Camera raw support in Windows Vista and later

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Most of my digital photography workflow takes place on a Mac, where I use Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge/Photoshop CS3 to handle camera raw images.  With my recent purchase of a netbook (which is small enough and light enough to take out with me on a shoot – and less expensive than a dedicated storage device like an Epson P-7000), it would be useful to view the images in Windows but the Microsoft Raw Image Thumbnailer and Viewer for Windows XP has not been updated since 2005 and is not compatible with Windows Vista or later.

I did wonder if the technology had been absorbed into Windows Explorer and it seems it has… I found a forum post that suggests using Windows Photo Gallery and then installing some codecs (this post has more information on raw support in Windows Vista) but it turns out that the camera raw codecs are also available for direct download (i.e. with no need for Windows Photo Gallery) and after installation the raw file contents are available in thumbnails, previews and applications.

Unfortunately the major manufacturers (Canon and Nikon) do not produce codecs for 64-bit Windows (i.e. for people running high-end workstations with lots of memory for editing large images…) but the 32-bit codecs are fine for my little netbook with 2.5GB of RAM and there is 64-bit support for Adobe digital negatives (.DNG).

During installation, the Canon codecs complained that the screen resolution was not high enough on the netbook (1024×576) and refused to install but that was easily overcome by connecting to an external monitor with a higher resolution (no such issue with the Nikon codecs).

Incidentally, whilst I was researching this blog post I found that Microsoft also has an interesting program called Pro Photo Tools, which includes the ability to geotag photos, edit metadata, convert between raw formats, TIFF, JPEG and HD Photo; and work with Sidecar (.XMP) files (for interoperability with Adobe products – i.e. Bridge).  It too relies on the installation of the relevant raw codecs but should fit in quite nicely for some basic metadata tagging on the netbook whilst still in the field before transferring the images to the MacBook for any final tweaks when I get home.
Nikon raw image viewed in Microsoft Pro Photo Tools

NetBooks, solid state drives and file systems

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Yesterday, I wrote about the new NetBook PC that I’ve ordered (a Lenovo IdeaPad S10). In that post I mentioned that I had some concerns about running Windows 7 on a PC with a solid state drive (SSD) and I wanted to clarify something: it’s not that Windows 7 (or any other version of Windows) is inherently bad on SSD, it’s just that there are considerations to take into account when making sure that you get the most out of a solid state drive.

Reading around various forums it’s apparent that SSDs vary tremendously in quality and performance. As a consequence, buying a cheap NetBook with a Linux distro on it and upgrading the SSD to a larger device (the Linux models generally ship with lower capacity SSDs than their more expensive Windows XP brethren) is not necessarily straightforward. Then there’s the issue of form factor – not all SSDs use the same size board.

Another commonly reported issue is that NTFS performance on an SSD is terrible and that FAT32 should be used instead. That rings alarm bells with me because FAT32: does not include any file-level access control lists; has a maximum file size of 4GB (so no good for storing DVD ISOs – not that you’ll get many of those on the current generation of SSDs – anyway, most NetBooks do not ship with an optical drive).

The reason for poor NTFS performance on SSDs may be found in a slide deck from the 2008 Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), where Frank Shu, a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, highlights:

  • The alignment of NTFS partition to SSD geometry is important for SSD performance in [Windows]
    • The first Windows XP partition starts at sector #63; the middle of [an] SSD page.
    • [A] misaligned partition can degrade [the] device’s performance […] to 50% caused by read-modify-write.

It sounds to me as if those who are experiencing poor performance on otherwise good SSDs (whilst SSDs come in a smaller package, are resistant to shocks and vibration, use less power and generate less heat than mechanical hard drives SSD life and performance varies wildly) may have an issue with the partition alignment on their drives. Windows 7 implements some technologies to make best use of SSD technology (read more about how Windows 7 will, and won’t, work better with SSDs in Eric Lai’s article on the subject).

In addition, at the 2007 WinHEC, Frank Shu presented three common issues with SSDs:

  • Longer setup time for command execution.
  • SSD write performance.
  • Limited write cycles for NAND flash memory (100,000 write cycles for single layer cell devices and 10,000 write cycles for multi layer cell devices).

