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Windows 7 Tip of the Week God Mode

Months ago, reports far and wide lauded a “secret” Windows 7 God Mode that would grant you access to hidden OS features using, literally, a secret code. The truth is, Windows 7 God Mode is nothing of the kind, neither god-like nor a mode. So I resisted writing much about it, until recently I began getting a second round of emails about this trick. And now that the dust has settled, looking at it again, I can see the attraction.

What God Mode really is, is a way to access every single Control Panel feature via simpler-to-read list. Critics have poo-poo’d God Mode because there’s nothing new in there, and because it’s supposedly simpler to type key words into Start Menu Search than it is to scan a long list. That is incorrect. The beauty of God Mode, ultimately, is that it presents its capabilities in list form. And if you don’t know what to search for, Start Menu Search is useless.

So God Mode really is an excellent Windows 7 secret, because it reveals a long list of features you may never have otherwise discovered. In this way, it works a bit like the Office 2007/2010 ribbon in that it doesn’t necessarily offer anything new, but it does surface features you probably would never have otherwise found.

To “enable” God Mode–really, just create a new shell view for all Control Panel features–right-click on the desktop and choose New Folder. For the folder name, paste in this text:

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A new Control Panel-looking icon will be created with the name God Mode. Open this, and you’ll see a very long list of all of the available features.

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: God Mode
It’s … full of features.

The funniest thing about God Mode, of course, is the name. That is, you don’t need to use the text GodMode above. Instead, you can use any text: All Control Panels, whatever. It’s your choice. The number after the period (“.”) is a GUID–a globally unique identifier–and it must remain as-is. However, you could use other GUIDs to enable different views as well. For example, using Computer.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} would create a new icon for the Computer view.

So enjoy God Mode for what it is: A chance to find out about features you never knew about before. And ignore the haters. On a web where everyone is tripping over themselves to prove how smart they are, the real experts are those who simply know where to look for the answers. And God Mode, horribly named as it is, is one such place.

Simplest. Tip. Ever. 🙂

PS: For a semi-complete list of available God Mode features, and a list of other GUID values you can apply to new folders in Windows 7, check out this post on Windows 7 Themes.

Internet Explorer Feature Focus Notification Bar

When Microsoft reset development of Windows and other core products in the wake of the Windows XP UPnP fiasco, it ushered in the current era of “Trustworthy Computing” that we’re arguably still living within. As part of that reset, it added a number of security features to Internet Explorer, which it delivered as part of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Key among these was an Information Bar that sat at the top of the browser display area.


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The bad old days: The Information Bar first appeared in a revision to IE 6.
In that version of IE, the Information Bar provided access to the browser’s then-new pop-up blocker. Over time, the Information Bar became a central bit of blocker UI for such things as downloads and even browser plug-ins. It was so good, in fact, that every major browser maker copied it for their own products. Today, you’ll see a near perfect copy of the IE Information Bar in Mozilla Firefox, for example.

In Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft has dramatically changed the behavior of this control, which has been renamed to the Notification Bar in this release. Under the covers, IE 9 treats notifications just like it does most other things, in a minimalist fashion that is designed to prevent distractions while browsing. So there are fewer notifications than before, yes, but perhaps more important, when those notifications do occur, they are less disruptive and won’t typically prevent you from browsing the web. (One major exception to this is serious security threats: In such a case, the new Notification Bar will, in fact, halt the proceedings.)

“Interruptions kill the user’s flow,” Microsoft general manager Dean Hachamovitch told me. “So we looked at the prompts IE was using. They’re well intentioned, but got in the way. So the question was, how can we maintain the behavior but quiet it down?”

Also in keeping with the overall IE 9 “get out of the user’s way” mantra, the IE 9 Notification Bar has been moved to the bottom of the browser window where it’s less likely to distract you when it does appear. As such, it is very subtle. Perhaps too subtle, actually: It’s very easy to miss, even in when you know its coming, such as when you trigger a download.

Gets out of the way
One of the major considerations for the new design, of course, was that it not stop a page from loading or prevent the user from doing what they were doing; i.e. reading the page in question. With previous versions of the Information Bar, some notifications were modal, preventing the page from continuing to load until the user addressed the notification. This is (mostly) no longer the case. So if you browse to the Apple web site, for example, you’ll still get incessant notifications about enabling QuickTime. But you can safely–and easily–ignore them.

