Acer May Have Reviled Windows 7 Release Date

Today, the computer maker Acer may have reviled the Windows 7 release date, spoiling Microsoft's surprise. The computer builder said to Pocket Lint that Microsoft’s next operating system may be available October 23rd, just in time for one of Acer’s computers, that is under development, to come preloaded with the operating system.

The alleged release date comes slightly after Compal's claimed a September Windows 7 release, but this still means that Windows 7 will be finished far ahead of Microsoft's original release date. The firm has already admitted that Windows 7 is “slightly” ahead of schedule. This leak comes only 23 hours before Windows 7 Release Candidate is available for download.

When we called Microsoft, they had no comment regarding the leak.

Louis Mark'

April 30

Meet the People Who Make The Unofficial Windows Blog

Many people think that this Blog, The Unofficial Windows Blog, has only one person writing but that is not true. The Unofficial Windows Blog has writers all over the world, in every continent except the arctic, Antarctic, and Africa.

Louis

Louis is the creator of the Unofficial Windows Blog, and is located in Canada. His favourite game is The Sims 2. He anxiously awaits the Sims 3. He enjoys programming in Ruby, writing, reading, and playing games.

Omar Hoolgs

Omar Hoogls, lives in The United States of America. Omar’s favourite game is Grand Theft Auto 4. Omar is the only one on the team that can’t program in any language. He enjoys playing games, playing sports, and pranking.

Steven Wilcoski

Steven lives in Great Britain. His favourite game is Wii Sports. As you could of guessed he likes sports. He enjoys Soccer, reading, writing, and jogging.

Tripp Zao

Tripp, lives in Japan. He claims that he does not like any games though he does play Windows Chess allot. He enjoys Sports, reading, math and science.

All of us love Microsoft & Windows

Written By: The Unofficial Windows Blog Team

Windows 7 Customisation

During the development of Microsoft’s next operating system Windows 7 the development team has focused much on the security, speed and usability; but in this version of Windows they have also worked on personalization. According to Microsoft a huge amount of people customize Windows with desktop wallpapers and theme.

Aero is the Windows 7 theme and has been around since Windows Vista. Aero is basically a set of sounds, themes and wallpapers. The great thing about Aero in Windows 7 is that you can create themes, package themes up and share them online. Furthermore you can also download other themes other people created.

Microsoft is also adding an interesting theme that configures the theme for the region you are in. For example if you live in the United States one of your desktop wallpaper folders would contain images of the United States. If you live in Canada you world get a folder with desktop wallpapers of photos taken in Canada. This feature is currently available in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, the United States, and South Africa.

Aero themes also take also have desktop slideshows. In previous versions of Windows you could only have one desktop wallpaper at a time. Now in Windows 7 you can have several desktop wallpapers that would change periodically, much like a slideshow.

Using Aero Themes

You can access Windows 7 theme personalization by clicking start and searching personalization.

Windows 7 comes with several themes, unlike with Windows Vista that came with Aero, Aero Basic, High Contrast, and Windows Classic.

By default the Aero in Windows 7 is a bluish colour. Like in Vista you can change it to suit your style. If you have used Windows 7 Beta the default desktop background was the beta fish, but this will of course change in the final version of Windows 7.

Architecture. This Aero Theme features a desktop slideshow of six alternating architectural images, the Twilight (deep blue) glass color, the Cityscape sound scheme, and no screensaver.

The Architecture Aero Theme.

Characters. This Aero Theme features a desktop slideshow of six alternating whimsical cartoon-type images, the Taupe (light pink) glass color, the Characters sound scheme, and no screensaver.

The Characters Aero Theme.

Landscapes. This Aero Theme features a desktop slideshow of six alternating landscape images, the Slate (dusty brown) glass color, the Landscape sound scheme, and no screensaver.

The Landscapes Aero Theme.

Nature. This Aero Theme features a desktop slideshow of six alternating plant- and leaf-based images, the Lavender (bright pink) glass color, the Garden sound scheme, and no screensaver.

The Nature 7 Aero Theme.

Scenes. This Aero Theme features a desktop slideshow of six alternating artistic images, the Violet (soft purple) glass color, the Quirky sound scheme, and no screensaver.

The Scenes Aero Theme.

Theme for [your region]. This Aero Theme is customized for the region in which you live. So in my case, it is customized for the United States. It features a desktop slideshow of six alternating country- or region-specific images, a custom glass color (medium tan for the US), a custom sound scheme (Delta for the US), and no screensaver.

The United States Aero Theme.

If you have created a custom made theme press “Save Theme” which is subtly located near the bottom right of the My Themes section. As I said above you can copy themes from one computer to another via. the internet or storage device.

How to create your own slideshow wallpaper

I have been talking allot about desktop slideshows but now I am going to tell you how to do it.

To create a desktop wallpaper go to Choose your desktop background and check all the boxes beside the images you want to have in your slideshow.

When you select more than one image you get more options at the bottom of the screen allowing you to choose how quickly you want your images to change.