(He also mentioned cost – although this is dropping as SSDs become more prevalent in NetBooks and other PC devices aimed at highly-mobile users).

In short, SSD technology is still very new and there are a lot of factors to consider (I’ve just scraped the surface here). I’m sure that in the coming years I’ll be putting SSDs in my PCs but, as things stand at the end of 2008, it’s a little too soon to make that jump – even for a geek like me.

Incidentally, Frank Shu’s slide decks on Solid State Drives – Next Generation Storage (WinHEC 2007: WNS-T432) and Windows 7 Enhancements for Solid-State Drives (WinHEC 2008: COR-T558) are both available on the ‘net and worth a look for anyone considering running Windows on a system with an SSD installed.

Why Lenovo’s S10 seemed like a good idea(pad) to me

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I try to keep my work and home life on different computers. It doesn’t always work, but that’s the idea anyway. The problem I find is that, every time I’m away from home (which is when I get most of my blogging done), I find myself carrying around two laptops and, even without any peripherals (power adapters, etc.), that’s 4.5kg of luggage. Any sensible person would use an external hard disk for one of the workloads but… there you go…

Lenovo IdeaPad S10I’ve been watching developments with small form-factor PCs (so called “NetBooks”) for a while now and over the weekend I took the plunge. Tomorrow morning I’m expecting a delivery of a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 to slip in my bag alongside the Fujitsu-Siemens S7210 that I use for work.

So why did I choose the Lenovo?

  • In terms of build quality, my IBM ThinkPad is by far and away the best notebook PC I’ve ever had (better than the various Toshiba, Compaq, Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens units I’ve used – and certainly better than my Apple MacBook) – I’m hoping that Lenovo have continued that quality as they’ve taken on the former IBM PC business (the reviews I’ve read certainly indicate that they have).
  • I want to use this NetBook with Windows 7 – and I know it can work (this is the model that Steven Sinofsky showed in a keynote at Microsoft’s 2008 Professional Developers Conference).
  • I was impressed with Windows 7 running on Paul Foster’s Acer Aspire One, but the keyboard is just too small for my fat fingers.
  • The Lenovo S10 has a PC Express Card slot (so it should work with my Vodafone 3G card – and yes, I know I can get a USB version but I’d need to convince my employers of the need for an upgrade, which would not be an easy sell when they give me a perfectly good laptop with a PC Express Card slot to use…).
  • I also seriously considered the Dell Mini 9 (especially when they mis-priced it on their website for £99 last week – incidentally, the resulting orders were not fulfilled) but I’m not convinced that using a pre-release operating system on a solid state hard drive is really a good idea – I could easily kill the drive within a few months. Meanwhile, the Lenovo has a traditional 160GB hard disk and the 10.2″ screen (rather than 9″) translates into more space for a larger keyboard without noticeably increasing the size of the computer (for those who still want a 9″ model, Lenovo have announced an S9 but I’ve seen no sign of it in the UK yet). Another option that I discounted was the Samsung NC10 – which has a better battery and one more USB port but no PC Express Card slot.
  • The equivalent Asus and Acer models may be less expensive but the big names (IBM, Dell, HP as well as Samsung and Toshiba) are all reducing their prices – and by waiting for the reduction in the UK’s VAT rate to take effect the price was £292.25 for the S10 at eBuyer with free shipping (although I paid another tenner for next-day delivery).

I’m sure my sons will be amused when yet another computer appears on my desk (my wife may be slightly less so…) but I’m thinking of this as an early Christmas present to myself…

Further reading

Here are some of the posts that I found useful before deciding to buy this PC:

Unlocking the secrets of Windows 7

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Whether or not it’s true, ask people if Windows Vista was ready when it originally shipped and the response is generally a resounding “no”. It seems that Microsoft is not taking any chances with Windows 7 as it has been reported that the new operating system is being constructed in a modular basis and will only include components as they pass through the appropriate quality gates.

Spoof Microsoft staff identity passThose who have a pre-beta build of Windows 7 may be interested to note that there are some extra features in the milestone 3 build (build 6801) that are only available to permanent Microsoft employees using computers that are members of certain Microsoft Active Directory domains.

