Most IT departments skipped over Vista, but are now looking at upgrading their old XP machines to Windows 7. Finally, IT departments are waking up to the new technology. Vista wasn't that bad, but it sure did fail in the enterprise market. Windows 7 has improved quite a bit, not only on the consumer front, but in the corporate front as well. There are a lot of reasons to upgrade from Windows XP, the major one being the age and relatively insecurity compared to the new OS.

Thomas, CIO at Pella Corp., says his IT team began beta testing Vista's successor a year ago as an upgrade path from Windows XP. By October, just two months after Windows 7 launched, the Pella, Iowa-based window and door manufacturer had 225 Windows 7 clients up and running — and the feedback from both IT staff and end users has been generally positive.

PC World has published a FAQ on the free upgrade program for Office 2007 users to upgrade to Office 2010. If you are wanting to take advantage of this free upgrade, and haven't purchased Office 2007 yet, read this FAQ so you can do it right and get your copy of 2010.

Thinking about purchasing Microsoft Office, but you want to wait until Office 2010 comes out of beta? Don't bother; just pick up a copy of Office 2007 between now and September 30, and you'll be eligible to get a free upgrade to Office 2010, thanks to Microsoft's Technology Guarantee Program.

Not only am I a computer fanatic, I am also a huge home theater fanatic. I get annoyed going to peoples homes and they brag about their new 73" big screen TV as they run a standard definition (480i/p) to a non-calibrated TV. On top of that, they have a HTIB (Home Theater in a Box) surround sound package with the speakers randomly set around the room. Yikes. But, for us audio/videophiles, Denon is releasing Windows 7 compatible receivers. I'm a fan of Denon, I love their products. Very high quality, at a good price. Not super high end, but great for us demanding consumers with a budget.

The Denon AVR-4810CI, AVR-4310CI, AVR-3310CI, and AVR-990 have all passed compatibility tests for Windows 7, along with the company's ASD-51W and ASD-51N networked iPod docks. The compatibility means that Windows 7 users will be able to connect their Windows 7-based computers to the receivers, and stream their computer-based content to their home theater systems.

I had the pleasure of using an HP Mini 1000 with Windows 7 last week. My Mother bought one, and immediately removed XP to put Windows 7 on it. Of course, she did it without any help or input, which is amazing. She did do a few little things that I would have done differently. The Netbook only came with 1 GB of RAM, which she needs to immediately upgrade to 2 GB, in my opinion. She installed 7 Ultimate version. That's a bit overkill on a simple little netbook. But, it works like a dream. I was extremely impressed at the speed. I was going in with low expectations with that little CPU and only 1 GB of RAM. But, that thing flew! Even running a couple of applications (Word 2010, Firefox and Paint) it was quick and responsive.

Another awesome feat: she used the built in Windows Easy Transfer to move files over from her old laptop. Flawlessly, no errors. My Mom knows the basics of computers, and is pretty good at figuring things out. But, the way she went through the upgrade on that Mini impressed even me. Great job. If she can do it, I'm sure anyone can do it! Windows is a lot easier than people give it credit!

This article may be a week too late for her, but it has some valuable information for making the transition to Windows 7 on an HP Mini 1000 easy as apple pie.

I previously reviewed the HP Mini 1000 and not only found a lot to like, but it has become my standard traveling machine, allowing me to leave the MacBook behind, most times. It’s a small enough form factor netbook, with an almost full-size keyboard, that makes it a pleasure to use for extended amounts of time.

If sources are correct, Microsoft may be releasing a service pack before the minimum 22 months they claimed they would wait. According to some, they would be better off waiting to announce a service pack than releasing one early. If there are serious issues that plague the operating system, not only performance, but security related, they need to be remedied. If that involves a simple patch, or a full blown service pack, it needs to be done.

TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that has nailed previous service pack schedules for both Windows XP and Vista, said unnamed sources had originally pegged a 22-month development schedule for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1). But Microsoft has since changed its mind, reportedly to address an unknown number of "serious" performance bugs.

I saw this over at Paul Thurrott's site, Supersite for Windows, and thought I'd pass it along. You can access the Run as Administrator, Property sheet and more for a program on your Jumplist. It comes in extremely handy when you want to run it as Administrator in a hurry, without going through the Start menu.

When you right-click a shortcut in any modern Windows version and choose Properties, you're presented with the Property sheet for that item, which provides a number of options that you can configure and use each time the underlying application (or document or folder location) is run. In the case of applications, there are some key options you can configure here on a shortcut-by-shortcut basis, including what kind of window is opened (maximized, normal) and even advanced properties like "Run as administrator."

This is great. I've been waiting for something like this. The game can be started on your PC, then you can finish it when you load it up on your 360. Easy to program and port to other platforms. I'm sure that some gamers will complain that they lost because they were using a gamepad and their competitor was using a mouse and keyboard. I would love to play on the PC, while someone else was using an XBox. A lot of games are available for both, and it'd be nice to play with a much larger community.

