Windows Partner Blog

HP and Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 brings more PCs to more students at a lower cost

2010-04-21T05:25:02Z

This blog post is being published on behalf of HP.

With the growing demand for technology in the classroom, HP is proud to be working with Windows technologies to address the need for affordable computing and expand the number of computer seats in schools.

Due to current budgetary constraints in education, schools are looking beyond the initial cost of technology deployment to total cost of ownership, maintenance costs and IT support. This focus is leading more schools to evaluate alternative options to bring true 1:1 computing into the classroom. From cost savings to simpler management to environmental impact, moving to shared computing makes fiscal sense and is a trend that will continue in education.

HP recently introduced MultiSeat to meet this paradigm shift in computing efficiency. Working together with Microsoft’s Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, HP MultiSeat is really designed to help turn schools with limited student access to technology into a technology-rich PC experience for every student in a classroom, lab or library. This is accomplished by leveraging the excess capacity of one PC to deliver dependable performance to up to 10 users with just the addition of a low-cost thin client, monitor, keyboard and mouse for each user.

Jefferson County Public Schools and Alvarado High School are already leveraging the value of MultiSeat to bring a key learning tool – the PC - into the hands of students. The best part is, schools don’t have to wait for additional funds to implement this solution – the money is already in their budget.

We’re hearing the consensus from students, administrators and teachers around the world to bring more technology into the classroom to better prepare for students for success in college and the workplace. Joining forces with Microsoft on the development of MultiSeat allowed us to deliver a fully Microsoft licensed solution that answers our customer needs by expanding student access to technology with lower ongoing operation costs.

We’re looking forward to a continued work with Microsoft products to bring affordable technology into the classroom.

Brian Becker
Director, Education, Personal Systems Group, HP

IdentityMine, HP and Windows Enhance the Super Bowl Experience

2010-02-13T00:53:26Z

I’m Kurt Brockett, Director of UX Evangelism at IdentityMine. We’re a user experience (UX) company specializing in Microsoft presentation technologies. In 2005 we hitched a ride on the Avalon train that morphed into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) released in .NET 3.0. This is the technology root that has grown to include Silverlight, Microsoft Surface and most recently the preferred way to build touch applications in Windows 7.

Our foray into Sports & Entertainment started with a relationship we established with the New Orleans Saints. This past summer we created an application on Microsoft Surface that assists the team in searching and organizing stats and cross-referencing them with the vast video libraries they currently store. Our work with the Saints led to an introduction to the Miami Dolphins who were in the unique position of playing host to the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl this year.

As a host organization, Miami was interested in demonstrating leadership by using specialized technologies within Sun Life Stadium for these two high-profile events as a first step in a venue wide rollout strategy. Today, the pursuit of success in professional sports is to increase sponsorship revenue while providing an enjoyable and compelling fan experience. The use of digital signage within venues can only take a brand so far before it crosses the line into distracting from the sport. Additionally, the actual effect of that type of advertising is impossible to measure. To combat this, IdentityMine has created a portfolio of application experiences which compels fans to interact with team and sponsor content due to their compelling and intuitive nature.

These unique experiences require a complete package from the software, hardware, operating system, and physical environment. Identity Mine and Microsoft teamed up with HP to place 30 of their new TouchSmart PCs in numerous luxury suites. In addition, the Microsoft Surface team provided 5 units that were used in various high-traffic areas.

Here’s a picture of our team doing a bit of the setup:

John Pollard and Kurt Brockett setting up the HP TouchSmart PCs.

Chad Brown setting up one of the Microsoft Surface units.

The experiences we built are all built utilizing Windows Presentation Foundation targeted at both Windows 7 and Microsoft Surface. Below is a quick tour of the software applications that were deployed.

Flashcards – Fans were able to play memory and matching games with NFL specific content. In the sample set below you will see that users matched logos to their favorite NFL Teams.

Super Bowl Highlight Reel: Utilizing touch, fans were able to search a library of Super Bowl highlight content and play their favorite moments in Super Bowl history.

Merchandise Selector: Fans discovered and visualized various Super Bowl XLIV and NFL team merchandise that was available for purchase in the Club Level during the game. This experience leveraged Microsoft Tag technology allowing fans to capture links to the products directly on their Mobile Phones for later purchase.

Digital Memories: A touch-enabled experience allowed team and league executives and marketing partners the ability to review catalogs of photos taken during the festivities leading to game day including the exclusive Commissioner’s Ball and owners pre-party held at the Viceroy in Miami.

Miami Beach Sand: A beach themed entertainment application that illustrated the unique touch and gesture-enabled properties of Microsoft Surface and Windows 7. This application became an entertaining way for fans to uncover unique sponsored tokens “beneath” the “sand”.

(Above far right) Mark Brown of IdentityMine with some younger fans digging into Miami Beach Sand.