To circumvent this, Rafael Rivera has written a tool for Windows 7 called Blue Badge (named after the employee passes that permanent ‘softies are issued with). Running this utility will grant access to incomplete features by patching the operating system.

If you do decide to try it (and why not?), bear in mind that there is a reason these features have not been released – they are not ready yet – so don’t be surprised if everything falls over in a heap.

Microsoft after hours: the sequel

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A little over 18 months ago, I attended an event at Microsoft titled “Vista After Hours”. The idea was that, instead of showing us all the features of the Windows ecosystem that were relevant to daily life as an IT Professional, Microsoft would demonstrate some of the things that can be done in Windows apart from work – demonstrating that the world of Windows is not all about dull, corporate applications.

Earlier this week, I was back for more – as Viral Tarpara, Paul Foster and Jamie Burgess demonstrated some of Microsoft’s products aimed at consumers and hobbyists.

As is likely to become the norm around here for such events (so many blog posts, so little time), I won’t write it up in full but here are some of the highlights:

  • Gears of War 2 – the latest big game for the Xbox 360 and phenominally successful (but I’m not a games guy).
  • Viral took a look at Windows Live Services – Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft (MSN/Live) are all doing similar things (although each will claim that it has the best new features!) – taking a look at a few of Microsoft’s Windows Live Services:
    • A new look for live.com is on it’s way to the UK. Personally, I like it – and you can hover the mouse over certain positions on that day’s picture to see links to potentially interesting facts.
    • Windows Live Mail: with a new Outlook-like interface and the ability to connect to multiple mail services (and chose which send via); add own stationary (arghh!); and it will soon include photo e-mail capabilities (e.g. select 4 photos, all resized and embedded in e-mail – rather than as an attachment – then add a frame, or make it black and white, make contrast corrections, etc.).
    • Windows Live Photo Gallery provides a gallery view for resizing, viewing/adding metadata, tagging and editing photos (preserving the original) but publishing etc. is where the Live Services come in and pictures may be published to Flickr, Windows Live Spaces, etc. The end result is highly functional software on the desktop PC, plus services in the cloud.
    • Windows Live Writer is Microsoft’s blogging software and it: integrates with various platforms (WordPress, Blogger, etc. – even SharePoint); applies the site’s stylesheet to the posts as you write; allows insertion of pictures, videos (YouTube or Soapbox), etc.
    • Windows Live Maps: whilst many people use Google Maps – Microsoft claim that Live is superior for business requirements (I prefer the Google mapping view) and it now features: a 3D view using an Internet Explorer/Firefox browser plugin (and no more page refreshes – zoom in and out – very impressive, although it’s a lot smoother on Microsoft’s Internet connection than on mine); a bird’s eye view which uses a Photosynth-like effect to select high resolution images; a free API to use and expose in own applications; collections of public or private searches (e.g. a walk around 3D Manhattan) using public data to link to map (e.g. Times Square).
  • Paul demonstrated Photosynth, which works out how pictures relate to one another in a four dimensional space to build up a complete picture. Because synths only show the data that this appropriate at this moment in time it’s possible to jump around and explore the environment at a reasonable speed. Using the example of Stonehenge, even though the photos were all taken at eye level, the synther can work out where the stones stand so that it is possible to view from above (or even below!). More images helps it to work out more points of view and speech synthesis technologies such as mousegrid can be used to navigate and scroll around.
  • Even I (the non-gamer) was impressed by the new Xbox 360 experience that Jamie demonstrated (due for a worldwide release today for a phased deployment to all Internet-connected Xbox 360s):

