This morning’s e-mail brings a reader question I get a lot lately:

Do you know of a list anywhere that spells out what hardware drivers ship with Win 7? One of the frustrations with PC makers is that they don’t upgrade the drivers for printers and other hardware when a new OS ships. I think my HP Deskjet 6620 is not supported in Win 7 so now I can’t take advantage of the new OS. Any help would be great.

The short answer is yes, there is such a resource. It’s called the Windows 7 Compatibility Center, and it allows you to search for both software and hardware to determine whether it is certified to work with Windows 7. Crucially, you can search to confirm support for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

But it’s a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that if you find a device that is reported as compatible, you can have a very high degree of confidence that it will work properly. The bad news, at least temporarily, is that the index is still incomplete. Here’s what I saw when I asked whether my trusty old Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EO scanner from 2005 would run on Windows 7 x64 (it’s at the bottom of this list):

The 64-bit page should confirm Fujitsu’s definitive announcement that they have no intention of supporting this device under Vista or Windows 7. The 32-bit page appears to be more helpful, ostensibly confirming that the device is supported and even including links to pages where I could get more information and drivers. Except those links led me to a generic Fujitsu Windows 7 page intended for purchasers of new Fujitsu PCs. I had to stumble around blindly to finally discover the Windows Vista (not Windows 7) update from 2007 that enables this device.  (I’m actually using the scanner in Windows XP Mode on my desktop PC running Windows 7 Professional.)

For what it’s worth, printers and scanners are, in my experience, the worst offenders in this regard. The older they are, the more likely you will be unable to use them and the more cautious you should be when considering an upgrade.

I was almost as excited as Navin Johnson ("The new drivers are here! The new drivers are here!") when I checked the Optional Updates section of Windows Update today on two different machines. Note the date stamp: October 22, 2009, which was the day when Windows 7 was released to the public. The top three downloads are for control software used with Microsoft wireless keyboards and mice, along with a detection driver for these devices. There was also a new driver for the Nvidia GeForce 8600GT display adapter:

I had not previously installed IntelliType Pro or IntelliPoint on either system, so this was a case of the right software being offered to me as an option. All four updates shown here were unselected, which is the way it should be.

It took two tries to get the software properly installed (I had to click the Try Again button in Windows Update). After finishing, the Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Detection Driver was still shown as available, with a mysterious error (Code 80070103) next to its installation status. That error means the driver being offered (or a newer one) is already installed. When I waited about 15 minutes and checked again, the redundant update was no longer listed as available.

The control software enables features for your input devices that aren’t available with a generic driver. Pretty cool, actually. With a clean install, this is one of those things it’s easy to forget.

Now that Windows 7 has officially shipped, I’ll be posting some detailed looks at individual features, including Media Center. And as I was creating the gallery of screen shots for one new feature, it dawned on me that there’s an undocumented trick that hasn’t gotten very wide coverage.

If you have Media Center playing in full-screen mode, pressing the Print Screen key produces a black screen. Annoying, right? Fortunately, there’s an easy fix. (It was introduced ages ago in Windows Vista and still works in Windows 7.)

Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video

Create a new DWORD value called EnablePrintScreen and set its value to 1, like this:

Restart Media Center and try pressing the Print Screen key again. This time you’ll find that it captures the full image, even when protected content is playing.

(Thanks to Richard Miller, Randal Aguilar, and Jeff Griffin for the original discovery.)

The highlight of the Windows 7 launch event? Meeting Kylie (“Hi, I’m a PC and I’m five and a half years old!”)

She loved my iPhone and took several pictures with it. I asked her to tell Steve Ballmer that Microsoft needs to make one of these.

If you’re curious about how Windows XP Mode works, check it out:

Windows 7 in action: a closer look at Windows XP Mode

You can also see the three previous screencasts I did:

• A smarter way to manage windows
• Do more with the taskbar and Jump Lists
• Smarter search

Together, they should give you a pretty good picture of Windows 7.

I got my first job in publishing in October 1974, which means I have been in the business now for 35 years. For the first 20 years, I was a copy editor, an executive editor, a managing editor, an editor-in-chief. For the past 15 years, I’ve dealt with editors from the other side of the desk.

As an editor, I had knock-down screaming matches with writers. As a writer I’ve done my share of arguing, pleading, complaining, and rewriting.

So today’s Pearls Before Swine comic is perfect:

One of the problems with writing about Windows 7 is trying to describe a feature in a way that actually helps readers understand how it works and how they can use it. Screen shots help, but they can’t capture nuance.

That’s why I was happy to spend a couple days in ZDNet’s San Francisco studios a couple weeks ago putting together four short screencasts that show some of the signature features of Windows 7 in action. It really helps to have some talented post-production help and a professional-grade recording studio to get the job done.

You can see the first two installments in my Windows 7 In Action series here:

A smarter way to manage windows

Get more done with the taskbar and Jump Lists

We’re looking forward to getting reviews from our readers. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, pick it up from Amazon using this link:

Windows 7 Inside Out

To celebrate, co-author Carl Siechert and I took to the hills above Santa Fe yesterday to see the aspens turning colors. Here are a few pics:

Thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. I’m away for the rest of this week and will be back next week with a slew of new content in preparation for the launch of Windows 7.

I just visited Amazon.com and got a nice surprise. The arrival date for Windows 7 Inside Out had moved up from September 30 to September 23. That’s tomorrow.

If you’ve pre-ordered a copy, leave a comment here and let me know when you receive it. Carl, Craig, and I are all interested in your feedback!

Microsoft finally released a test version of its web-based Office apps. Well, sort of. The new Office Web Apps are incomplete and not exactly what you might have expected. That’s especially true if you’ve already used Google Docs or Zoho or another web-based office program.

Over at ZDNet, I’ve put together a quick look at the technology: A close-up look at the new Office Web Apps. It includes a screenshot gallery as well, so you can see the programs in action.

My initial reaction was disappointment, but the more I think about (and use) the online apps, the more I believe I understand what Microsoft is trying to accomplish. There’s a clear dividing line in the design of the desktop and web-based products. The desktop products include every imaginable feature and are fully customizable as well. Microsoft assumes that this is where you’ll want to work most of the time if you’re a knowledge worker whose job involves organizing and presenting information.

The Office Web Apps, by contrast, are optimized for reading, reviewing, sharing, and making minor corrections, not for advanced formatting or creation of complex documents. In a way, it’s unfair to compare the Office Web Apps to their competitors (not that that will stop anyone) because Google, Zoho, et al. don’t have a corresponding desktop product to offer. Those are pure browser-based products. If you need a feature, it has to be in the web-based program or it doesn’t exist.

Clearly, it would be impossible to put every feature of every Office program in a web-based alternative. The question is where you draw the line. I think Microsoft has drawn the line too aggressively on the side of simple. You can’t create a chart in the Excel Web App? I understand not being able to add drop shadows to a chart, or to customize data points with legends, or to add animation to the bars in a bar chart so they reveal one by one in a PowerPoint presentation. But no charting capabilities at all? That’s just wrong.

Anyway, go take a look and let me know what you think.