James M. Burke

On Wednesday, Microsoft released the next major version of their Internet browser, Internet Explorer 7.0.  For those of you who’ve been using IE 6.0, it now includes tabbed browsing (like Firefox, Opera, etc.).  It also includes a cool feature called Quick Tabs that shows you previews of all of your opened tabs.  It also includes improved search, security and even includes the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds. 

I’ve been using IE 7 through the release candidates and I must say, you have to give it a try.  It’s a HUGE improvement over IE 6 and I think it competes very well with Firefox 2.0.  It’s available for download now from the Microsoft site, and it will be pushed out as an auto-update in the near future.

Download:  Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0

Since I do Windows development, it’s difficult having a Mac for a laptop sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mac OS X — but I do have things to do on Windows…and for that, there’s Parallels. Apple’s Boot Camp is nice too, but I just don’t have the time to reboot into another OS most of the time. The Parallels team is working hard on a 2.2 update for their Parallels Desktop for Mac product. The recent release candidate with build number 1898 includes experimental support for Vista RC1. I just thought I’d share with you the screenshot:

This morning at 10:59 am Pacific, the Windows Vista Team announced the completion of Release Candidate 1. This is the 3rd major milestone for the Vista team on their way to an October release. The official letter from Jim Allchin:

To the TechBeta community:

It’s official — Windows Vista RC1 is done!

We could not have achieved this milestone without your support. The quantity and quality of feedback and data we received from you has been essential to helping us progress. Thus we wanted you to be the first customers outside of Microsoft to get access to the bits. Next week, a broader set of technical customers will get them via MSDN and TechNet. But you’re the first! We wanted to get it into your hands asap so you can start giving us feedback right away.

You’ll notice a lot of improvements since Beta 2. We’ve made some UI adjustments, added more device drivers, and enhanced performance. We’re not done yet, however — quality will continue to improve. We’ll keep plugging away on application compatibility, as well as fit and finish, until RTM. If you are an ISV, RC1 is the build you should use for certifying your application.

The operating system is in great shape with RC1, but there’s still a lot of testing to do. You’ve come through for us so far, and I’m asking you to once again put the pedal to the metal and send us feedback. Windows Vista is going to touch hundreds of millions of lives all around the world. Thanks for everything you’re doing to help us give them the best experience possible.

jim

I was previously running the 5536 build on my desktop at home, and am anxious to load this build as well. This one carries the build number 5600.16384.060829-2230. Windows Vista is really coming together…check out the reviews: Paul Thurrott

Source: Windows Vista Team Blog - It’s Official: Windows Vista RC1 Is Complete

Found this over on Neowin.net:

Microsoft has quietly released the latest test version of Internet Explorer 7.

The RC1 build includes improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of IE7 making installing the new build even easier.

IE7 RC1 is available in English today, and all localized versions of RC1 will be available in September including Arabic, Finnish, German, and Japanese as well as the French and Spanish versions which will be available for the first time.

Microsoft is expected to finalise Internet Explorer 7 at the same time as Windows Vista.

I’ve been running the Beta 3 at work for sometime…time to update it!  RC1 holds the build number 7.0.5700.6CO.

Download here

So, I decided to try to do an upgrade on my home PC to the new Vista build 5472 (preview). Previously, this machine was running Windows XP Professional. It's been a while since I've taken a look at Vista…probably Beta 1. With 5472 being the post-Beta 2 build, much has improved. The upgrade process was very slow, but I am pretty impressed that everything seems to be functioning normally. I usually hate doing upgrades, and I really don't have anything important on that machine, but I thought I'd try it anyway. A lot of things have improved greatly, but it still appears to be slow. The first day was unbearable — I know it was doing some indexing and defragmentation, but the hard drive was running like crazy. Anyway, I really wanted to see the new eye candy and the PC I have at home didn't have the capability to do Windows Vista Aero. It has an internal video card…but, I soon fixed that problem. It was a good excuse to go get a decent video card, and I picked up a basic ATI Radeon X1300. Wow - I really like the 3D window animations. Needless to say, I'm very excited about Vista. I'm also very excited to see what Apple has in store for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (it'll be demoed at the Worldwide Developers Conference on August 7). A co-worker was showing me Xgl on Linux too, which looks really slick too. I think that's definitely the future of desktop computing. It has the potential to help with organization, and it's definitely fun to play with.