The experiences were a hit in the suites and the attendees were able to relive the event through relevant and recent content available within 24 hours of an event, bringing a personalization aspect that can’t be achieve utilizing static technologies. Additionally IdentityMine, Microsoft and HP were able to demonstrate to all the franchises in the NFL the real business and entertainment value that touch enabled interactive experiences can bring the sports and entertainment world.

We’re excited by this initial rollout and are currently working with other franchises to bring customized experiences to many more fans. For more information on IdentityMine services visit www.identitymine.com and be sure to come see us in the Commons Showcase area at the upcoming MIX10 conference being held in March in Las Vegas, NV.

KNFB’s New Blio eReader Redefines the eBook Experience

2010-01-08T22:19:27Z

This week at CES, Ray Kurzweil (CEO of KNFB Reading Technology) revealed Blio, a free eReader application that we believe will transform the digital reading marketplace through significant advances in display and interactivity. The rich-media design will deliver a vast range of eBook titles, across genres.

The Blio development team was able to take advantage of the .NET 3.5 Framework, WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), XPS file format, Microsoft Speech API and UI Automation for accessibility, all of which have native support in Windows 7 and are core Windows technologies. In addition, Windows Touch in Windows 7 and support for small netbook form factor will be utilized by Blio to improve usability for Windows 7 users. These technologies have enabled our team to streamline the creation of the application and provide seamless integration into Windows 7 devices.

The free Blio eReader application provides a superior way to view and interact with electronic versions of books, newspapers and magazines. Blio preserves a book's original layout and color images, enabling image-rich titles to be as vibrant on screen as they are in print, for the first time. Blio users can now enjoy a full-color display, embedded multimedia, and a 3D virtual book mode for an entertaining and intuitive reading experience.

We are excited about this close collaboration with Microsoft in redefining the digital book experience, and we appreciate the Microsoft team's close cooperation in our development process and their ongoing support. The application will be released in February, and you can find out more on our website: www.blioreader.com.

Forrest Dobbs
Vice President, Sales and Marketing

HP & Windows Present the CES Tweet ‘n Greet

2010-01-07T01:20:15Z

Greetings, I’m Tony “Frosty” Welch - Community Manager for HP’s The Next Bench. I’m posting here (thanks to the Windows Team) to give fellow CES attendees and enthusiasts a heads-up on some goings-on at the event. First, you’re all invited to a Tweet ’n Greet we’re hosting at the Microsoft booth (Central Hall #7133) Friday.

For those of you “tweeters” at the show who are interested in seeing the latest HP products with Windows 7, come by between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Meet us in the Windows Demo Area and get a hands on demonstration of the HP TouchSmart, Envy 15, the Envy Beats, and the HP Pavilion DM3 Notebook – all running on Windows 7.

Have a Windows 7 or HP question that you’ve dying to ask? You’ll also be able to chat with Microsoft and HP spokespeople directly. After grilling them, tweet your experience directly from the booth and you can win some cool prizes! If you want to make even a bigger splash in the “twitterverse,” wear your Twitter name somewhere visible and we’ll announce your presence over @HP_PC in the most aggrandizing way we can think of. Internet fame is fleeting, but you know you want it.

If Friday can’t come soon enough for you, though, you can stop by the Microsoft Booth at any time to check out the HP products with Windows 7. And while we are excited about the Tweet ‘n Greet, that doesn’t mean we’ll be sleeping the rest of the show. Check out the HP at CES video series that will be delivering exclusive interviews and more from the event over our YouTube and Twitter channels. Is there something you want to see? Direct our video crew where to go and what to shoot to via YouTube and Twitter comments and we will do our best to oblige.

Windows 7 Delivers Next-Generation Audio

2009-11-17T22:40:55Z

When it comes to optimizing and really advancing the personal entertainment experience on the PC, Microsoft and Dolby Laboratories share a history of improving the integrity of audio playback. The collaboration between the two companies started when they began working together to enhance audio delivery for the Xbox in 2001. After this design was completed, Microsoft extended its usage of Dolby audio technology in Windows Media Center. This work continued with Windows Vista, which was launched worldwide in January 2007. The evolution of these shared efforts is realized in Windows 7 today.

Windows 7 builds on past collaboration by adding next-generation Dolby Digital Plus technology to offer high-quality multichannel audio. Available in Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate, Dolby Digital Plus brings home theater–quality audio to the PC, improving the listening experience of music, movies, and TV.

When it comes to the small, discreet speakers built into a PC or laptop, how can audio really be optimized? Dolby Digital Plus, a multichannel audio standard for DVDs and select HD broadcasts worldwide, is a high-efficiency, next-generation audio codec that maintains the quality of Dolby Digital at a lower data rate and is fully compatible with all current Dolby Digital A/V receivers. From the movie and music producer point of view, this means that Dolby Digital Plus offers more channels and better compression, making it easier to create higher quality content at lower bit rates to experience on the PC.