The Notification Bar also appears less frequently. In previous versions of IE, for example, an Information Bar would pop-up if you tried to navigate to an intranet site (a web URL without a .com or similar ending). IE 9 instead automatically resolves intranet addresses and doesn’t prompt you.
Clearer instructions

The new Notification Bar is also designed with normal users in mind. So the messages are written in Plain English–or the language of your choice–and don’t present a bunch of technological gobbledygook.
Pop-up notifications

Occasionally, the IE notifications system will need to pop-up a dialog box instead of using the Notification Bar. The most common reason is when a web site stops responding. In previous versions of IE, the user would be confronted by an “Internet Explorer is not responding” dialog. But in IE 9, this changes to “[Name of web site] is not responding” and in most cases, IE will recover and redisplay the site correctly. So why display this message in a dialog? The web site crashed, and the IE frame may be unavailable.

IE 9 Notification Bar Corporate controls
Like other IE features, administrators can customize how the Notification Bar works on PCs throughout their environments using Group Policy. For example, you can disable Add-On Performance Advisor notifications (see below) if you’d like.
Common Notification Bar scenarios

Nothing dramatic or unexpected, but here are some of the more common times when IE 9 will display the Notification Bar.

Save a password. When you enter a user name and password at a web site, the Notification Bar will appear and ask you if you’d like the browser to save this information so you don’t need to re-enter it later.

Download a file. IE 9 features a new Download Manager, and it integrates with a reputation service and the browser’s SmartScreen filter to help prevent you from downloading any dangerous (or at least unknown) files.

Add-On Performance Advisor. Every time you start IE 9, the Add-On Performance Advisor gauges the performance of the various add-ons you’ve got configured. And as is (perhaps too) often the case, it will trigger a Notification Bar message that one or more add-ons are loading too slowly.

Default browser. If IE 9 is not set to be the default web browser, it can display a Notification Bar message asking if you’d like to change it back.

IE 9 Notification Bar Final thoughts
Overall, the new Internet Explorer 9 Notification Bar is a nice addition to the browser, but I’m hoping to see some refinements to this feature during the beta process. As it is now, the Notification Bar is, perhaps, a bit too subtle, even for those moments when you’ve initiated an action, like downloading a file. This may be a matter of familiarity. But then an important UI like this should be as intuitive as possible. It’s very close.

Windows 7 Feature Focus

While you could always shell out $60 for a pointlessly long Windows 7 book that teaches you everything from how to use a mouse to the vagaries and history of TCP/IP networking, I think there’s a better way. You’re already a Windows user, so we can make certain assumptions about your needs and wants. And when it comes to the next version of Windows, what you want to know–what you need to know–is what’s changed, what’s different. And that’s why I’m writing this Feature Focus series: To focus on the new features in Windows 7, Microsoft’s new client operating system.

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It won’t happen overnight. But with Windows 7 now completed and generally available, I will be filling it out throughout 2010. (And if you do want to take it to the next level, please check out my latest book, Windows 7 Secrets.)

Here are the new features I’ve identified in Windows 7. If you find a missing feature, or would prefer for me to cover certain features first, please do let me know. I will be adding new articles to this series on a regular basis going forward.

Action Center

While previous versions of Windows included a feature called Windows Security Center that monitored the various security features of the system, Windows 7 takes this functionality to the next level with Action Center. In addition to monitoring security, Action Center also monitors the OS’s maintenance features and consolidates alerts from numerous Windows features into a single interface. Read more…
Aero Peek

This replacement for Show Desktop in Windows 7 lets you “peek” behind all of the open windows on your desktop and easily view and Windows Gadgets or files on your desktop. You can also peek into the contents of specific open windows. Read more…
Aero Shake

Windows 7 includes a unique new way to minimize all windows except for the currently selected window: Just grab it by the title bar and shake vigorously. It’s called Aero Shake! Read more.
Aero Snaps

By dragging open windows in certain ways, you can “snap” them to the edges of the screen, maximize, or minimize. This obviates the need to click tiny onscreen elements, making these features more accessible to users. Read more…
Aero Themes

In Windows 7, Microsoft combines various system preferences–including the desktop background, the Aero glass window color, the system sounds, and the screen saver–into Aero Themes you can customize, save, and share with others. Read more…
Backup and Restore

Windows Vista’s stellar backup and restore features have been streamlined and simplified in Windows 7. Like its predecessor, the version of Backup and Restore in Windows 7 supports both data backup and image-based system backup, but now the capabilities are more consistent across product editions. Read more…
Bitlocker To Go