I personally think that the Microsoft team has done a wonderful job at personalization at puts OSX to shame. They made it really easy to do so the average user customise, and the online catalogue will satisfy any people that like to hack Windows themes.

Writen By: Louis Mark

Windows 7 Edition’s Limitations Revealed

People who’ve followed the development of Windows 7 already know that Windows 7 will include certain limitations for some of the editions. This is very normal for Microsoft to do. The known edition’s of Windows 7 are:

Windows 7 Starter > Windows 7 Home Basic > Windows 7 Home Premium > Windows 7 Professional > Windows 7 Ultimate (Enterprise).

Paul Thurrott mentioned additional restrictions that have not been know before in a recent article on his website:

• Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic will not come with AAC, H.264 or MPEG-2 support. Microsoft seems to have the intention to provide upgrades for those systems to add the support.
• 4 Gigabytes of ram are supported by all Windows 7 editions in 32-bit mode. The differences are in 64-bit mode. Home Basic and Starter support a maximum of 8 Gigabytes, Home Premium 16 Gigabytes and Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise up to 192 Gigabytes of ram.
• Windows Media Player Remote Media Experience (RME) is not available in Windows 7 Home Basic or Starter. However, all versions can share media over a home network.
• All Windows 7 SKUs support 20 simultaneous SMB connections. This works out to 10 users, apparently.
• Only windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise support the Virtual XP Mode.

We will not know for sure what features will be in Windows 7 until the Windows 7 Release Candidate is released, on May 5th 2009.

Written By: Omar Hoolgs

Microsoft Confirms Windows 7 RC Release Date

Microsoft on Friday has confirmed the Windows 7 Release Candidate release date as May 5th 2009. This confirmation comes about a week after a Microsoft slip-up leaked the release date.

Brandon LeBlanc on a Microsoft blog said that Windows 7 RC1 will be release early to MSDN and Tech Net subscribers on April 30th 2009. The public will be able to get the Release Candidate on May 5th. He also made the point of saying he had eggs for breakfast.

Brandon LeBlanc failed to reveal if Windows 7 RC will be available for download for a limited amount of time or if there is a limited amount of downloads allowed.

Microsoft has said that testers will not be able to upgrade to RC1 from Beta. Microsoft recommends you download to Windows Vista and upgrade to Windows 7 RC1, or that you format your drive and install.

It has been leaked that Windows 7 RC1 will be available only in English, German, Japanese, French and Spanish versions.

Written By: Louis Mark

Windows 7 Release Candidate Setup Screen Shots

The Windows 7 RC setup is no different than previous leaked builds. The installation has evolved into something much greater than the long installation of Windows Vista. The installation only took 15 minutes to complete (not including time spent filling out information)

Windows is loading the installation files of the DVD.

The regular Windows boot screen appears for a few seconds while Windows continues to load installation files.

This just shows the installation background graphics. This is also the login screen background.

This Windows asks for the language that you read, asks for your location, and your type of keyboard.

The Install now button, making sure you know what you need to know before installing.

Setup is starting

End User Licence Agreement. You must accept to this.

This window asks you what type of installation you want.

Windows 7 asks what drive you want to install Windows 7 on.

Windows installation begins here. At this point you cannot cancel the installation.

The installation continues.

Windows 7 installation needs to restart your computer to continue.

The install is now complete, and is preparing Windows 7 for first use.

Windows now asks for your name and asks you to name your PC.

Windows now requires you to type in a password and password hint for your user account. At this point you may not create a new user account.

Windows now asks you to type in your Windows 7 product key, to make sure you have obtained Windows 7 legally. You can continue with out the product key but Windows 7 will deactivate after 30 days of use.

Windows now asks to choose your automatic updates settings.

Windows now asks for time zone information date & time

Windows now askes for your location. It needs this to know this to know if it needs to set up a Home group home network.

Because I’ve selected Home in the previous window it asks me to select what files I want to share and asks me to type in a home group password.

Windows now applies your settings

Windows now prepares your desktop and then the installation is done!

Written By: Steven Wilcoski

Windows 7 RC Screenshots

Apparently, Windows 7 RC1 has leaked to the internet and I’ve obtained some screenshots. The build number of this leak is 7100. I would take the fact that this is the Release Candidate with a grain of salt because thats what people also said about Windows 7 build 7049. The day Windows 7 RC1 was leaked was April 24, 2009 which means that Microsoft is just a week away from the rumoured official Windows 7 RC release date. Currently Windows 7 is very close to the RTM stages which I suspect will happen between August-September 2009.

Some rumours have been circulating the internet saying that Windows 7 RC will have a very different user interface from the Beta. What leads people to believe this is because Microsoft has split up the build’s into two sections, which they did while Windows XP was in development, and XP ended up getting a brand new interface. It makes sense for Microsoft to do this because you would not want a new interface leaking to the internet. If these rumours are true the two build branches would be merged into one when Windows 7 RC1 is officially released.

Thank you to Paul Thurrott for these screenshots.

Written By: Louis Mark