Dolby Digital Plus is already the broadcast audio standard for HDTV services in Europe. France is currently using Dolby Digital Plus, with Poland and other countries following closely. Users in these countries watching streaming broadcast content on their computers get to experience next-generation sound.

Microsoft’s diligence in working closely with Dolby engineers to fully enable the PC to be a more sophisticated, dynamic entertainment device is evidence of the company’s broad vision and steadfast commitment to revolutionizing the role of the PC. The next generation of PC enthusiasts can enjoy their computers as their primary home entertainment device—and Dolby Digital Plus will play an important role in that experience.

Spinal Tap fans will recall the restaurant scene in which David St. Hubbins’s interfering girlfriend, Jeanine, informs the band that their album wasn’t “mixed right” because it wasn’t mixed in “Dob-l-ey.” We may be biased, but we tend to agree with that statement. Content is never quite right without Dolby audio technology. Fortunately, PCs with Windows 7 will never have that problem.

To check out the latest on Dolby Digital Plus in Windows 7—including Dolby videos and a dedicated Windows 7 web page—visit Dolby.com and Audiodolby.com. For a complete Dolby PC demo and other PC videos, visit www.audiodolby.com/#/motion/pc. For press releases and news about Dolby technologies, visit investor.dolby.com/releases.cfm.

Robin Selden
Senior Vice President, Marketing, Dolby

NVIDIA and Windows Touch

2009-11-03T01:10:15Z

Windows 7 will change the ways you interact with your PC. How you ask? Windows Touch.

Touch refers to the way Windows lets you interact directly with a computer using a finger. Compared to using a mouse, keyboard, or pen, touch can be much more engaging, natural, and convenient.

The Windows Touch technology in Windows 7 is an evolution of the technology that is rooted in Windows Vista. In Windows Vista, single-touch input improved the interaction when using the pen stylus and the mouse of earlier Tablet PC platforms. With Windows 7, users can directly manipulate their computer environment through multitouch for the first time. Users can use a variety of gestures directly on their computer screen to move data, including:

Touch, or mouse-such as behavior: tap, double-tap, right-click, drag, and select.
Touch gestures- such as Flicks (navigational and editing).
Multitouch gestures-- such as zooming in, zooming out, panning, and rotating.

A Windows 7 PC powered by NVIDIA GPUs will deliver faster, more engaging Windows Touch experiences. NVIDIA GPUs are well known for accelerating 3D interfaces. The Windows 7 Aero desktop, now designed using the DirectX 10 API and designed for Windows Touch, is no exception. From the new taskbar previews to Aero Peek, Flip, Snap, and Shake, NVIDIA GPU provides a snappy 3D experience. Windows 7 also uses the GPU to reduce memory consumption by half by eliminating the need to keep a second copy of each window in system memory. This frees up system memory for other applications and keeps your PC responsive.

Multi-touch capability was designed into the core of Windows 7 and is a perfect fit for the new highly visual GPU-accelerated applications like Cooliris and Super Loiloscope. Cooliris lets you browse the web in 3D and now with the addition of Windows Touch, the experience becomes even more immersive. With Super Loiloscope you can have fun creating videos and applying effects with the touch of your finger.

Touch input does not replace the keyboard and mouse, it enhances them. Touch is a natural and intuitive way to interact with you PC when you are doing common computing tasks such as:

Web browsing
Interacting with photos
Playing games
Organizing music and video (creating playlists, sorting media, and organizing content)
Reading and sorting e-mail
Using documents
Managing a Windows workspace

As you can see, your Windows 7 Touch experience will be faster, smoother, and more immersive with an NVIDIA GPU in your PC.

Making PCs Run Faster And Longer

2009-10-27T03:54:54Z

Intel and Microsoft have been collaborating for more than 20 years. The day Microsoft launched Windows Vista; we had already been collaborating on Windows 7. The joint team quickly grew to several hundred engineers. Last week, the work we did together became a reality. While marrying Intel’s future Intel Core processors with Microsoft’s latest operating system was quite possibly the biggest undertaking to date for the two companies, there was a very short list of top priorities from users.

First, make notebooks run longer (“I want to watch the whole DVD on the airplane.”). Second, make it run everything faster (“I want to start work when I turn it on and don’t want that DVD, encryption or anything else to slow it down.”) So, Microsoft and Intel set to work.

A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to show some journalists what our engineers had come up with as a result of the collaboration. The resulting stories provide a good overview of some of the unique advances that the collaboration achieved to improve PCs.

Don’t we all hate it when the latest blockbuster we brought along for a long plane ride drains the laptop battery right at the climax. Of course, the same is true of other mobile situations – catching up at coffee shops, sharing photos and videos with friends, comparing prices while shopping – where plugging in is either a hassle or impossible.

