Futurecat - Michael Karek

There’s been a great deal of more talk lately about browser performance. You may have seen some previous discussion about page load performance as you saw here in a video and whitepaper in March. Page load ensures that you get to where you want to go quickly. But page load time differences actually measure about the length it takes for a person to blink their eye once, making a win for any browser pretty inconsequential as far as time savings go.

However, Internet Explorer 8 today offers a feature that saves you time and clicks and lets you get things done more quickly: Accelerators. Accelerators optimize the browser experience by removing repetitive, time consuming actions and give people easy access to the online services they use most. You can discover new Accelerators for Internet Explorer 8 at the Internet Explorer 8 Add-ons Gallery.

With all the talk about performance, we wanted to see what features like Accelerators really meant for time savings when people use the web, so we created another video looking at common tasks people actually do in four browsers: Safari 4.0, Chrome 2.0 beta, Firefox 3.5 beta 99 and Internet Explorer 8. Please note, all tests were performed using the default installation settings for each browser. No additional add-ons or extensions were added. 

Here is a video that shows off how Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8 make your browsing experience quicker and easier:

Accelerators in IE8 Help Save Time!

Kleine Erinnerung: Alle Anwender der Windows 7 Betaversion Build 7000, die noch nicht auf den Release Candidate Build 7100 gewechselt sind, bekommen zur Zeit in ihrer Windows 7-Installation folgenden Bildschirmhinweis eingeblendet:

Dieser Hinweis ist ernst gemeint. Der Beta Build 7000 startet ab dem 1. Juli 2009 automatisch aller zwei Stunden neu und wird am 1. August 2009 ablaufen! Mit dem Ablauf der Software stellt der PC die Arbeit vollständig ein, und es kann gegebenenfalls schwierig werden, die Daten wiederherzustellen. Dies ist ein wesentlicher Unterschied gegenüber den regelmäßig wiederkehrenden Erinnerungen, die man erhält, wenn man das Betriebssystem nicht aktiviert.

Um herauszufinden, welche Version man installiert hat, drückt man am einfachsten die Windows-Taste und gibt winver gefolgt von einem beherzten Tastendruck auf die Eingabetaste ein.

Windows 7 RC Build 7100 wird dagegen erst ab 1. März 2010 aller zwei Stunden nue starten und am 1. Juni 2010 ablaufen:

I love keyboard shortcuts. Using a combination of two or more keys that, when pressed, can be used to perform a task that would typically require a mouse or other pointing device saves me time and effort both in Windows and other programs.

Here are some of my favorite Windows 7 shortcuts that you may not be familiar with that are great time savers. For a complete list of all shortcuts, check out this page here.

Do you have a favorite that you can’t do without? Share it with us in the comments area.

Starting July 1st, 2009, when you launch Windows Live Movie Maker Beta you will be prompted to implement a software update which will extend the beta. You can download the software update here to continue to use the software without any interruption. If you choose not to install the software update, you will be unable to continue to use the Windows Live Movie Maker Beta.

The folks on the Windows Live Movie Maker Team are hard at work on “V1” which should be out sometime this year. For more information on the future of Windows Live Movie Maker, see this excellent blog post by Lead Program Manager Mike Torres from the Windows Live Team Blog.

I’m pretty excited for what they have in store for Windows Live Movie Maker!

This is the second post about the Taskbar Jump List in a series of Windows 7 Taskbar posts. In the previous post, Developing for the Windows 7 Taskbar – Jump into Jump Lists – Part 1, we introduced the elements that comprise the Taskbar Jump Lists: the destination (also referred to as “nouns”) and the Tasks (also referred to as “verbs”). As developer, you have a large amount of control over these elements. In this post, we walk through the different APIs that you can use when programming the Taskbar Jump Lists.

Before we begin, there is one very important thing you need to know. “Items” in the Recent category, or in any other category (any destination), must have a registered file handler for your application in the registry. This doesn’t mean that your application must be the default handler for that specific file type, it just means that your application must have a registered handler for all the files that you want to be visible in the Jump List. Therefore, “items” can only be files. Remember, by clicking on one of the items in the Jump List, the OS executes the command associated with that file as it relates to your application. When you register a file handler, you also specify the application that handles this file, and you define how to pass the input parameter for the application. Another important note to remember: All the items (files) have to be local – that is, on the local hard drive, and accessible to your application. Therefore, we can say that each and every item among the Jump List destinations is an accessible, local file, with a file handler registered to your application.