    • The user interface has been redesigned and blades have been replaced with a dashboard.
    • Music can be streamed from another PC to the Xbox and played over the top of games or anything else; effectively the Xbox becomes the presentation layer in the living room.
    • Avatars are a huge new feature – with more and more options coming online all the time.
    • Games may be stored on the hard drive.
    • Xbox messaging capabilities integrates with non-Xbox users of Windows Live Messenger (e.g. on PCs).
    • The interface is much more graphical/visual than previously and therefore become much more immersive.
  • Paul showed how Community Games allow anyone (or at least anyone who can write code) to create and publish their own games to Xbox Live (10 million people) including charging Microsoft points and sharing the revenue with Microsoft (the approval process does require accurate rating of the game’s suitability). XNA Game Studio is used with the Express Edition development tools and the resulting games will run on Windows, XBox, or Zune. For more information, check out the XNA UK user group, which aims to provide “a helping hand for bedroom coders throughout the land”.
  • Moving on to home automation systems, Jamie spoke about how he had run co-axial and CAT5 cabling around his parents’ house to stream content from two Sky Plus boxes to almost any room, using IR receivers in the ceiling to control everything from a single remote control. Further information on this type of setup (with Windows Media Center) can be found at The Digital Lifestyle and The Green Button. Much more tangible was Paul’s demonstration of his home automation with everything from recording and playing media content in Windows Media Center to using the mControl digital home software to remotely access CCTV feeds, set the temperature in a room and even water the plants in the garden. B&QBased on a system of scheduling and triggers, Paul demonstrated a HomeEasy system (available from B&Q) with an RF controller and xPL software to control lights (a blog post has been promised…). More Home Automation products are available from Let’s Automate.
  • Viral took a look a some more of the Windows Live services and admitted that the current version of the Windows Live Homepage is not as engaging as other Web 2.0 technologies (the good thing about Viral is that he may be a ‘softie but he also admits to using alternative solutions “because that’s how real people work”) before commenting that a new version will have tighter integration with various other services (e.g. Flickr, Twitter, etc.).
  • Viral also showed off some of the new features in the latest Windows Live Messenger beta – things like assigning your own entrance sound to play on your friends’ messenger client (uh huh… that will be annoying); what’s new (see what friends are up to – a bit like a Facebook status); activities – games, calendar swap, etc.; and photosharing where you can send a series of thumbnails by messenger and recipient can browse for more detail.
  • Ethernet over powerline is a technologies I considered until I replaced my wireless access point with something decent and Jamie briefly mentioned the success he’s had with a NetGear 200Mbps solution in his modern apartment (where the building construction makes Wi-Fi difficult.
  • Jamie then went on to talk about modifying his Mazda MX5 with a 7 inch touchsreen, connected to a mini-ITX PC in the boot, running a Centrafuse front end for GPS (USB attached), Radio, Phone via Bluetooth, Playlist, Music and videos (using a USB dongle Wi-Fi synchronisation between the car and his home whilst in the garage), OBDII diagnostic data, camera, weather, etc. Apparently, you can even have Live Mesh working on this solution too. It sounds like a neat in car entertainment solution but it also sounds like the classic case of a rich kid putting more electronics inside his car than the car is worth… but if this sounds like something of interest then check out MP3car.com.
  • So, moving on to Live Mesh, Viral demonstrated it as a combination of social networking and synchronisation so that files in Mesh-enabled folders on each connected device are synchronised so that data is accessible wherever (based on synchronisation policies to control which contacts can see which data). Using the “Synchronising Life” video I embedded in my recent post on Windows Live FolderShare, he spoke of the potential for Mesh-enabled picture frame and gave a real-world example of how he (in the UK) and his girlfriend (in the USA) share pictures and other information via Live Mesh as the different timezones and work schedules mean that they may not be online at the same time.
  • Paul spoke of how he has Windows XP Pro trimmed down to 384MB and running on a USB key with a mini-ITX PC. It’s possible to do this using the evaluation tools for Windows XP Embedded/CE to strip down although the operating system image does expire. Pico-ITX PCs are even smaller yet still offer USB support, VGA output and SATA II drives. Find out more at mini-itx.com.
  • A Microsoft Surface table is a $10,000 device based on a technology called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR). Paul demonstrated build a DIY multitouch device using nothing more than a cardboard box, a webcam, a sheet of perspex and a sheet of paper, together with software from the Natural User Interface group). Basically, he fed the webcam through a hole in the bottom of the box (camera facing up) and used the perspex as surface (with paper on top to block out ambient light). The NUI software will handle the view, inverting the image, removing the background, etc. but some additional coding will be required in order to build multi-touch applications. I have to say that it was pretty amazing!
  • Next up – robotics. Those who were at the Windows Server 2008 launch in Birmingham earlier this year may remember Paul’s A1-DW robot (A1 = top stuff, DW = a bit of a dimwit – he needs to be told what to do) but Paul showed a video of the robot working its way around his house. A1-DW is controlled with software developed using the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (MRDS) which is free for non-commercial use and provides a combination of a visual programming language and physics-enabled based simulation. In Paul’s demonstration he used a simple programme to join the SetDrivePower control on a GenericDifferentialDrive to the TriggersChanged event from XInputController (a Wireless Xbox controller) and drove it around the room – the idea being that services scattered across a home network (one big grid computer) can be used to control less powerful robot.
  • The next demonstration was of Windows Home Server, showing how this product has a very simple user interface, designed to make it easy for consumers to set up a server in their home and manage users, shared folders, storage and websites (e.g. for sharing a photo album with friends and family). Plugins are available (e.g. mControl for home server) whilst the network status is indicated with a simple red, amber, green system which advises of any action to be taken (e.g. update anti-virus definitions, perform a backup). There is also a simple interface for setting up backups, password policies, remote access (reverse DNS is established via the Windows Live ID authentication process – upon sign in, the IP address of the server is recorded in the homeserver.com DNS zone), port forwarding (via uPnP), etc. Windows Home Server is available to system builders as an OEM product, or a fully-configured system costs around £500 (e.g. the HP EX400 MediaSmart server at £499). For more information on Windows Home Server and the digital home, see We Got Served.
  • Looking at some of the developments in Microsoft hardware, Viral demonstrated: Microsoft’s new mice with a blue LED light which can track smoothly regardless of the surface; new LifeCam devices with HD picture quality and messenger integration; and an arcmouse where the end folds in for travel without the usual restrictions of a mobile mouse (i.e. its small size).
  • Finally, Paul showed off Windows 7 Ultimate Edition running on a netbook. The model he used was an Acer Aspire One with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, 120GB Hard drive (not SSD) and I was very impresed at the performance and the graphics (e.g. very smooth Flip-3D effects). For those who were confused by the apparant doublespeak in my recent post about installing Windows 7 on an old PC, it’s worth considering that this machine cost him £228 including shipping (for a Linux version) and has a Windows Experience index of 2.3 (2.9 for the CPU, 3.3 for RAM, 2.3 for graphics, 3.0 for gaming graphics and 5.0 for disk). Having seen this, I’m almost certainly going to be buying a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for Windows 7.