To get to the movies’ credits, the team optimized resource utilization throughout the system. Devices were aggressively powered down, busses shut off when possible and Intel processors were kept in their Deep Power Down state longer and more often. The new Microsoft Windows 7 timer coalescing feature, which minimizes the time a processor is running in high gear, to take advantage of Intel Deep Power Down Technology is a good example of how we worked together to optimize our products. By applying such power saving techniques throughout the system and reducing resource utilization Microsoft and Intel engineers were able to reduce power usage of a Windows 7 laptop nearly 20 percent over an identical laptop running Windows Vista SP2. That gained an additional 1.4 hours of battery life, enough extra power to blow by the credits and see all of the special features.

Getting computers to do things faster is something Microsoft and Intel have been doing for a couple of decades. However, with Windows 7 and Intel’s new Core processors rolling out at roughly the same time, the team saw the opportunity to really put rocket engines on PCs. Possibly the most significant performance advancement is enabling the Windows 7 kernel to intelligently manipulate threads in the recently improved Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. The kernel scheduler juggles thread connections with respect to such things as logical processor/core relationships, thread-to-core distribution, and parking and unparking second logical processors in cores to match the workload. Also, the Westmere system we showed reporters was equipped with Intel Solid State Drives, reflecting another area of collaboration.

Skip the formal benchmarks. The companies made their point by booting a PC based on an Intel reference design in less than 11 seconds. Actually, that may be too fast for many as it doesn’t allow sufficient time to get a cup of coffee that many of us are used to doing.

OK, I have a vested interest, but with Windows 7 getting such hardy reviews and its optimization for new advances in Intel processors, now seems to me like a pretty good time to buy a new PC.

Joakim Lialias
Microsoft Alliance Manager - Intel

Windows 7 & Lenovo Rocketing off the Starting Line

2009-10-26T05:33:30Z

Today I’m excited to unveil our latest new performance machine: Windows 7 and Lenovo Think computers! It’s like showing off your latest high performance sports car at the big race. We’ve spent a lot of time and expertise getting ready to introduce Windows 7 on Lenovo’s Think business computers and now we get to show it off and share how we did it.

You have to analyze your vehicle first in order to improve performance. Lenovo engineers’ efforts began several years ago by analyzing every detail of the Windows Operating System environment, our PCs and software. That gave us a great foundation that determined where to concentrate our efforts. We worked closely with Microsoft to utilize this knowledge during Windows 7 development to improve the overall Windows 7 experience. Microsoft developers did some great things to speed up the operating system such as modifying when and how hard disk activities run to reduce delays to the user. We at Lenovo focused primarily on the computer components and our own ThinkVantage software.

Like a finely tuned race car, it’s not just the engine you worry about. To get optimal performance you need to design performance into all the components from the ground up. For Lenovo this meant improvements in the (suspension) with the computer firmware being aware and skipping unused hardware function tests, we overhauled the (transmission) with performance aware device drivers, ThinkVantage applications re-engineered for (aerodynamics) speed by eliminating background services and running them just when needed, found the best industry applications (tires) and then the entire system (car) was tuned through the system settings to take maximum advantage of all the component improvements.

Now you don’t just enter a race without trying out your design at the track, so we put the Lenovo Think PCs through rigorous testing and internal pilot testing. Our team has run these PCs around the track for more than six months to make sure we are ready.

This isn’t just a race to see how fast you are off the starting line; it is also about endurance and the driving experience. All Lenovo’s performance work also improves the driving experience and extends your track time between fuel stops. By improving the performance we’ve reduced the amount of power consumption which extends battery life, reduces energy consumption and makes our Think computers a leader in green computing. A key contributor is ThinkVantage Power Manger with an easy new power slider and can save up to $71 annually in energy costs on a ThinkCentre M52 desktop running the Lenovo default power mode.

Lenovo announced the Lenovo Enhanced Experience certification program in September, with our performance efforts as a key ingredient to bringing you great new computers with Windows 7. We’ve made great strides including improved boot speed by up to 57 percent and shut down by up to 39 percent on select Think PCs versus non-optimized, identical configuration PCs running Vista and XP. To take advantage of this new experience Lenovo is encouraging customers to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 through our Lenovo Enhanced Experience program.

How can Lenovo share this great new racing technology with our business customers? Smaller businesses can easily get the benefit of Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7 experience by purchasing a new Lenovo Think computer today with Windows 7 ready to go out of the box. Larger companies who create their own unique software image can benefit immediately from firmware, device drivers and ThinkVantage Technology software improvements on new Think computers. For larger companies that want the full Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7, Lenovo offers a new service where Lenovo engineers use our expertise to performance tune the customer’s software image.

We expect Windows 7 and Lenovo Enhanced Experience to give users the best new computing experience in a decade, and that gives us a higher platform to continue developing the next generations of innovative PC technology.

For more information including a list of Lenovo PCs Enhanced for Windows 7 please visit our Lenovo Enhanced Experience for Windows 7 web page.

Peter Schrady
Vice President & General Manager; Software, Peripherals and Enterprise Products
(And an avid racing enthusiast!)

