NetbookTech

Microsoft has stopped the distribution of a tool designed to make installing Windows 7 on netbooks easier after allegations surfaced that the tool could be using source code from ImageMaster which is licensed under GPLv2.

The allegations first surfaced courtesy of Rafael Rivera’s Within Windows blog here after which Microsoft confirmed with News.com that they were launching a review of the matter. The tool in question allows users to take a Windows 7 ISO image and create a bootable USB drive out it – allowing netbook users in particular a convenient means of installing Windows 7 since netbooks typically do not come with DVD drives.

So what to do in the meantime? I’ve always been of the opinion that one should get a decent external DVD burner. You’ll never know when you’ll need a burner I tell ya!

[Check it out via News.com]

As you’ve probably heard by now, Windows 7 has finally released the Release Candidate (RC) stage. The official RC will be available to developers on MSDN and TechNet starting on April 30th with a broader public release slated for May 5th. Of course, if you’re adventurous enough and you really can’t wait, you download the release candidate right now (believed to be build 7100) off of many bit-torrent search engines and use your existing beta product key.

Now if you’re wondering what’s changed between the beta release of Windows 7 (build 7000) and the release candidate (build 7100), check out the list of changes here and here over at the Engineering Windows 7 blog site.

In the meantime, I decided to give build 7100 a spin on my Samsung NC10 netbook and here’s a brief overview of my experience – from setup to first few hours of opexration.

Setup and Install

Installing Windows 7 Beta took quite some time on all of our netbook systems – what would the release candidate experience be like? In a word – awesome. The total time from start to finish on the Samsung NC10 – 25 minutes (one would expect this number to be even faster on faster processor systems out there).

Here’s a quick chronology of the setup from last night:

8:26pm – Boot the DVD – see the new splash screen (which has been around over the last several builds since build 7000). Select language of choice, agree to the license terms, choose the drive you want to install Windows 7 on, and you’re off to the races.

8:29pm – The install actually begins:

8:30pm – 10 minutes later, we’re at 74% of the “Expanding Windows Files” section. Very nice.

8:44pm – A reboot, starting some services, and completing installation.

8:47pm – One more reboot.. and now watching Setup preparing the system and checking video performance. The performance checks all have new splash screens too.

8:49pm – Enter your user name and a name for your PC

8:50pm – Time to enter the product key, set the time, and connect to a Wi-Fi- network

8:52pm – Reach the Welcome screen and preparing the desktop

8:54pm – Setup is DONE! The desktop is up and running and everything in the hardware was successfully detected by Windows 7 setup. Running time – 25 minutes from when the setup first began and 28 minutes from when I first booted from the DVD.

Here’s a quick still image of the desktop. (you’ll notice that I shrunk the icons on the task bar down since I’m operating on a netbook display which is limited to 1024 x 600).

Side Note for Samsung NC10 owners

While Build 7100 installed flawlessly on the Samsung NC10, some of the keyboard hotkeys were not working correctly. To get this working, go to the Samsung website and download the display manager software for the NC10.

First Impressions

If you’ve been working with the Beta build for some time now then you might not initially notice differences between the Beta build and the RC build. Many of the changes as listed in the Engineering Windows 7 website are subtle beauty changes and usability enhancement changes. Changes to how Alt-Tab and Aero Peek work; changes to the jump lists; changes to the Device Stage etc etc. If anything, the RC build is clean both on the inside and around the edges. You’ll notice new sound effects, many more themes to choose from, tighter performance, and just an overall sense of polish to the product. We’re close folks – very very close and it’s my opinion that Windows 7 will be awesome for netbooks.

Here are some snapshots of the control panel for anyone interested:

Boot Times

If there’s something noticeable right from the get go – it would have to be the overall boot times and system resumes from hibernation. With Build 7100 running on my Samsung NC10, here are some really quick numbers that I compiled.

Under a minute to the desktop? Not bad. Now granted, the OS is still carrying out some operations in the background but it’s entirely usable within 50 seconds of hitting the power button.

