Microsoft has confirmed that it will ship Windows 7 in time for the holiday shopping season. Previously, the company had not indicated exactly when the product would ship. The Windows 7 Release Candidate has been made available to the public and can be downloaded free of charge with a license that doesn’t expire until August 2010. The Windows 7 Release Candidate offers a number of improvements over earlier beta versions of the OS. Windows 7 promises increases in computer speed and performance.

Windows Server, Office 2010 Get Upgrades

In addition, new versions of Windows Server and SQL Server will ship when Windows 7 is formally released and Microsoft will release a preview version of Office 2010 in July at Microsoft’s technology preview. One of the interesting features of the new Office 2010 will be browser-based versions of the Office applications. This approach will allow Microsoft to make Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote available to non-PC users on the Linux and Mac platforms, as well for the iPhone.

For the average user, the relatively tandem introduction of Windows 7 and Office 2010 will mean mostly good things. This will also be the first time that Windows Server will be delivered to market at the same time the OS is upgraded. While the arrival of Windows Server is mostly a business-oriented score, the average user could see some big changes to the PC at work in late fall 2009.

Many techs still say they’re not prepared to switch over to Windows 7 when it’s released. Many businesses opted not to upgrade to Vista, and still use Windows XP as their primary operating system. From surveys taken prior to the release of the Windows 7 Release Candidate, as many as 80 percent of IT professionals said they would not upgrade to Windows 7 immediately after its release.

With the pairing of the Windows 7 OS and the Windows Server releases, however, there may be more incentive to rethink a corporate rollout strategy. Feedback from users on the Windows 7 Release Candidate has generally been positive. After the lukewarm reception Windows Vista received, however, Microsoft isn’t taking any chances with Windows 7.
Downgrade options to Windows Vista and Windows XP will still be available for some time following the release of Windows 7. Sometime in Spring 2010, Microsoft will eliminate the downgrade option to Windows XP for desktop computers. Currently, the downgrade option from Vista to XP is only available for desktop models.

Photo Credit: Image Courtesy of Microsoft

Is your computer lagging? Does it take 20 minutes to start-up your PC? Days to download a movie? Weeks to print a few colour photos? Want to know ways to speed up your computer?Well providing you have enough disposable income, or well-placed family members, the technology is available to make computer-related waiting times a thing of the past. Sure, the technology we’re going to show you will probably be outdated by the time you’ve saved up enough cash to get your hands on it, but it’s good to drool.

The World’s Fastest Desktop PC

At £3’940, the YOYOtech Fi7epower MLK1610v certainly doesn’t claim to be the cheapest PC in the world, however what it does claim to be is the world’s fastest PC after recently breaking the world record in the industry standard SPEC CPU2006 benchmark tests. The innards of this system are of such high quality that were you to purchase just the 9GB of DDR3 memory and Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition processor, it would set you back close to £2’000. If the hardware itself isn’t speedy enough for you, also included with the PC is an embedded operating system called ExpressGate. It boots up from cold in 5 seconds.

The World’s Fastest Desktop Printer

Within the next few months, home printing technology will be revolutionized. Memjet Technologies have for the past few years been developing print engine components which will enable full color A4 printing at a ridiculously speedy 60 pages per minute, a rate far greater than any desktop inkjet printers currently on the market. So what’s the secret behind this dazzling speed? Basically, the printerhead, rather than sliding across the page from left to right as with normal inkjet printers, Memjet’s is designed to span the width of the page itself, negating the need for any movement on its part and resulting in much faster ink deployment via approximately 70’000 nozzles.

The World’s Fastest Residential Internet Connection

Imagine being able to download a full length, High Definition movie in 2 seconds rather than 2 days. Now imagine that internet connection has been piped into the home of a 75 year old woman who has never used the world wide web before, let alone got to grips with the idea of downloading anything. That’s what happened last year in Sweden when IT whiz Peter Löthberg installed a 40Gbps connection in his mother Sigbritt’s home – the world’s fastest ever residential internet connection – in order to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has. Let’s just hope she had a computer sturdy enough to cope with those kind of download speeds.

Your computer has to do many things when it starts up and as you use it. Each task the computer performs takes a bit of time and a bit of memory. After awhile, these seemingly innocent little tasks add up. You may also be slowing your computer down inadvertently just by the way you use it. Here are a few tips to speed up your computer.

Don’t Confuse Your File System And Your Desktop!

First, don’t store files on the desktop. It’s ok if you save a downloaded file there, or put a file on the desktop temporarily, but don’t turn your desktop into an alternate file storage area. The file system is very good at storing files; the desktop… not so much.

Each desktop item has an icon that goes with it. Now, you may say “Well, each item in my file system has an icon that goes with it, too, so how will storing files on the desktop make a difference in the way my PC operates?” The file system manages desktop items differently than it manages items in the file system. The file system is meant (and optimized) for file storage, so keep your desktop clear and your PC will thank you.