You Deserve A Better PC - Get in ‘Touch” with HP and Upgrade Now

2009-10-25T04:56:42Z

I had the pleasure of attending our HP press tour to launch many of our new products this month, and let me tell you - across all of our product lines, we’re offering better performing and more visually pleasing desktops than ever before and they’re all Windows 7 ready. You’ll find that we offer a variety of quality desktop PC’s for consumers, small businesses, Enterprise and Public Sector customers – from the stylish HP TouchSmart 600 for the home to our powerful HP Compaq 6000 Pro series for business.

Check out some of the highlights that we shared on the press tour:

Touch really does make the computing experience come alive. We’ve been innovating in Touch since 1983 when we launched the first touch PC, the HP 150. Fast forward to 2009 and HP is still investing in both hardware and software to help people reduce the complexity in computing. We’ve worked with Microsoft to share HP’s learnings and award-winning touch technology and best practices for integration into Windows 7. The deep collaboration between the companies offers customers the most advanced computing experience they have grown to expect from HP.

We all know that customers want a great experience, interaction and the total “it was made just for me” feeling when they buy a product. Just recently, I was in a la00rge scale, popular hotel lobby. In a period of about 30 minutes, my husband and several other people walked up to this PC and touched it to start interacting…..not seeing the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen.

That’s right, it said: “THIS IS NOT A TOUCH SCREEN”. To that end, HP is striving to create personal, engaging experiences through applications that you absolutely can touch. The finger is the natural pointing device. One of my favorite applications that we showcased on the press tour is the HP TouchSmart RecipeBox. In talking with customers, we found that many people have put their PCs in the kitchen. The TouchSmart RecipeBox lets aspiring chefs discover, explore and learn recipes by voice or touch commands. It also lets you collect, format and store all your favorites together in a “digital” cookbook that is all yours.

Not only has HP created specific applications that meet your needs, but you can also see it in the HP TouchSmart software. Partners recognize the PC is a critical piece to the entertainment, communication and multi-media equation and have developed applications with us that work in the touch environment. There are built-in, interactive tiles with key applications from third parties from the likes of Hulu, Twitter, and Netflix.The Hulu TouchSmart tile provides quick access to Hulu’s vast library of hit TV shows, movies and video clips with the touch of a finger. Users can browse, search and watch their favorite comedies, dramas, sci-fi and web-original shows from nearly 200 leading content companies. In addition, users with Hulu.com accounts also can access their queue, subscriptions and viewing history.

Touch is not limited to consumers; there are a number of businesses who are investigating or using HP TouchSmarts already to deliver a better experience to their customers. At Compass Bank in Houston, the bank is able to extend more services by providing “virtual loan officers” by using TouchSmarts with Webcams at their banks but saving costs by locating the loan officers centrally; they provide a unique, personalized experience to each customer and get the forms submitted and approved in less time. Priscilla of Boston is helping their customers find the perfect wedding dress using HP TouchSmarts (if you’ve ever been married, you know how the dress choice is a very “personal” decision). Lastly, Sheraton Hotels are using TouchSmart PCs to provide a customized experience for their patrons with immersive touch technology that brings interaction, connectivity and play to the Link@Sheraton – the heart of the Sheraton brand’s new lobby experience. We’ve even launched a new product line of Digital Displays including the 42” HPLD4200tm Interactive Digital Sign which brings touch to more people in more places (hospitality, education, and point-of-sale).

Besides Touch, HP has expanded on the Compaq Portfolio and brand for the home and business PC user. The Compaq portfolio delivers great design, strong performance and reliability that customers need for ‘just right computing’ at ‘just the right price.’ The Compaq Presario 4010f desktop PC delivers all the productivity of a traditional PC in a sleek, streamlined desktop design. Then there’s the Compaq 500B Series desktop PC which are designed for the budget-conscious small businesses that need PCs that are easy to set up, use and expand. The Compaq 500B and 505B desktop PCs, available with Intel or AMD processors respectively, offer businesses efficient and reliable performance with Windows 7, and configurable hard drives and memory.

Lastly, I wanted to mention this idea of “year of the refresh.” Customers have told us that they have held onto their desktop PCs for 4-5 years. We know the recessions around the world have squeezed budgets. We have heard you ask questions about the environmental impact of the products you buy and how you can manage your costs when it comes to power usage. We know people have been anticipating Windows 7. At HP, we used your feedback and planned for this; we designed a portfolio of products to hit the right price and performance equation for you. As of today, all of our PC’s are Windows 7 ready. When you’re using your new HP desktop PC at home or work, our testing shows you’ll get up to three times better overall performance because of our HP hardware combined with Windows 7 (when compared to a similar PC from a few years ago.) Boot time is 45 percent faster, suspend time is 50 percent faster and resume time is 90 percent faster. All of these things will help you save time, be more efficient and have a better PC experience. (The testing was conducted by HP Desktop R&D)

These are just a few of the HP Desktop products that launched in the last month. Be sure to check out all of our cool business products here for business products and here for our home and home office products and upgrade to the PC you deserve.