Memory Consumption

If you’re coming from a Windows XP-based netbook world loaded with 1GB of RAM, then you’ll definitely want to consider upgrading to 2GB of RAM for Windows 7. Yes, Microsoft should be commended for their memory optimizations in Windows 7 (it does consume less memory than Windows Vista) but it still consumes more memory than Windows XP.

An out of the box install of Windows 7 Ultimate consumes approximately 500MB of memory at boot time. This does settle down a bit to around 420MB of RAM thanks to some paging optimizations but again – you’ll want to upgrade to 2GB if at all possible.

Performance Perceptions

I haven’t had the opportunity to run real world application or system benchmarks as of yet but the overall system under RC1 certainly feels very responsive and peppy – PLUS – we’re talking about Windows 7 Ultimate – not the Starter Edition of 7. Again – Microsoft should be commended for appearing to execute their goals of making all versions of Windows 7 usable on netbooks.

Keep in mind, this is all preliminary at this point. I’ve yet to use the RC build on the NC10 for a prolonged period of time but it’s all very promising to say the least.

To Be Continued

This is certainly only the beginning when it comes to testing Windows 7 RC for netbook systems. We’ll go ahead and install the OS on other netbook systems to see how compatible the OS is with other hardware. We’ll also look into the battery performance under Windows 7. However, all tings are certainly looking up at this point. Windows 7 could finally spell the end of Windows XP on netbooks – assuming Microsoft gets the licensing agreements worked out.

Qualcomm and NVIDIA are making sure their netbook oriented products will work well under the upcoming Windows 7 OS. Qualcomm announced an updated version of their Gobi2000 3G embedded chipset with support for Windows 7 while NVIDIA announced new certified WHQL drivers that will make their new Ion platform compatible with Windows Vista (and hence Windows 7).

Qualcomm’s updated second generation Gobi2000 3G embedded chip is designed to allow mobile devices like netbooks and notebooks access multiple 3G networks such as HSPA or EV-DO.  The new Gobi2000 module features:

• Adds support for additional radio frequencies within the 800MHz and 900MHz bands including UMTS900
• Improved uplink capabilities with support for up to 5.76 Mbps via HSUPA
• Support for assisted GPS and gpsOneXTRA Assistance Technology
• Includes Qualcomm’s MDM2000 chipset

The company is currently sampling chips and expects to have systems with the chipset during the second half of this year.

Separately, NVIDIA announced that the new Ion platform has been certified for the Windows Vista OS (and hence will work just fine for Windows 7). What this basically means is – the Ion platform now has certified WHQL drivers for the Vista OS. According to NVIDIA, Microsoft has certified the Ion platform to perform the following:

• 1080p HD video including Blu-ray movies
• DirectX 10 support
• Support for Premium Windows Vista features such as Aero glass and Flip3D
• GPU acceleration for faster photo editing and video transcoding

[via PC World]

The picture just got significantly clearer for Windows 7. Microsoft announced the product SKU details today – announcing that the majority of users out there will settle around two SKUs – Windows 7 Home Premium for consumers and Windows 7 Professional for businesses.  Sounds awesome right? Well not so fast – there will still be a total of six different editions of Windows 7 however, only two of them will be purchasable by customers – the aforementioned Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional. The six editions are as follows – Windows 7 Starter Edition, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate. But you’re wondering – this is a netbook site.. so what’s in it for netbooks?

Good question and in some ways it’s not clear what manufacturers will do.

First, it’s important to note that Microsoft has spent time optimizing the OS by having “a smaller OS footprint; an improved user interface that should allow for faster boot-up and shut-down times; improved power management for enhanced battery life; enhanced media capabilities; and increased reliability, stability and security.”

Secondly, if you really want Windows 7 Home Premium, you’ll be able to go out and purchase the OS yourself for installation on your netbook. In fact, according to this Microsoft press release, “For the most enhanced, full-functioning Windows experience on small notebook PCs, however, consumers will want to go with Windows 7 Home Premium, which lets you get the most out of your digital media and easily connect with other PCs.”