The full-drive encryption feature that first debuted in Windows Vista has been updated in Windows 7 to support removable USB storage devices like flash memory drives and portable hard drives. Read more…
Calculator

The Windows Calculator utility inexplicably receives a major upgrade in Windows 7 with calculation history, unit conversion, calculation templates, data calculations, and other new features. Read more…
Display Improvements

Windows 7 includes numerous improvements related to computer displays, including integrated display color calibration, improved high DPI support, ClearType, and improved support for external displays. A new Windows Key + P keyboard shortcut helps you easily switch between connected displays. Read more…
Hardware Support

Microsoft provides several unique Windows 7 features related to hardware device support, including Device Stage, Devices and Printers, location-aware printing, improved power management, and integration with the Windows Troubleshooting infrastructure. Read more…
HomeGroup

Microsoft has consolidated the most common network-based sharing tasks into a single simple interface called HomeGroup. Computers in a HomeGroup can easily share documents, digital media files, and printers over a home network. Read more…
Internet Explorer 8

Windows 7 ships with the latest version of Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer 8, which offers such new features as the Favorites Bar, Web Slices, Accelerators, Visual Search, and InPrivate browsing. Read more…
Libraries

In Windows 7, Microsoft has realized a long-term goal to replace the static special shell folders from previous Windows versions with virtualized shell locations that aggregate content from a variety of physical locations. Libraries are implemented as virtual folders and the views they present are the results of search queries. Libraries are also the basis for HomeGroup file and digital media content sharing.
Parental Controls and Family Safety

The parental control functionality that debuted in Windows Vista is updated in Windows 7 to support multiple games rating systems and parental control providers. Read more…
Problem Steps Recorder

Windows 7 includes a new utility called the Problem Steps Recorder that captures screen shots of the steps a user is taking so that help desk personnel can provide a fix without physically having to visit the desktop. Read more…
ReadyBoost

ReadyBoost first appeared in Windows Vista, providing users with a way to cheaply and easily improve the performance of their PCs by utilizing a USB memory key as a memory cache. In Windows 7, ReadyBoost is enhanced in numerous way: It supports multiple memory devices, can work with USB memory keys, Secure Digital (SD) memory cards, and other internal flash devices, and supports over 4 GB of storage per device. Read more…
Scenic Ribbon, Paint, and WordPad

Microsoft has evolved the Ribbon control from Office 2007 and made it part of the operating system in Windows 7. This new version of the Ribbon, called the scenic Ribbon, is used by two Windows 7 applications, Paint and WordPad, and can be used by third party applications going forward as well. Read more…
Start Menu

The Windows 7 Start Menu is an enhanced version of the Start Menu that debuted in Windows Vista, and features Jump Lists and an improved Start Menu Search. But the single biggest feature, perhaps, is that the Start Menu is being deemphasized as an application launcher because of the new taskbar. Read more…
Sticky Notes

The Sticky Notes utility loses the bizarre Windows XP-style interface from previous Windows versions and supports both ink and text input. Read more…
Tablet PC and Windows Touch

After making Tablet PC functionality available more broadly in Windows Vista, Microsoft is improving this technology in Windows 7 with better handwriting recognition that has improved accuracy, speed, and support for math expressions, personalized custom dictionaries, and 13 new languages. Additionally, Windows 7 builds on the Tablet PC and touch capabilities from previous Windows versions and adds pervasive support for multi-touch. All of the major UI components, including the Start Menu, Windows Taskbar, and Explorer, are touch-friendly in Windows 7. Read more…
User Account Control

While much reviled by certain users, the User Account Control (UAC) feature that debuted in Windows Vista played a huge role in making that system the most secure Windows version yet. In Windows 7, UAC is extensively updated to be less annoying, and the overall system has been fine-tuned to minimize the number of UAC prompts that interrupt users. Read more…
View Available Networks

Windows 7 includes a new Jump List-like utility for finding and connecting to Wi-Fi, mobile broadband, dial-up, and VPN connections. Unlike the similar UI in Windows Vista, this utility, called View Available Networks, does not require you to navigate through a series of dialogs and windows. Read more…
Windows Experience Index

The Windows Experience Index continues in Windows 7, but like Nigel’s amp in “Spinal Tap,” it now goes to 11. Well, to 7.9. Read more…
Windows Explorer

Microsoft has significantly updated Windows Explorer yet again in Windows 7, this time with a new toolbar, a resizable search box, and a new navigational pane. Read more…
Windows Gadgets