A while back, I decided to install Windows Vista (December CTP) on my Tablet PC.  After the install completed, I discovered that my machine wouldn’t boot.  Unfortunately the last backup I had made was from my PowerBook back in November.  Well, I ended up losing all data from November-February.  That’s not too painful since this is my personal laptop.  So, I tried everything to get the machine working again - various Windows installations, recovery DVD, etc…and nothing worked.  The Hard Disk Drive was a Serial ATA disk - so I had to use a driver floppy to even attempt an install.  The closest I got was with the recovery DVD, but it gave me Delayed Write Errors.  This led me to believe the Hard Drive was bad.  I tried everything and couldn’t get this thing up and working.  So, I took the machine back and exchanged it for a new one.  This time I decided to buy an external HDD and thought I would use Windows Backup to at least keep my files safe.  I backed everything up for about a week…and being the tech guy I am, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.  I tried upgrading this time to the Februrary CTP of Windows Vista…and again, it crashed.  When I tried using the Recovery DVD, I got a bugcheck KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR. I was able to put in a Gentoo Linux CD (which recognizes Serial ATA devices on the LiveCD) and destroy the /dev/sda1 partition using fdisk.  After this, I used the recovery DVD and was back in business.  Now for the Windows Restore…I figured I lost most of my apps and would need to reinstall.  To my surprise, it restored everything just like nothing had happened.  I was truly amazed.  What a life saver — I’ll be using this a lot more often.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have NetApp filers in your house with the power of Snapshots?

A new Beta of the Microsoft Command Shell (Codename Monad) was released a few days ago.  Windows “Monad” Shell is a new interactive command-line and task-based scripting technology in Windows that enables administrators to more efficiently and securely automate and control system management tasks on both desktops and servers.  MSH as it’s commonly called requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 RTM and is currently available on both x86 and AMD64. 

Being a command-line guy, I am VERY excited about this product.  I have been using it off and on since the first beta — it’s a completely different approach for Microsoft.  I guess I’ve forgot how difficult learning a new shell can be – MSH is SO powerful, but definitely not intuitive.

Download: Windows “Monad” Shell Beta 3.1 x86
Download: Windows “Monad” Shell Beta 3.1 AMD64

Neowin reports:

According to many industry analysts and rumours posted to our Forums the Feb CTP is due today.

With a build tag expected to be 5308.x86fre.winmain_idx01.060217-2200 the CTP is likely to be near feature complete.

Microsoft yesterday invited press to a conference call at 6:30pm GMT today to talk about the Windows Vista development process. It’s expected that shortly after the conference Microsoft will announce the availability of the February CTP.

Microsoft is targetting a release this year and it’s widely expected to be an event that will coincide with the 5 years that have passed since Windows XP was released. Although the company has not confirmed this officially, the next CTP is expected to be released in April.

Neowin reported today that Microsoft released to the public a preview version of their next browser, Internet Explorer 7.

Dubbed “Public Preview” the release includes tabbed browsing, page zoom, tab groups, RSS support and improved printing support.

Amongst the many new features, tabbed browsing will allow customers to manage multiple web pages within one session of a browser. Firefox, an open source rival, has long intergrated this functionality by default but now Microsoft is catching up this may lure many users back to the Microsoft browser. RSS is a heavy new feature of IE7 allowing users to “syndicate” feeds from various sites. Microsoft is expected to deliver the final version of Internet Explorer 7 at the end of the year alongside Windows Vista.

They also note that this preview is currently only available on Windows XP SP2.

Source: Neowin.net - Microsoft IE7 Beta 2 Public Preview
Download: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Public Preview

For those of you with questions about multipathing, in particular Microsoft’s multipathing solutions, you should check out this article.  It’s the Frequently Asked Questions guide to the Microsoft Multipath I/O (MPIO).  In this article, they describe multipathing as:

Multipathing solutions use redundant physical path components–adapters, cables, and switches–to create logical “paths” between the server and the storage device. In the event that one or more of these components fails, causing the path to fail, multipathing logic uses an alternate path for I/O so that applications can still access their data.

The article has some useful information for both iSCSI and FCP (Fibre Channel Protocol).  One thing worth noting too is that Microsoft does plan to integrate an MPIO-based multipathing solution in Windows Vista (Longhorn).

View: Microsoft Multipath I/O: Frequently Asked Questions