As we explain in the following section, once you have registered your file handlers, the OS actually helps you keep track of all your files. We will cover file handler registration in the next post.

Step 1 – Use the Out-of-the-Box Windows Experience and Default Behavior

By default, a Jump List contains a Recent category that is populated automatically for file-based applications through the SHAddToRecentDocs function. This function adds the used “item” (file) to the Shell’s list of recently used documents. In addition to updating its list of recent documents, the Shell adds a shortcut to the user’s Recent directory. The Windows 7 Taskbar uses that list and the Recent directory to populate the list of recent items in the Jump Lists.

Windows can also do the work for you if your application’s file type is registered. Anytime you double click on a file type with a registered handler, before Windows launches your application it automatically calls SHAddToRecentDocs on your application’s behalf. This inserts the item in the Windows Recent list and eventually into the Jump List Recent Category. The same automatic behavior occurs when using the Windows Common File Dialog (CFD) to open files through our applications. Therefore, this is another good reason to use the CFD introduced in the Windows Vista timeframe, and it also plays a vital role regarding libraries, as we explained in the Light Up with Windows 7 Libraries post.

Both of the above cases exploit default Windows behavior in cases where you have a registered handler and an Application ID by which the files are associated with Recent and Frequent lists. In both cases, Windows automatically inserts the items into the Jump Lists unless you specifically remove this functionality by using the COM API. Obviously, users also have the option to remove any items from their Jump Lists. By explicitly removing an item from the Jump List, you insert it into the Removed Items List, which we will discuss below.

Step 2 – Create Your Own Category

If the default Recent or Frequent categories do not meet your application’s needs, it is time to create your own custom category. In order to do so, you need to use the ICustomDestinationList interface to create a custom Destination List.

The ICustomDestinationList exposes methods that allow an application to provide a custom Jump List, including destinations and tasks, for display in the Taskbar. Here are the methods that we are using for the example below:

• AppendCategory Defines a custom category and the destinations that it contains for inclusion in a custom Jump List
• AppendKnownCategory Specifies that the Frequent or Recent category should be included in the Jump List
• BeginList Initiates a building session for a custom Jump List
• CommitList Declares that the Jump List initiated by a call to BeginList is complete and ready for display

The following code snippet shows how to create a new custom list called “Custom Lists” and appends a few items to it:

void CreateJumpList(){        ICustomDestinationList *pcdl;    HRESULT hr = CoCreateInstance(                    CLSID_DestinationList,                     NULL,                     CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,                     IID_PPV_ARGS(&pcdl));    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))    {        //important to setup App Id for the Jump List        hr = pcdl->SetAppID(c_szAppID);        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))        {            UINT uMaxSlots;            IObjectArray *poaRemoved;            hr = pcdl->BeginList(                            &uMaxSlots,                             IID_PPV_ARGS(&poaRemoved));            if (SUCCEEDED(hr))            {                hr = _AddCategoryToList(pcdl, poaRemoved);                if (SUCCEEDED(hr))                {                    pcdl->CommitList();                }                poaRemoved->Release();            }        }    }}

Here you see that we started with a standard COM initialization call. We call CoCreateInstance to initialize the ICustomDestinationList object (this is the joy of working with COM….). Next, we set the Application ID in order to allow you to start populating items to the list.

The BeginList function initiated the build session for the custom Jump List. This function returns the maximum number of items that can fit in a given Jump List; the default is 10. You may note the Remove item parameter, IObjectArray *poaRemoved, that the BeginList() returned as an out parameter. This holds any specific items that the user removed from the Jump List in his current session. We discuss the Removed Items List later in this post.

Next we called a helper function, _AddCategoryToList(), to do the actual work of adding items into the custom category.