The Windows Sidebar disappears in Windows 7, but the Gadgets continue on and are integrated with the desktop. Read more…
Windows Live Essentials 2011

Available as an optional download, Windows Live Essentials 2011 is an application suite that includes a number of new versions of classic Windows applications, including Windows Live Mail (email and calendar), Windows Live Photo Gallery (photos), Windows Live Messenger (instant messaging), Windows Live Movie Maker (video editing), Windows Live Family Safety (enhanced parental controls), and more. And the 2011 version, currently in beta, is the best yet. Read more…
Windows Media Player

Microsoft’s media player received a major makeover in Windows 7 with several new features, including enhanced DVD playback, a sleek new Now Playing mode, dramatically improved format compatibility (including AAC and H.264), Windows Taskbar Jump List customization, PC-to-PC and Internet-based media streaming, and a new Play To feature. Read more…
Windows Recovery Environment and Startup Repair

The Windows Recovery Environment was included with Windows Vista but wasn’t installed by default. In Windows 7, it is installed into the OS partition automatically, providing access to a suite of recovery tools including the excellent Startup Repair, which automatically fixes boot problems and returns the PC to its normal booting state. Read more…
Windows Taskbar

The Windows Taskbar has been dramatically enhanced in Windows 7 to minimize clutter. New Taskbar features like Jump Lists, fly-over and full-screen icon previews, and more. Read more…
Windows Troubleshooting

This new Windows 7 feature diagnoses and resolves common operating system and hardware issues. It works automatically, or you can visit the Troubleshooting control panel to find problems to troubleshoot. Windows Troubleshooting integrates with Action Center so you’ll be notified when relevant new troubleshooters from Microsoft and third parties are made available. Read more…
Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode

This combination of solutions provides users with the ability to run many older Windows XP applications in a virtual Windows XP environment, side-by-side with native Windows 7 applications. It’s the final piece of the Windows 7 application compatibility functionality. Read more…
More new Windows 7 features

Accessibility improvements. Microsoft has revamped the accessibility features in Windows 7 with improved speech recognition and a new Magnifier utility with full-screen and lens-mode views.

Blu-Ray support. Windows 7 natively supports Blu-Ray optical discs and enables you to write to Blu-Ray recordable media.

Credential Manager. The new and improved Windows 7 Credential Manager lets you save credentials, like user names and passwords, so that you can more easily logon on to Web sites, networked computers, and other resources automatically. Credentials are saved in the Windows Vault and can be backed up and restored to encrypted Managed Information Card (MIC) files. (Credential Manager uses Windows CardSpace technology.)

DirectAccess. This feature is aimed at business users who need to securely access corporate network resources while away from the office. Essentially a simple replacement for VPN connections, DirectAccess requires Windows Server 2008 R2 on the server-side.

DirectX 11. Windows 7 includes the latest version of the DirectX multimedia libraries.

Getting Started. This replacement for Windows Vista’s Welcome Center no longer appears the first time you boot into the Windows desktop, but it still provides a central location for discovering new features, personalizing the system, transferring data from your previous Windows PC, and discovering and launching other common tasks.

MinWin. The componentized core of Windows 7, which includes both the traditional operating system kernel as well as the minimum necessary surrounding support technologies to create a bootable (and, for Microsoft, testable) system. Note that, in Windows 7, MinWin isn’t a feature per se but is rather the foundation upon which the rest of the OS is built.

System Restore. The Windows 7 version of System Restore works as before, providing a way to non-destructively return a PC to a previous point in time, but is more reliable, predictable, and effective than its predecessors.

Virtual Hard Disk support. Windows 7 allows you to mount a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) as a drive in Explorer so that you can navigate its contents like a physical hard disk. It also supports the ability to boot from VHD images.

VPN Reconnect. Windows 7 users who still need to make traditional VPN connections will benefit from a new VPN Reconnect feature that automatically reestablishes a VPN connection when you temporarily lose Internet connectivity.

Windows Defender. The malware and spyware protection utility from Windows Vista continues in Windows 7 with a few changes: It’s been integrated into the new Action Center and its centralized notification system. But Defender also drops the useful Software Explorer feature, so users will have to look elsewhere for a way to prevent unwanted applications from running a startup.

Windows Easy Transfer. The Windows Easy Transfer utility that debuted in Windows Vista has been substantially updated with a new user interface and new capabilities. As before, Easy Transfer helps you transfer files, folders, and program and system settings from your previous Windows install to your new one. This time around, however, the process is simpler and more streamlined.