For someone who mostly concentrates on Microsoft’s business-focused products, it was interesting to spend an evening on the consumer side of the fence. In summary: an evening of geeky goodness.

Installing Windows from a USB drive

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last week I downloaded the milestone 3 build of Windows 7 and installed it in a virtual machine. Then I heard how Windows 7 has been tuned (compared with Vista) to run on lower-specification hardware so I decided to install it on my aging Compaq D510SFF, which is not going to give me blinding performance (particularly for graphics) but does at least have a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard disk so it shouldn’t be too bad either.

I downloaded the 32-bit version (previously I’d used 64-bit), burned a DVD, popped it in the drive and booted:

  • Problem #1 – this PC has a CD-R drive and I have a DVD ISO.

The only DVD drives I had available were in my server (which I don’t want to take down right now) and in my work laptop (a slimline drive – with a strange connector on the back) so I went shopping for hardware:

  • MaplinProblem #2 – my local branch of Maplin had sold out of DVD drives and PC World didn’t have any brown box ones (just the overpriced ones in a pretty box).
  • (Problem #2a – markwilson.it has been spending too much on hardware recently and the bank balance is not looking too good. Spending money on components for an aging PC does not make too much sense.)

Back to the drawing board. I could PXE boot to a Windows Deployment Services server but I didn’t really want to go to the effort of setting all that up so, after checking I hadn’t missed anything obvious with my trusted colleagues Dave and Garry, I turned my attentions to USB booting the PC.

  • Problem #3 – the largest USB drive I have is 1GB – and a DVD .ISO is much bigger than that.