// This is the helper function that actually appends the items to a collection // object HRESULT _AddCategoryToList(ICustomDestinationList *pcdl, // IObjectArray *poaRemoved){    IObjectCollection *poc;    HRESULT hr = CoCreateInstance                    (CLSID_EnumerableObjectCollection,                     NULL,                     CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER,                     IID_PPV_ARGS(&poc));    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))    {        for (UINT i = 0; i < ARRAYSIZE(c_rgpszFiles); i++)        {            IShellItem *psi;            if (SUCCEEDED(SHCreateItemInKnownFolder(                                FOLDERID_Documents,                                 KF_FLAG_DEFAULT,                                 c_rgpszFiles[i],                                 IID_PPV_ARGS(&psi)))                )            {                if(!_IsItemInArray(psi, poaRemoved))                {                    poc->AddObject(psi);                }
	
                psi->Release();            }        }
	
        IObjectArray *poa;        hr = poc->QueryInterface(IID_PPV_ARGS(&poa));        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))        {            pcdl->AppendCategory(L"Custom category", poa);            poa->Release();        }        poc->Release();    }    return hr;}

Another new interface that we use is the IObjectCollection that represents a collection of objects that support IUnknown. To this collection we add IShellItems. Each item (file) that we added to the Jump List is of an IShellItem type. In the above code, we created a Shell item object for a single file that exists inside a known folder, Documents. However, before we actually added the new item to the collection, we needed to determine if the user had already removed it. If the user explicitly removed an item from the Jump List, that item will be in the Removed Items List (again associated with the AppID), and, as developers, we need to respect the user’s requests and avoid adding that item to the Jump List. We already have the list of removed items, IObjectArray *poaRemoved, that we got when we called the BeginList(…) function when we initiated creation of a new list.

At this stage, you have a collection of Shell items that the user expects to see in the Jump List. Next we added that collection to the ICustomDestinationList object and created a new category named “Custom category”, pcdl->AppendCategory (L"Custom category", poa);.

So now you have successfully created a new category in the Taskbar called “Custom category” and populated it with four items. However, our work is not done yet. The final step in the CreateJumpList function is to call CommitList() to end the “transaction” that began with calling BeginList(). Only after our call to CommitList() are the new category and new items displayed. Calling CommitList() causes the stored list of removed items to be cleared and a new Removed Items List to begin. The ICustomDestinationList interface provides a "transactional base" API.

In order to ensure a positive end user experience, make sure that a safe copy of the new repopulated list is complete and ready for use, and that the only operation the Taskbar must perform is to switch the pointer to the new list. The end result looks like:

Using the Windows API Code Pack we can write the same application using managed code.

Once we are sure that we are using the same AppID with all the Taskbar elements, we can create an instance of the Taskbar Jump List for the button that we are working on, as shown in the following code snippet. This code snippet is part of the CTOR of the main application window:

// Set the application specific idTaskbar.AppId = appId;// Retrieve the taskbar jump listjumpList = Taskbar.JumpList;category1 = new CustomCategory("Custom Category 1");category2 = new CustomCategory("Custom Category 2");// Add custom categoriesjumpList.CustomCategories.Add(category1);jumpList.CustomCategories.Add(category2);// Default values for jump listscomboBoxKnownCategoryType.SelectedItem = "Recent";

Here you can see that we set the AppID using the AppId property and created an instance of the Taskbar Jump List using the Taskbar.JumpList static property. We also create two categories, named Custom Category 1 and Custom Category 2. Next, we add these categories to the Jump List custom categories container. Last we set the Known category of this Taskbar Jump List to Recent. This will automatically get populated as described above.

After we set up the custom category, it is time to put some content in it. To do so, we just need to call the Add function to add a JumpListItem to the JumpListCollection. The JumpListItemCollection is a generic collection (of<IJumpListItem>) holding IJumpListItem items. IJumpListItem item is basically some sort of wrapper for the native IShellItem.

// Specify path for shell itemstring path = String.Format("{0}\\test{1}.txt",                            executableFolder,                            category1.JumpListItems.Count);// Add shell item to custom categorycategory1.JumpListItems.Add(new JumpListItem(path));

IObjectCollection categoryContent =    (IObjectCollection)new CEnumerableObjectCollection();
	
// Add each link's shell representation to the object arrayforeach (IJumpListItem link in category.JumpListItems)    categoryContent.AddObject(link.GetShellRepresentation());
	
// Add current category to destination listHRESULT hr = customDestinationList.AppendCategory(    category.Name,    (IObjectArray)categoryContent);

As you can see, it is easy to opt into the Windows 7 Taskbar functionality. Windows automatically performs most of the work for you and, if you do need to create your own category, that is also very easy.

In the next post we will describe how you can add new Tasks to the Jump List and how to register a file handler.