Anneliese Olson
Director of Desktops for HP

How an “oil change” can keep Windows 7 on top

2009-10-23T00:31:40Z

At Staples, we’re glad to be able to offer the power and impressive new features of Windows 7 to our customers. The ability to find files in only two clicks, or to start up and shut down quickly, will make day-to-day computing so much easier. However, we want customers to be able to continue to enjoy the features of Windows 7 just as much after six months as they do on the very first day. That’s why we are on a quest to remind people that PC maintenance is just as important to software performance as routine oil changes are to keeping cars running smoothly.

As people spend more time online and doing work, they should be conducting preventative maintenance every 3-6 months, depending on the age and usage of the computer. With all of the impressive media management features in Windows 7, we expect customers to be even more active with storing and sharing photos, music, games and entertainment. But if customers do not take proper steps toward safeguarding their PCs, they won’t be able to really get the most out of the new operating system.

While Staples EasyTech service provides a range of tech services at our stores, anyone can follow some simple steps at home to keep any computer, and Windows 7, running smoothly:

Have an antivirus solution and keep it up to date.
Use Windows Disk Cleanup to safely remove any temporary files from your hard drive.
Store computers in a well-ventilated area and be sure to clean out any dust or dirt that has accumulated inside the computer case.
Check for Windows Updates. Periodically visit Windows Update to download any security patches and drivers that are available for your computer.
Back up digital files, music and photos on an external hard drive.

Look, most drivers are not experts when it comes to what’s happening under the hood of their car, and we really need to think about PCs in a similar way. Put a reminder on your calendar twice a year to spend an hour on your PC maintenance so you can continue to enjoy the media and performance capabilities of the new Windows 7.

Bob MacDonald,
Vice President of Technology Services, Staples

Autodesk, Windows 7, and Project Cooper

2009-10-23T00:15:33Z

Windows Touch holds the promise of fundamentally changing the way users interact with their devices. One of the ways this will happen is by opening up the power of multi-touch to new audiences, which I believe will transform how design and engineering professionals currently interface with the tools of their trade.

The powerful functionality afforded by Windows 7 will also open up new possibilities for other professionals, allowing them to meet their simpler design needs without the steep learning curve of industrial-strength design software like AutoCAD, which has been an industry standard for over 27 years.

In this respect, Windows 7 is helping Autodesk to further democratize design.

Today in New York at the Windows 7 launch event, Autodesk will be showcasing a new technology product that we’ve developed for design enthusiasts to do simple and elegant drawing and drafting. Project Cooper will allow users to easily and quickly create professional-looking drawings and sketches, or precise drawings with real-world dimensions, and share this information with others who may be working in AutoCAD or with other professional applications.

Project Cooper has been engineered to take full advantage of Windows 7 support for multi-touch, including panning, zooming, rotation and flick functionality – which makes this application easier and more approachable for both mobile users and anyone using a touch-enabled machine.

Windows 7 support for multi-touch will be especially important in situations when using a keyboard and a mouse is frankly impractical. During our research we met folks like interior designers, home remodelers, event planners, and contractors who wanted an easy way to be productive when away from the office, such as visiting a project site. That’s why I believe that Windows 7 has the potential to significantly change the life of mobile professionals—by allowing them to perform complex tasks on the go using simple, intuitive gestures.

Overall my experience working on Windows 7 to develop Project Cooper has been that almost everything is faster and simpler, and we know this will be a welcome development for our customers. This is the same philosophy that guided the creation of Project Cooper – the ability to start sketching right away—without any training, with an intuitive user interface and straightforward interaction – just like Windows 7.

For the new Windows 7 users, not just those with multi-touch machines, we encourage you to put your new OS to the test and download the Project Cooper – it is being released as a technology preview so you can try it out ahead of the final version – and be sure to tell us what you think!

Amjad Hanif
Senior Director, Product Management
Emerging Products

ASUS: Products designed to take your Windows 7 experience further

2009-10-22T23:46:04Z

The day we’ve all been waiting for—as hardware vendors, software developers and consumers—is finally here! And no one is more excited than all of us at ASUS, as it marks the culmination of the collaborative and proprietary work we've been putting into developing Windows 7 products.

Our product development team has been keeping close pace with our counterparts over in Microsoft ever since the inception of the Windows 7 project. Our mission from the outset was simple: to deliver a unique Windows 7 experience. We’ve stayed true to that purpose throughout, and our customers can be assured that ASUS products aren’t just seamlessly compatible and in perfect synergy with the new operating system, they are also designed to enhance and extend the overall Windows 7 experience.

