design incorporated a lot of feedback.

Anyone who looks at the Windows 7 beta and expects that a design change request has a significant chance of being incorporated is living in the past. The purpose of the Windows 7 beta is to gather automated feedback data from millions of real world installations and identify issues that can be fixed.

Go read my piece and Paul’s response and tell me what you think.

PS: Paul and I will be sitting at the same table this Thursday for a very small meeting (just a handful of people) to talk with HP about their plans for Windows Home Server. As always, I’m looking forward to chatting with him about this and other topics.