Windows Live. Windows 7 integrates with a growing collection of Windows Live services, including Windows Live Photos, Windows Live Profile, Windows Live People, Windows Live Spaces, Windows Live Home, Windows Live SkyDrive, Windows Live Groups, Windows Live Calendar, Windows Live Events, Windows Live Hotmail, and more.

Windows Media Center. Microsoft’s ten-foot UI for digital media content is improved with a slightly enhanced user interface, multi-touch support, HomeGroup integration, and various global broadcast TV standards.

Windows PowerShell. Windows 7 ships with the Windows PowerShell 2.0 scripting environment and the Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE).

Windows Search. Windows 7 comes with the latest version of Windows Search, and unlike the version that first shipped with Windows Vista, you can now obtain instant search results from network-based file shares as well as local hard drives. Microsoft has also improved the performance of local searches, sorting, and grouping.

Windows Update. Microsoft’s utility for downloading and installing system updates has been enhanced in Windows 7 to take advantage of changes in the security model and to better expose optional and featured updates.

XPS Viewer. While Windows Vista users are forced to use Internet Explorer to view XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents–essentially Microsoft’s PDF knock-off–Windows 7 gains a dedicated XPS Viewer application.
Removed features

Sometimes, Microsoft adds features during the beta and then removes them for various reasons. Maybe they’ll show up in Windows 8 or other Microsoft products. Who knows? What we do know is that these features were originally going to be included in Windows 7. And now they’re not.

A Look at Windows XP Service Pack 3 Part 1: Good Enough?

Rather than write a traditional review of Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), I thought this might be an opportune time to reevaluate XP’s standing in the Windows world. After all, virtually every technology pundit on earth has described Windows Vista as operating system non grata, an upgrade to be avoided at all costs. Over at the tabloid-o-rific InfoWorld, a “Save XP” petition has garnered 100,000 signatures: Sure, that pales next to the 120+ million people that are using Windows Vista at this time, but what the heck. There must be something to this. Is XP really good enough to warrant saving?



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To find out, I did a clean install of Windows XP with a near-final version of Service Pack 3, the final XP service pack. I then installed a number of applications and technologies from Microsoft that bring XP roughly up to speed with Windows Vista, including Internet Explorer 7, the various Windows Live suite tools, Windows Defender, Windows Media Player 11, and Office 2007. And then I installed my stock group of preferred applications on the system, including AVG Free Antivirus, Apple iTunes, Firefox 3 Beta, Adobe PhotoShop Elements, WinRAR, and several others.

And you know what? I get it. I get why all those people are freaking out over the impending end of the mainstream availability of Windows XP, why so many are clamoring for Microsoft to give its previous generation OS another chance. And it has nothing to do with any faults in Vista, real or imagined. (Mostly imagined, actually.) No, it has everything to do with human nature. We’re creatures of habit, you and I. And even the most forward-looking of us, those who enjoy living on the edge, technology-wise, have a very natural need to be in the comfort zone sometimes. And XP is just that, comfortable, like that ratty old sweatshirt that we should have thrown out years ago but just can’t bear to replace.

Don’t get me wrong, though: It’s not like anything’s broken here. Windows XP has plenty of life left in it. This system will run on far less demanding hardware, comfortably, than any version of Windows Vista, and that alone means this system will be around for years to come. (Not surprisingly, XP also provides better performance in virtual machines as well.) After all, PCs last a lot longer than they used to, and while Microsoft and Intel wrestle with the fact that Moore’s Law is succumbing to the current generation of under-utilized multi-processor CPUs, everyday users are noticing that they can get a lot more out of yesterday’s software than was possible a decade ago during the Megahertz wars. This is big news for the industry, and for the billions of people who use PCs every day.

No, clinging to Windows XP is entirely understandable. I typically advise against upgrading to Vista on current, XP-based hardware. After all, not only will XP likely run more quickly on your existing hardware, but you’ll probably also experience better compatibility, both with software and hardware devices. The old maxim is as true as ever: Unless you’re an expert, you should simply adopt the latest Windows version when you purchase a new PC. This discussion begs a new type of question, however: Should you opt for XP over Vista on a new PC? (Though to be fair that question will become academic this summer when XP is no longer available in this fashion.)

My answer to this question is no, you shouldn’t. Instead, you should choose Windows Vista, for the many reasons I’ve outlined in my Windows Vista review (check out the final part of that review for a quick list of reasons why I think Vista is a big deal and a huge improvement over XP.)