Turn off the animations. Your file system can be set to “animate” certain actions like opening files and folders, or showing “transparent” window borders. These effects are processed by the graphics card, but if your graphics card is under-powered when it comes to processing or memory, these can turn out to be a real drag on your system. If you’re not sure whether this makes a difference, turn these animations off for awhile and judge for yourself.

Verify that your memory is adequate to the task. If you’re getting by on the minimum recommended amount of memory, your performance will probably suffer. Software manufacturers usually recommend the amount of memory you need to run their software. Keep in mind that this memory is in addition to the memory your computer needs to run the operating system.

If you don’t have sufficient memory installed on your computer to run the OS and your favorite applications, your computer will seem very slow. The computer is trying to find memory to run your applications, and is furiously swapping information in and out of RAM (something like a shell game) to make your programs work. Add memory to your computer and see what a difference it can make.

I’ll have more performance tips in future posts.

Photo Credit: Chris Lae

If you do a little research on the Internet, you’ll find a cavernous divide among PC experts about the value of registry cleaners. I happen to think they have some value; many technicians do not, in part, I suspect because they have other tools and methods they can use to resurrect a dead, dying or stubborn PC.

Most ordinary users don’t, so their option – sad as it is to say – is to take their PC to a technician for help, sometimes paying a lot of money in the process. Registry cleaners vary in ability and worth, but I’ve always liked, used and recommended RegCure.

Improve Windows Performance

There are other things you can do to keep your PC working well and combat the inevitable slowdown that makes you think your PC is slogging through sludge. If you’re in the mood to do a little spring cleaning on your PC, you may find that your performance improves with a little tidying up.

First, go through your file system and throw out the files you no longer use. This includes temporary files (just empty these… don’t throw out the folder they’re in), old applications you don’t use anymore, etc. If you’re adventurous, try paring down your operating system to eliminate things you don’t use like foreign language support, thousands of fonts, programs that start automatically when the computer is turned on, etc.

If you can’t bear to get rid of old files, archive them and burn them off to a CD. If, after six months or a year, you still don’t use them, then you can feel better about throwing them away.

The big reason for reducing your file system size is that the bigger the file system, the more work your OS has to do to manage it, and the more likely you are to accumulate corrupted files that slow down your computer for no good reason.

After you’ve reduced your file system, defragment your hard disk using the Defragmenter Tool that comes with Windows. That will tidy up your disk and improve performance measurably. Plan to defrag your disk about two or three times per year.

Make sure your anti-virus (A/V) and anti-spyware (A/S) programs are up-to-date. Don’t assume that they are. Check for updates. If your subscription has expired, renew it and keep your virus descriptions updated. Once you have updated A/V software, check your disk for infections. Clean up anything you find.

After the A/V check, run Check Disk, a disk repair tool that comes with Windows. Also run a registry cleaner like RegCure to reduce your registry size and remove any residual virus code.

If you perform this maintenance regularly, you’ll notice improved performance in your PC, and better overall reliability.

Photo Credit: Dale Chumbley

Backing up the registry in Windows Vista is never a bad idea. It’s easy to start making changes to your computer without backing up the files you’re working on, but that’s a little bit like walking a tightrope without a net. Whenever you make changes to a sensitive area of the computer, like the registry, you should always make a backup. Even if you haven’t made any obvious changes, backing up the registry periodically is an excellent idea.

No Matter What Else You Do, Back Up Your Registry

If you’re adventurous enough to edit your computer’s Registry file, you’ll want to make a backup before you start any heavy lifting. You can make a backup of the Registry’s state at any time using RegEdit. To make a backup copy of the registry, open RegEdit via the search box in the Start menu.

Once RegEdit is open, select “computer” from the left pane of the user interface. Choose File > Export. Select a location in your file system to place the registry’s export file. If you want to be very safe, export the registry file to an external location like a thumb drive. You could also write your registry file to a writeable CD and store it in a safe location, preferably away from the computer.

A good naming strategy is something like RegBackup200904301. Each time you make a backup of the registry, name the file and include the full date and a simple serial number with the file. That way, if you make more than one backup of the file in a day, you can increment the last number and keep your backup versions easily identified.

If you ever have to restore the Registry using a backup file, open RegEdit and choose File > Import and select the backup file.

RegCure always backs up the registry before making any changes to it. This allows you to revert back to the system state you had prior to the changes RegCure makes. You always have the opportunity to reject suggested changes as well, so you don’t have to give up control of your system when you work with RegCure.

Your registry is a work in progress, and over time, many changes accumulate. Developing a regular backup routine for the Registry is a good idea. You may want to back up your registry every month or quarter, and before loading new software on your computer. If you back up your registry before installing new software, you can more easily recover your system if the new software causes problems. It may also help you clan up after a virus, spyware or adware mishap.

Photo Credit: Alexaner Muse