As an example, I’d like to call some attention to the key innovations we’ve introduced to ASUS notebooks running Windows 7: FastBoot and Turbo33. Available on many of ASUS’ notebook lines, such as the new UL Series and ROG (Republic of Gamers) Series, these features work in perfect concert with—and build upon—the functionality and capabilities in Windows 7.

FastBoot is an exciting feature on ASUS notebooks running Windows 7. Through our close collaboration with Microsoft, we’ve managed to tweak our hardware such that notebooks with FastBoot can boot up to 40% faster* than similarly-spec’ed notebooks without the technology. Boot up times can be as low as 30 seconds*.

The other technology I’d like to highlight is called Turbo33. I’m not at liberty to reveal the ‘secret sauce’ behind this remarkable technology, but ASUS notebooks with Turbo33 will allow users to enjoy exceptionally smooth video playback and online video streaming, as well as rock-solid stability when engaging in processor-intensive multitasking.

These technologies have been an absolute joy to design and implement, and it has been particularly rewarding witnessing how effectively they enhance the overall Windows 7 experience. But rest assured, we won't be stopping here. If there's one thing ASUS is known for, it’s our constant desire to improve the status quo. The promise of innovation is something that customers can always count on us to deliver upon—and the same will be true for all ASUS products that run on, or support, Windows 7.

We also expect the launch of Windows 7 to usher in a new golden age of gaming on the PC platform, and are poised to provide the best hardware for all types of gamers. Over the years, our ROG brand has forged a formidable reputation in the gaming arena, first with our top-performing gaming motherboards and graphics cards, then our aggressively spec’ed gaming notebooks.

ROG products stand apart because we’ve designed them around the needs, preferences and gameplay styles of the best gamers today. We’ve gained these insights by engaging gamers at many levels and on many fronts. ASUS, for example, supports some of the biggest eSports and LAN party events in the world. Just this year, we participated in 62 World GameMaster Tournament (WGT) events around the world, reaching 4,004,892 gamers in total. We were also involved in DreamHack Winter, Sweden; ASSEMBLY, Finland; GamesCon, Germany; and Campus Party, Spain which drew over 10,000, 3,500, 245,000 and 6,500 gamers respectively.

We are also strongly committed to supporting online gaming communities. We have an ongoing collaboration with ESL, the biggest online game portal in the Europe with over 35,000 active players. We cooperate closely with top game publishers worldwide as well, including Blizzard, Ubisoft and EA. We were a Platinum Sponsor at Blizzcon09 earlier this year—a two-day event that drew 30,000 visitors—and had a solid presence at Quakecon09 which saw over 7,000 attendees.

Through the stress testing, surveys and focus groups we conduct through these events and initiatives, we are able to take away a wealth of useful and actionable knowledge—knowledge that we’ve used to make our products better. Our ROG Windows 7 solutions are the ultimate realization of all the gaming expertise we’ve accrued to date.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Microsoft. Windows 7 is an amazing operating system, and things will only get more exciting from here on. On ASUS’ part, you have our assurance that we’ll keep racking our brains to conceive the most meaningful and relevant products, technologies and features for today’s savvy consumers and avid gamers.

Tony Chen
Vice president of ASUS System Business Group

* System performance is subject to system configuration. This data is based on a comparison between a FastBoot-optimized ASUS notebook running 64-bit Windows 7 and an identically-spec’ed notebook without FastBoot running 32-bit Windows Vista. For detailed test results, please visit http://event.asus.com/2009/nb/disclaimer/win7/.

Corel and Windows 7

2009-10-22T23:07:16Z

Today’s launch is something Corel’s software teams have been looking forward to for many months. Windows 7 and Windows Touch are the most exciting things we’ve seen in computing for a long time.

To coincide with the launch of Windows 7, Corel has released two all-new products that re-invent the typical menu-driven user experience, offering consumers more expressive and interactive creative environments. Engaging and dramatically different UI designs let users get the most out of Windows 7 by providing a more natural way of interacting with your PC. It’s all about removing barriers to creativity. Nothing gets between you and your inspiration.

Windows Touch has given our software teams the opportunity to push the limits of user experience. Sometimes computing can feel a bit detached – you sit at your computer, input info with your keyboard and mouse, and see the results displayed on screen. But with our new interface designs and Windows Touch, the computing experience gets an entirely new personal dimension, solidifying the PC’s place as the creative hub of the home.

Watch the video called “A new kind of software” at www.corel.com/windows7 to see Corel’s user experience designer, Jennifer Fraser, explain how Windows 7 and Windows Touch impacted our software design. Jennifer discusses how this amazing new OS offered Corel’s development team the opportunity to offer new experiences that foster creativity and build stronger connections between users and their content, whether it’s a painting, family snapshot or home movie. Jennifer explains our overall approach to designing consumer creative products and gives a quick glimpse at two of our new Windows Touch-enabled products, Corel Digital Studio 2010 and Corel Paint it! Touch, which was announced today.