It's the same code running on all three platforms. That is, it's a single project in Visual Studio, and the three platforms share 90% of the code, with each platform having input-specific code. In other words, the same game can run on an Xbox 360 and be controlled by a controller, on a Windows PC by a keyboard, and on a phone using the touch screen and accelerometer.

Showing the soft, sensitive side of Microsoft, the Internet Explorer team sent flowers with a note to the Internet Explorer 6 funeral held in Denver, Colorado. How nice of them. I think it's pretty cool that they are having such a good attitude about their 10 year old browser going the way of the dinosaur. I'm just waiting for the IE team to show some IE9 demos. Hopefully, fully compatible with HTML5 and web standards.

Say this for Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, they've got a sense of humor. The people who make the Redmond company's web browser sent flowers and a card to the widely publicized "funeral" being held today to mark the passing of one of their own, Internet Explorer 6.

For those that are wanting to buy Office, but don't want to buy it right now since the newest version is just around the corner, go ahead and buy it. As with their Windows upgrades, if you buy the previous version within 6 months of the release of the newer version, you get a free upgrade to the new one. Not a bad deal if you ask me! I know a lot of people that are always a little leary of buying software if they know a newer version is coming out. This really helps them out.

All you need to be eligible for this program – Office 2010 Technology Guarantee – is the following:
Purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010.
Have, or create a Windows Live ID.
Redeem your Tech Guarantee before October 31, 2010 by visiting www.office.com/techg.

Microsoft has had something up their sleeves to combat the Apple iPad. It's been rumored, now the rumors are true. Microsoft has some shots and video of the Courier, brought to you through Engadget. I snagged a shot for those that don't want to click the link.

That's a lot smaller than we expected -- this new picture really puts it into perspective -- and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we're told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series, which we're taking to mean Windows CE 6.

Source of photo: Engadget

This coming up Tuesday, Microsoft is releasing some patches to fix vulnerabilities in Windows and Office. Make sure you get those machines patched, as there are several viruses in the wild taking advantage of these holes.

Proof-of-concept code has been published on the Internet that exploits that vulnerability, which affects older Windows systems running Internet Explorer. Microsoft suggested several workarounds until it releases a patch, including avoiding pressing the F1 key when prompted by a Web site.

Microsoft Paint has been the basic image editor built into Windows since, well, for a long time. It has had a few minor updates, but has never really been a usable program other than simple stick figures or shapes. Now, Microsoft is working on Project Gustav, an image painting program that mimics a paint brush and canvas. I think it looks amazing!

Typically the experience of painting on a computer is nothing like painting in the real world. Real painting is actually a very complex phenomenon – a 3D brush consisting of thousands of individually deforming bristles, interacting with viscous fluid paint and a rough-surfaced canvas to create rich, complex strokes. Until fairly recently, the amount of computing power available on a typical home computer simply hasn't been sufficient to attempt simulating such a real-world painting experience in any detail. Project Gustav aims to leverage the increasing power of the PC and ever faster graphics processors and combine that with a natural user interface, to bring a rich painting experience to a wide audience including hobbyists and professionals alike.

For you system admins out there, Microsoft is working on a new add-on to your existing Active Directory infrastructure. Dubbed NGAD (Next Generation Active Directory), it will not replace the current AD, but is an addition to it.

It’s in the very early stages of development, so we don’t know a lot. In fact, NGAD is not even an official name, and we are nowhere near any sort of official release. What we do know, however, is that NGAD is not going to be a completely new version of Active Directory. In some ways, it could even be interpreted as another example of the company’s commitment to the cloud.

Wow. Most of you recall that Microsoft caved into the EU's demands to add a browser alternative selection on Windows, so they aren't "forced" to use Internet Explorer as a default browser. This guy, Mr. Quick thinks that it's not enough choice. You have IE, Safari, Chrome, Opera, Firefox, and a few others. The others, he claims, are based on Internet Explorers rendering engine. Huh?!? You can't win with some people.

"The aspect of a browser that decides what bit to put where on the page, that's the rendering engine," said Mr Quick.

Wow. He is quick. So, IE uses the Trident engine. So, he nails Microsoft. What about Mozilla, with 3 products using their engine? Or WebKit (Safari)? This guy needs a clue.

Of the 12 browsers on offer, five use the Trident rendering engine, three use Mozilla's Gecko, two use WebKit, and one uses Opera's Presto. Sleipnir can use either Trident or Gecko.

Ed Bott from ZDNet showcases his skills cracking Windows 7. Sure, he uses premade programs that are a simple click and it's done thing, but he does go into detail on what you shouldn't do. The majority of ISO's out there that are pre-cracked are infected with some real nasty malware. Piracy isn't good at any level, but it does go to show that the Windows activation scheme is aimed at the average Joe Consumer, rather than trying to thwart the pirate community...

In this post, I’ll share my experiences, including close encounters with some very nasty malware and some analysis on how the latest showdown between Microsoft and the pirates is likely to play out.