Cool.. so we can go out and buy Windows 7 Home Premium.. but will it come bundled with new netbook systems?

That’s not so clear.

You see, Microsoft is also expanding the reach of Windows Starter Edition. This version of the OS which used to be only available for emerging markets will now be available worldwide on new “PCs limited to specific types of hardware.”

Sounds ok thus far.. but there’s a catch with Windows Starter Edition. The OS will only run three applications at a time (it will ignore background services like anti-virus apps). That’s a huge limitation in our opinion (but your usage may vary) which poses a greater question – what will hardware manufacturers do? Will the pricing of Windows Starter Edition and Windows 7 Home Premium force vendors to choose Starter Edition by default? Let’s hope not.. but one gets a feeling that’s what will happen.

Of course maybe all of this won’t matter to you since you’re going with Linux anyhow..

[Check it out via PC Magazine]

jkOnTheRun has published their initial impressions of running the Windows 7 beta on an MSI Wind netbook here on their site. Here are some key talking points from the article:

• System boot in 56.6 seconds including 10 seconds from BIOS/splash screen
• Win 7 reports full charge of 6 hours and 18 minutes
• Win 7 reports the Atom processor to have a performance index of 2.2. I’ll have to compare this to what the OS reports on my Lenovo IdeaPad S10.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

“All in all: good signs that show promise.”

Our initial impressions with Windows 7 have been fairly positive also but stay tuned for a more comprehensive overview.

[Check it out]

Another adventurous soul has gone ahead and installed the Windows 7 pre-beta on a netbook system. This time it’s David Meyer over at ZDNet UK and the target system is the Apricot PicoBook Pro netbook. Here’s a brief excerpt from the posting:

“Up and running, and with reasonable speed, too. I haven’t tried sticking Vista on the Apricot PicoBook Pro – I’m fairly confident it would be a disaster – but Windows 7 actually seems to work on the bloody thing!”

This isn’t too surprising considering many other users have reported similar experiences on their respective netbook systems. The best part is – Windows 7 is a long way from being feature complete and optimized. I expect good things to come for the OS and netbook systems!

[Check it out]

While you’ve seen us install the pre-beta build of Windows 7 on a Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook, other adventurous folks out there have decided to try out the new OS on their respective netbook systems.

Joanna Stern of LaptopMag installed Windows 7 on her ASUS Eee PC 1000H netbook and had this to say about the system.

“So how is Windows 7 on an Intel Atom netbook? Two thumbs up for the new wireless manager and the new visual cues that are incorporated throughout the OS. We wouldn’t give up Windows XP just yet considering the video playback, but the OS is still in beta and it is our hope that final version will be even better for Atom-based PCs.”

Liliputing posted up their impressions of running Windows 7 on an MSI Wind netbook system here. Here’s what they had to say about the new OS:

“All in all, Windows 7 is even more enjoyable than Vista was, and it’s not going to be disappearing from my Wind any time soon.”

Another adventurous fella posted up a view clip of Windows 7 on the MSI Wind on YouTube:

He had this to say:

“Anyways, it runs ok (it’s still in Beta), but if you have a Wind, just stick with XP or Vista for now.”

Finally, the folks at the HP Mini Guide.com installed the M3 build on the HP Mini-Note netbook and said the following:

“Overall it does seem a bit faster than Vista and things are looking really good for this pre-beta.”

All very positive results thus far. Add in a few more features, clean up some bugs, and Windows 7 could definitely be a winner.

[via SlashGear]

So I’m sitting at the PDC this morning, listening and watching Steven Sinofsky, Senior VP of the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, talk about Windows 7 and Windows Live.. when all of a sudden, he pulls out his new favorite little system – a black Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Yep.. there I was sitting down taking notes on a white S10 and he pulls out a black S10. Why you ask? Well he wanted to make a point and say that Windows 7 would run just fine on small systems like the S10. Well tonight, we’re going to go find out if that’s really possible!

If you want to read more about Windows 7 coverage at the PDC, check out my write-up over at Krunker.com