I decided to see if I could use a USB hard disk and it turns out I can – this is how it works. The advice is based on Vista but it works for later releases of Windows too:

  1. Make some space on a hard disk for a new partition. I shrank the existing volume in Disk Management to give me 32MB of free space but I could have just wiped the drive too.
  2. Dive into the command line and fire up diskpart.exe, issuing the following commands:
    • list disk (to see the available disks and see which one I had just created 32MB of free space on)
    • select disk number
    • clean (skip this if you do not want to wipe the disk clean – i.e. if you want to keep data on other partitions)
    • create partition primary
    • select partition number
    • active
    • format fs=fat32 (I later read that NTFS would work too but FAT32 worked for me on a relatively small partition like this)
    • assign
    • exit
  3. Copy the contents of the Windows installation DVD to the new partition with xcopy dvddrive:\*.* /s /e /f harddrive:\
  4. According to the blog post from Kurt Shintaku that I used for reference, that should be enough but that doesn’t actually create a boot sector. Dave Glover’s post on the subject alerted me to the presence of the bootsect.exe utility from the \boot folder on the installation DVD and bootsect /nt60 harddrive: successfully updated the bootcode on my USB hard drive.
  5. Boot the PC from USB and install Windows.

And so does Windows 7 run well on that old PC? I wish I could tell you but, unlike everyone who got their copy from PDC, those of us signed up via Microsoft Connect are under NDA… grrr. What I can say is that, if you’re not bothered about high-end graphics, then even Vista will run on a PC like this… and based on what’s already been said by Microsoft I wouldn’t expect 7 to be any worse and it may even be slightly better.

Want to take a look at Windows 7?

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Yesterday’s monster blog post about the PDC keynote skipped over much of the Windows 7 detail for two reasons:

PC, phone and web: How Microsoft plans to build the next generation of user experiences

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Channel 9 man watching PDC onlineI’m supposed to be taking a week off work, but the announcements coming out of Microsoft’s PDC have the potential to make a huge impact on the way that we experience our IT. So, it’s day 2 of PDC and I’ve spent the afternoon and evening watching the keynote and blogging about new developments in Windows…

Yesterday I wrote about Ray Ozzie’s PDC keynote during which the Windows Azure services platform was announced. Today, he was back on stage – this time with a team of Microsoft executives talking about the client platform, operating system and application innovations that provide the front end user experience in Microsoft’s vision of the future of personal computing. And, throughout the presentation, there was one phrase that kept on coming back:

PC, phone and web.

Over the years, PCs have changed a lot but the fundamental features have been flexibility, resilience and adaptability to changing needs. Now the PC is adapting again for the web-centred era.

Right now, the ‘net and a PC are still two worlds – we’ve barely scratched the surface of how to take the most value of the web and the personal computer combined.

PC, phone, and web.

Ozzie spoke of the most fundamental PC advantage being the fact that the operating system and applications are right next to the hardware – allowing the user experience to take advantage of multiple, high resolution, screens, voice, touch, drag and drop (to combine applications), storage (for confidentiallity, mobility, and speed of access) so that users may richly create, consume, interact with, and edit information. The PC is a personal information management device.

The power of the web is its global reach – using the ‘net we can communicate with anyone, anywhere and the Internet is “every company’s front door” – a common meeting place. The unique value of the web is the ability to assemble the world’s people, organisation, services and devices – so that we can communicate, transact and share.

Like PCs, phone software is close to the hardware and it has full access to the capabilities of each device – but with the unique advantage is that it’s always with the user – and it knows where they are (location) and at what time – providing spontaneity for capture and delivery of information.

Microsoft’s vision includes applications that spans devices in a seamless experience – harnessing the power of all three access methods.

PC, phone and web.

“We need these platforms to work together and yet we also want access to the full power and capabilities of each”

[Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, Microsoft Corporation]

I won’t cover all of the detail of the 2-and-a-half hour presentation here, but the following highlights cover the main points from the keynote.

Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President for Microsoft’s Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group spoke about how Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 share the same kernel but today’s focus is on the client product:

  • Sinofsky brought Julie Larson-Green, Corporate Vice President, Windows Experience on stage to show off the new features in Windows 7. Windows 7 is worth a blog post (or few) of its own, but the highlights were:
    • User interface enhancements, including new taskbar functionality and access to the ribbon interface for developer.
    • Jump lists (menus on right click) from multiple locations in the user interface.
    • Libraries which allow for searching across multiple computers).
    • Touch capabilities – for all applications through mouse driver translation, but enhanced for touch-aware applications with gestures and a touch-screen keyboard.
    • DirectX – harnessing the power of modern graphics hardware and providing an API for access, not just to games but also to 2D graphics, animation and fine text.
    • And, of course, the fundamentals – security, reliability, compatibility and performance.
  • Windows Update, music metadata, online help are all service-based. Windows 7 makes use of Microsoft’s services platform with Internet Explorer 8 to access the web. Using technologies such as those provided by Windows Live Essentials (an optional download with support for Windows Live or third party services via standard protocols), Microsoft plans to expand the PC experience to the Internet with software plus services.

PC, phone and web.

“We certainly got a lot of feedback about Windows Vista at RTM!”

[Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Corporation]

  • Sinofsky spoke of the key lessons from the Windows Vista experience, outlining key lessons learned as:
    • Readiness of ecosystem – vendor support, etc. Vista changed a lot of things and Windows 7 uses the same kernel as Windows Vista and Server 2008 so there are no ecosystem changes.
    • Standards support – e.g. the need for Internet Explorer to fully support web standards and support for OpenXML documents in Windows applets.
    • Compatibilty – Vista may be more secure but UAC has not been without its challenges.
    • Scenarios – end to end experience – working with partners, hardware and software to provide scenarios for technology to add value.
  • Today, Microsoft is releasing a pre-beta milestone build of Windows 7, milestone 3, which is not yet feature complete.
  • In early 2009, a feature complete beta will ship (to a broader audience) but it will still not be ready to benchmark. It will incorporate a feedback tool which will package the context of what is happening along with feedback alongside the opt-in customer experience improvement program which provides additional, anonymous, telemetry to Microsoft.
  • There will also be a release candidate before final product release and, officially, Microsoft has no information yet about availability but Sinofsky did say that 3 years from the general availability of Windows Vista will be around about the right time.

Next up was Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division who explained that:

  • Windows 7 will support .NET or Win32 client development with new tools including new APIs, updated foundation class library and Visual Studio 2010.
  • Microsoft .NET Framework (.NET FX) 3.5 SP1 is built in to Windows 7, including many performance enhancements and improved 3D graphics.
  • A new Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) toolkit for the .NET FX 3.5 SP1 was released today for all versions of Windows.
  • .NET FX 4 will be the next version of the framework with WPF improvements and improved fundamentals, including the ability to load multiple common language runtime versions inside the same application.
  • Visual Studio 2010 is built on WPF – more than just graphics but improvements to the development environment too and an early CTP will be released to PDC attendees this week.
    In a demonstration, Tesco and Conchango demonstrated a WPF client application for tesco.com aiming to save us money (every little helps) but to spend more of it with Tesco! This application features a Tesco at home gadget with a to do list, delivery and special offer information and providing access to a “corkboard”. The corkboard is the hub of familiy life, with meal planning, calendar integration, the ability to add ingredients to the basket, recipes (including adjusting quantities) and, calorie counts. In addition, the application includes a 3D product wall to find an item among 30,000 products, look at the detail and organise products into lists, and the demonstration culminated with Conchango’s Paul Dawson scanning a product barcode to add it to the shopping list.
  • Windows 7 also includes Internet Explorer 8 and ASP.NET improvements for web developers. In addition, Microsoft claims that Silverlight is now on 1 in 4 machines connected to the Internet, allowing for .NET applications to run inside the browser.
  • Microsoft also announced the Silverlight toolkit with additional controls on features from WPF for Silverlight 2 as a free of charge toolkit and Visual Studio 2010 will include a Silverlight designer.

David Treadwell, Corporate Vice President, Live Platform Services spoke about how the Live Services component within Windows Azure creates a bridge to connect applications, across devices:

PC, phone and web.