Today we have some news to share around Windows 7 including answering what may be some of the “hottest” questions people have as we head toward General Availability (GA) on October 22nd.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Brad Brooks, Corporate VP for Windows Consumer Marketing, to talk about today’s announcements.

Announcing the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program & Windows 7 Pricing

Special thanks to Brad for taking the time to talk through these details with me. You’ll find a transcript of the video here.

As Brad discussed in the video, today we’re announcing details for the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, pricing, and a special pre-order offer for select markets.

But first, I want to talk a little bit more about GA and the worldwide availability of Windows 7. We’ve really focused a lot of our efforts on getting the product out to as many people around the world as quickly as possible. OEMs will start shipping PCs with Windows 7 in all language versions beginning on GA, October 22nd.

And for our retail software, we’ve made significant strides in terms of timing. Gone are the days when it could take months for all language versions to be available. In fact – we’ve narrowed the gap to just over ONE week!

On October 22nd, Windows 7 will be available in the following 14 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Chinese (Hong Kong).

Then on October 31st, the remaining 21 languages will become available: Turkish, Czech, Portuguese, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Greek, Ukrainian, Romanian, Arabic, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Thai, Croatian, Serbian Latin, and Latvian.

Windows 7 truly is a global release and I’m excited to be able to tell my international friends that when I say Windows 7 will be available for the holidays – I mean everywhere in the world.

But, you don’t have to wait until GA to get a new Windows PC. In fact, we know many people need that new PC sooner – for back to school specifically. And we have the answer for people who need a new PC now but still want to get Windows 7 and that’s the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, which kicks off tomorrow, June 26th! Anyone who buys a PC from a participating OEM or retailer with Windows Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate on it will all receive an upgrade to the corresponding version of Windows 7 at little or no cost to customers. The Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program will be available until January 31st, 2010 – and is global! For more information on taking advantage of the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program, visit www.windows.com/upgradeoffer.

Another one of the most common questions I get is: how much will Windows 7 cost? Well, today we’re sharing these details.

For Windows 7, we are reducing the price on our most popular retail product for customers, the Home Premium Upgrade, by approximately 10% (depending on the market). In the U.S., this means a customer buying Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade will pay only $119.99 instead of the $129.99 being charged today for its predecessor.

Overall, customers will be paying less and getting more with Windows 7. This includes fun new features such as HomeGroup, Device Stage, Aero Shake, Snap, Peek, Jump Lists and our completely redesigned Windows Taskbar (one of my favorite new features in Windows 7 today). These new features make your PC simpler and much easier to use.

So here’s the low-down on pricing for Windows 7. The estimated retail prices for upgrade packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99

And the estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

• Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
• Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
• Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

This means that Windows 7 Home Premium full retail product is $40.00 less than Windows Vista Home Premium today.

As Brad describes in the video, for Europe, we will not have a separate upgrade SKU for the packaged retail product versions of Windows 7 at GA. But we will be offering upgrade pricing on our full licenses to make sure that European customers who want to upgrade have the pricing options available in the rest of the world.

Finally, as a way of saying thank you to our loyal Windows customers, we are excited to introduce a special time limited offer! We will offer people in select markets the opportunity to pre-order Windows 7 at a more than 50% discount. In the US, this will mean you can pre-order Windows 7 Home Premium for USD $49.99 or Windows 7 Professional for USD $99.99. You can take advantage of this special offer online via select retail partners such as Best Buy or Amazon, or the online Microsoft Store (in participating markets).

This program begins tomorrow in the U.S., Canada and Japan. The offer ends July 11th in the U.S. and Canada and on July 5th for Japan or while supplies last. Customers in the UK, France and Germany, can pre-order their copy of Windows 7 starting July 15th and will run until August 14th (or supplies last) to ensure folks don’t miss out on this. Act fast if you want to be the first in line to get Windows 7 at this screaming deal! Note: The special low pre-order price will vary per country.

For more information on this special pre-order offer, click here.

I am really excited to be sharing these Windows 7 announcements with you today. Because of the great feedback we received from you, we are confident we are poised to deliver a great product this fall!

Simple, Clean and Easy To Open…

We approached the packaging for Windows 7 the same way we approached the product – by listening to what our customers told us they wanted: make it a simple clean design, easy to open, and reduce waste.

Simple Design

Customers told us they liked the big bold Windows logo and how it clearly communicates that it’s Windows 7. They like larger typefaces to make it easy to read. They also like the background colors for each edition that make it easier to differentiate between Windows 7 Home Premium all the way to Windows 7 Ultimate. In their own words, the “clean” design gives off a “fresh” feel.