With our long history of working closely with Microsoft, particularly around the introductions of new operating systems, we speak from experience when we say that they’ve really got it right with Windows 7. This new platform offers unprecedented power and stability, enabling Corel to deliver products that help customers create, connect and interact with their home PC in ways never before possible.

Joe Roberts
Executive Vice President – Products

Putting the Win back in Windows

2009-10-22T18:15:06Z

Just in case you’ve missed it (where have you been?), today is the day the first PCs with Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and VISION Technology from AMD hit the shelf. Yeah!

Many of us have been looking forward to this day for quite a while. I’ve blogged about the synergy between AMD technology and Windows 7 on a number of occasions before. I’ve talked about how AMD’s latest graphics cards are the only graphics cards on the market to fully support the DirectX 11 API, the API released with Windows 7. And that’s a big deal, because it will enable richer visual experiences and speed up other tasks like converting video files for playback on a portable media player.

I’ve also discussed the importance of a complete PC experience, where hardware and software interact seamlessly so that everything “just works.” With greater usability and an increasingly intuitive interface in Windows 7, your PC works the way you want it to, faster and easier.

I’ve been lucky to be a beta tester for Windows 7, and have personally benefited from a couple of the improvements in particular.

For example with Windows 7, you can drag video to enabled portable media players and transcode the clip automatically. If you’re searching for a file, Windows 7’s integrated search function helps you find what you’re looking for faster than before, even when you only remember a phrase or snippet of what you’re looking for.

And now the wait is over. Today is a culmination of a long effort by Microsoft, and with their new OS, consumers can enjoy a better computing experience right now. Windows 7 is a winner.

This is also a day where consumers can experience VISION technology from AMD – technology which we announced last month. Developed with the goal of enriching users’ digital lives, VISION also helps simplify the PC buying process, by aligning PC models with the ways consumers use their systems. Depending on whether you just want to watch videos and view photos, or create and edit HD movies, VISION helps you easily identify the PC that’s right for you. At a time when consumers have more options than ever, we understand that choice alone does not provide value. The right choice provides value, and VISION helps buyers make the right choice.

From product development to point of purchase, AMD and Microsoft have worked together to ensure a painless decision process and intuitive user experience.

And with Windows 7 on VISION, everyone WINs.

Nigel Dessau
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at AMD

His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

Hyped about Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Windows 7

2009-09-30T00:53:13Z

Too many companies today are struggling to make do with fewer technical resources and they are looking to maximize the efficiencies of their technologies in order to reduce costs and business risks. HP is working with Microsoft to address these challenges and give companies the competitive edge they need to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Working with Microsoft on the launch of Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Windows 7 has been an exciting venture for the HP team. HP and Microsoft are continuously building on our expertise in providing customers with an unparalleled technology experience for business-ready technology environments.

Our collaboration with Microsoft on Windows 7 showcases the extensive capabilities and functionality of Windows 7 on HP’s portfolio of PC’s, notebook’s and workstations. The sooner companies adopt Windows 7, the sooner they can start reducing overall support costs- that is why HP is ready to design, plan, migrate, manage and deploy Windows 7. In addition to services, HP Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solutions are helping to control the cost, manage the complexity and improve security of desktop computing with Windows 7. We’ve also been working with Microsoft on unified communications and collaboration solutions so customers can integrate their choice of endpoint devices, including Windows 7 platforms, and connect people seamlessly regardless of technology used.

We’re excited to join forces with Microsoft in their mission to create the most efficient enterprise technologies across the board with Windows Server 2008 R2. HP’s collaboration on Windows Server 2008 R2 is helping customers build a secure, infrastructure that is scalable and adaptable to meet changing business requirements.

With Windows Server 2008 R2, organizations can now make a serious reduction in power consumption and improve consolidation ratios with HP ProLiant G6 servers. HP’s support of Windows Server 2008 R2 provides a unique cost savings by reducing network real estate and improving server consolidation ratio- HP Flex-10 technology reduces network real estate by up to 75% reduces networking costs by up to 66% and reduces power consumption by up to 50% and can help improve virtualization ratios in network constrained environments.

HP provides a significant advantage for Microsoft Exchange 2010, foundational element for a complete, end-to-end unified communications and collaboration infrastructure. With this solution companies can reduce risk by relying on a strong partnership. HP has the broadest base of servers and storage that help reduce power and floor space requirements, lower cost of storage while improving availability with DAS storage and allows for greater choice in deployment options with a broad portfolio of storage solutions.

HP offers a number of services for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Windows 7. HP VDI standard set of services provides strategy and value workshop, planning and design, implementation and support services. Application Virtualization services help customers with the implementation of server infrastructure and support administration monitoring and management of server based computing servers.

HP is looking forward to the future of Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010 and Windows 7 and we’re excited to be a part of this exciting development with Microsoft.

Meg Shea-Chiles
Director, Microsoft Strategic Alliance, HP Enterprise Business