  • The core services are focused around identity (e.g. Live ID as an openID provider), directory (e.g. the Microsoft services connector and federation gateway), communications and presence (e.g. the ability to enhance websites with IM functionality) and search and geospacial capabilities.
  • These services may be easily integrated using standards based protocols – not just on a Microsoft .NET platform but invoke from any application stack.
  • Microsoft has 460 million Live Services users who account for 11% of total Internet minutes and the supporting infrastructure includes 100,000s of servers worldwide.
  • We still have islands of computing resources and Live Mesh bridges these islands with a core synchronisation concept but Mesh is just the tip of the iceberg and is now a key component of Live Services to allow apps and websites to connect users, devices, applications and to provide data synchronisation.
  • The Live Service Framework provides access to Live Services, including a Live operating environment and programming model.
  • Ori Amiga, Group Program Manager – demonstrated using Live Framework to extend an application to find data on multiple devices, with contact integration for sharing. Changes to the object and its metadata were synchronised and reflected on another machie without any user action and a mobile device was used to added data to the mesh, which sychronised with other devices and with shared contacts.
  • Anthony Rhodes, Head of Online Media for BBC iPlayer (which, at its peak, accounts for 10% of the UK’s entire Internet bandwidth) spoke of how iPlayer is moving from an Internet catchup (broadcast 1.0) service to a model where the Internet replaces television (broadcast 2.0) using Live Mesh with a local Silverlight application. Inventing a new word (“meshified”), Rhodes explained how users can share content between one another and across devices (e.g. watch a program on the way to work, resuming playing from where it left off on the computer).

In the final segment, before Ray Ozzie returned to the stage, Takeshi Numoto, General Manager for the Office Client spoke of how Microsoft Office should be about working the way that users want to:

  • Numoto announced Office web applications for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint as part of Office 14 and introduced the Office Live Workspace, built on Live Services to allow collaboration on documents.
  • In a demonstration, a document was edited without locks or read only access – each version of the document was synchronised and included presence for collaborators to reach out using e-mail, instant messaging or a phone call. Office web applications work in Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari and are enhanced with Silverlight. Changes are reflected in each collaborator’s view but data may also be published to websites (e.g. a Windows Live Spaces blog) using REST APIs so that as the data changes, so does the published document, extending office documents onto the web.
  • Office Web apps are just a part of Office 14 and more details will be released as Office 14 is developed.
  • Numoto summarised his segment by highlighting that the future of productivity is diversity in the way that people work – bringing people and data together in a great collaboration experience which spans…

PC, phone and web.

  • In effect, software plus services extends Office into connected productivity. In a direct reference to Google Apps, Microsoft’s aspirations are about more than just docs and speadsheets in a browser accessed over the web but combine to create an integrated solution which provides more value – with creation on the PC, sharing and collaboration on the web and placing information within arms reach on the phone. Seamless connected productivity – an Office across platform boundaries – an office without walls.

PC, phone and web.

Windows vs. Walls
Software plus services is about combining the best of Windows and the best of the web. Windows and Windows Live together in a seamless experience – a Windows without walls. All of this is real – but, as Ray Ozzie explained, it’s also nascent – this is really just the beginning of Microsoft’s future computing platform and, based on what Microsoft spoke of in yesterday and today’s PDC keynotes, the company is investing heaviliy in and innovating on the Windows platform. Google may have been one to watch lately but it would be foolish to write off Windows just yet – Microsoft’s brave new world is enormous.

The Windows Blog

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting confused with all the Windows blogs coming out of Microsoft – last week I wrote about two new Windows 7 blogs (one for developers and another for IT pros) and those who are watching the Windows Vista Team blog may have noticed that it moved to a new site today.

The Windows Blog is a new site, hosted outside the normal TechNet/MSDN domain names and it features a combined feed from several Windows blogs, including the Windows Vista team blog, the Windows Experience blog and the new Windows 7 team blog.

Once the dust has settled (and after tomorrow’s PDC keynote), I expect to see lots of new content appearing on the new site.

Two new Microsoft blogs on Windows 7

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 16 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

For those who find the Engineering Windows 7 blog a little too… wordy (hey, even my posts are short in comparison!), Microsoft launched two new Windows 7 blogs yesterday – the Windows 7 blog for developers and Springboard, focused on IT Pros (via Mary Jo Foley).