Make It Easy To Open

We’ve reduced the number of elements in the package down to three: the plastic case, the paper sleeve, and a simple Getting Started Guide. The plastic case opens easily like a standard DVD case and it will have a single easy-to-remove seal at the top – and that’s it!

Reduce Waste

The plastic case protecting the Windows 7 disk is lighter and is recyclable. The packaging itself has a 37% weight reduction and the econometrics score has improved by 50% over it’s predecessor.

Essentially, the packaging is what customers told us they were most interested in picking up to learn more about Windows 7. We hope you do the same.

Look for the new Windows 7 packaging to hit this fall!

Lenovo announced today a new T-Series ThinkPad Laptop called the T400s. Lenovo’s T-Series laptops cater to business customers looking for a powerful and thin laptop. Lenovo put a lot of effort in designing this laptop to be light, durable, robust, and powerful – key elements to a great business laptop for the mobile worker. I’ve had the chance to play with a T400s here in my office for the last few days and it has been a great experience so far.

The T400s will ship with the following specs:

• Choices of Intel 2.53 GHz Core2Duo processors and graphics
• Choices of up to 128GB SSD or 250GB hard drive storage
• 9.5 mm slim DVD burner or Blu-Ray player
• Ethernet (Gigabit) & WiFi
• Optional WiMAX, WWAN, Bluetooth and Ultra-wideband Connectivity
• 34mm Express Card slot or 5-in-1 multimedia card reader
• Almost 6 hours of battery life
• Display Port and VGA connectors (Supports 2 External Monitors!)
• Energy Star 5.0 Compliant
• 2 Built-in USB Ports
• 1 Built-in eSATA/USB Combo Port (Total of 3 USB Ports)
• Fingerprint Reader
• TPM 1.2

As you can see, with these specs the T400s is quite powerful. It also can come jam-packed with network connectivity options (including support for Mobile Broadband) helping keep you connected no matter where you go. Because security is super important to the Mobile Worker – the T400s comes with a Fingerprint Reader and TPM 1.2. With TPM 1.2, BitLocker can be used in both Windows Vista and Windows 7 to secure the laptop. You also get your choice of storage. My T400s had a 250GB hard drive.

The design of the T400s is pretty slick. The T400s uses Lenovo’s “Top Cover Roll Cage”, which they first introduced with the X300, in the construction of its frame. This roll cage is made out of reinforced monocoque carbon fiber which is the same stuff they use on airplanes and super-fast cars. This keeps the T400s pretty light. It weighs in at just under 4lbs (with a 6 cell battery) which is about 20% less than its T400 predecessor. A non-SSD hard drive may also add some weight to the laptop as well as they tend to be a little bit heavier. But Lenovo gives you the choice to choose (as mentioned above).

This is a pretty thin laptop, measuring in at 0.83 inches (yes, I measured!). Part of the ability to keep this laptop so thin is that Lenovo uses a very thin 14.1 inch LED screen.

For the T400s, Lenovo tweaked the keyboard a bit. The keys are much closer to each other – likely to prevent gunk from getting underneath. The Delete and ESC keys are also larger.

The touchpad is now flush with the palm rest and is textured to help people feel its location.

I also discovered that the T400s has an “always on” USB port in the back. This means that if the system is in sleep/standby or hibernate mode you can still plugin devices like MP3 players or mobile phones and have them charge off the laptop’s battery.

Another very interesting aspect of this laptop is how Lenovo optimized it for VoIP. Many businesses are utilizing VoIP for their communications. This laptop can essentially serve as your communication hub when you’re out-and-about. Lenovo added a new toggle switch at the top of the keyboard so that you can easily increase and decrease your system volume – putting the user in more control of their audio. I’m told this will become a standard for all Lenovo laptops going forward. The speaker volume has been amped up to be more than 2x greater than audio levels see on the T400. And the speakers themselves have been moved to the sides instead of on the palm rest area seen on the X300 series laptops.

Lenovo put 2 digital microphones in for better recording. The dual microphones are expected to cut down the amount of ambient noise picked up during your VoIP calls and improve clarity with sound. And of course you can have audio without video. The T400s comes with built in 2.0 megapixel webcam that can shoot video up to 30fps. The webcam also has “Lower Light Capture Capability” to capture decent video is very low-lit conditions.

Lenovo puts Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate on their business laptops. The T400s I have came with Windows Vista Business.

However I decided to put Windows 7 (the Windows 7 RC) on it. Instead of upgrading from Windows Vista, I did a clean install. Windows 7 picked up most of the drivers with updates to many of them available for me on Windows Update. I had everything up and running very quickly.

With Windows 7 and the T400s, I am able to secure the laptop with a variety of features from Windows 7. Windows 7 has BitLocker (which we introduced with Windows Vista). Using TPM, I was able to encrypt the hard drive of the laptop to ensure if the laptop ever gets lost so that no one can get the data off the hard drive.

Windows 7 has a new biometric framework and in combination with UPEK’s biometric software – I was able to quickly enroll fingerprints for a further enhanced security. UPEK takes advantage of Windows 7’s biometric enhancements. This process was incredibly easy. As mentioned above, the T400s can come with built in Mobile Broadband. Windows 7 brings enhancements that take advantage of Mobile Broadband making it easy to connect and stay connected.

I had fun playing with this laptop. Special thanks to Lenovo for the opportunity!

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s will become available at www.lenovo.com starting at $1,599.

Today at HITEC (Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference) in Anaheim, CA, Sheraton Hotel & Resorts announced their plans to roll-out Windows 7 across their “Link@Sheraton” locations. I was able to chat with Mark McBeth who is the Vice President of IT for Starwood Hotels & Resorts (the parent company for Sheraton) to get some more details and insight into their plans:

Brandon LeBlanc: So tell me about the Link@Sheraton and your Windows 7 plans.

Mark McBeth: The Link@Sheraton is a social area in the lobbies of some of our Sheraton hotels that includes computers and technology resources for our guests. We’re working closely with Microsoft and will have Windows 7 available on the Link@Sheraton machines in select Sheraton locations later this summer – that’s before Windows 7 is even publicly available. What’s great about this arrangement is that our customers will be able to experience Windows 7, get a feel for some of the new features, and experiment with some of the applications we’ve developed in cooperation with Microsoft specifically for Link@Sheraton – all while being connected with the latest technologies. 

Brandon LeBlanc: How is this deployment impacting your IT Department on the back-end?

Mark McBeth: It’s allowing us to develop our knowledge base on Windows 7. We support 480 hotels across North America and the deployment at the Link@Sheraton locations is serving as our testing grounds for a broader deployment across our national infrastructure.  So it’s serving two purposes: customer satisfaction for our hotel guests, and hands-on experience with the OS for our IT Pros.

Brandon LeBlanc: What’s the general feedback you’ve received from your IT Pros on Windows 7 thus far?

Mark McBeth: From an IT perspective, we’ve received positive feedback on the performance and stability. For us, those are the very first things we look for in an OS for Sheraton. Stemming from the encouraging results we saw with our initial tests running Windows 7 on the Link@Sheraton machines, we expanded our current deployment to some of our production machines. We have about 40-50 machines at this point and once the general release comes later this fall, we plan to make Windows 7 our standard OS and begin to refresh our entire business operations environment. 

Brandon LeBlanc: What’s the best thing about the Link@Sheraton and Windows 7?

Mark McBeth: It’s a competitive differentiator — we’re using the latest technology to help our customers get their work done or bring them closer to their families when they’re traveling. The Link allows them to do this in the lobby area instead of in some far away corner like in many other hotels.  Plus, Windows 7 just works the way you want.  It makes the user experience simpler, faster, easier and more fun – some of the computers in our lobbies will even have touch screen capabilities available for our customers to try.

Brandon LeBlanc: Thanks for chatting with me, Mark – I look forward to hearing more about Sheraton’s deployment down the line.

Mark McBeth: Thanks, Brandon.

For more information on Windows 7 being deployed across select Link@Sheraton sites, check out the PressPass feature here.

UPDATE: We have extended the RC download period till Thursday, August 20th, 2009.

Want to download the RC? The RC download program closes August 20th. After that, you won’t be able to get the download, but you can still install the RC and get a key if you need one. (To get a key, just go to the Downloads page and follow the instructions.)

If you’re using the Windows 7 Release Candidate, we hope you like what you see. Let us know – go to http://input.microsoft.com and tell us what you think. You’ll be able to give feedback on various aspects of the operating system.