But that’s not what this article is about. No, this is about those of you who have elected, bravely, foolishly, or otherwise, to stick with XP. So let’s take a look, a last look at Windows XP, at least on this site, which is, after all, dedicated to the future of Windows, and not the past. But I think it’s OK to take a step back and see whether what’s old can be new again. After all, that’s what Windows XP Service Pack 3 is all about.
Windows XP and the Vista conundrum

In delaying Windows Vista for over two years, as Microsoft did between 2004 and 2006, the software giant exacerbated the problem it always has getting customers to upgrade, and it did so once inadvertently and once on purpose. The inadvertent bit was that the longer Vista was delayed, the more comfortable XP became to users. Though XP suffered from the same performance, stability, and compatibility issues that dogged Vista in its first year (and, let’s not forget, please, that XP also suffered from a range of extremely high profile security issues the kind of which have never plagued Vista, thank you very much), enough time passed that people simply forgot. Anyone buying a new PC during 2005 and 2006 discovered, perhaps to their amazement, that things actually worked pretty well most of the time. This kind of experience may be commonplace in the tightly controlled Mac OS X environment, but in the willy-nilly world of Windows, where any third-rate second-world company can and will ship a painfully bad device driver at the drop of a hat, this level of stability and reliability was a new phenomenon. Windows XP simply got more mature over time, in ways that were never possible with previous versions of Windows. For the first time ever, time effectively slowed in the computer industry. The upgrade cycle pretty much ended for a while there. (Further evidence of this evolutionary mindset can be seen in the number of XP-based OSes Microsoft shipped in this time frame, including various versions of XP Media Center and Tablet PC Editions.)

More purposefully, Microsoft also screwed over Windows Vista. As Vista was delayed again and again, Microsoft realized that it would be a mistake to tie the success of key new technologies that were to have originally been Vista-only. So it back-ported a number of technologies to XP, things that previously were designed to be Vista-specific. These include, among others, Windows Defender, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communications Foundation, .NET 3.x, the Windows Security Center, Windows Media Player 11, and even Office 2007. (Remember, Office 2007 was originally going to be Vista-only, was then going to offer unique Vista-only functionality, and was finally changed so that it worked identically on Vista and XP.) Microsoft also dramatically detuned some key Vista features, like Instant Search, while cancelling related technologies such as WinFS. In short, Vista became less exciting over this time period whereas Windows XP became more and more capable. Now, I understand why Microsoft made these decisions and I may even agree with most of them. But the net effect should have been predictable: By not drawing a clearer line between XP and Vista for much of its next-generation technologies, Microsoft in effect created a situation where XP didn’t become obsolete as quickly as did previous Windows versions. Now, the goal is admirable and understandable: Those technologies would achieve greater success due to their exposure to a larger audience. But Vista suffered as a result.

Couple this strategy with the Vista delays and Microsoft’s inability to capitalize on multi-core hardware (another way in which Vista could have differentiated itself from XP), and suddenly XP becomes that comfortable old sweatshirt I discussed previously. I have no doubt these events will be closely studied by both Microsoft and various business schools in the future. To say that this was a lost opportunity is an understatement.

So here it is, in 2008, four long years after Microsoft shipped the last major update to Windows XP (Service Pack 2, which can and should have been marketed as a completely new Windows version). Microsoft may have originally wanted to ship Windows XP SP3 long, long ago, but the Windows division got all caught up in this little project called Windows Vista, so XP SP3 was sort of cast to the side and forgotten. Well, forgotten by Microsoft, that is: The company’s biggest and most important customers–big businesses–seemed poised to settle on XP for the next decade, and they were getting a bit prickly about all the post-SP2 hot-fixes that Microsoft has shipped over the past three years. It seems these things are a bit time consuming to install, and they were interested in getting that promised next service pack, which would roll-up all the previous fixes into a single, convenient update.

Microsoft was quiet about SP3 for a long time, but last year the company finally owned up to the fact that it would indeed develop SP3 and ship it sometime in 2008. And sure enough, SP3 nicely rolls up all of the previously released hot fixes, providing a more seamless (i.e. less complicated and time consuming) install experience. There are a few new features, but not really, unless, again, you’re one of those big businesses Microsoft is so concerned about (see my XP SP3 FAQ for details). As with Windows Vista SP1, XP SP3 is a traditional service pack, more about rolling up previous hot-fixes than about new functionality. And in XP’s case, specifically, that’s just fine because XP, as noted previously, has already gotten a new lease on life. Heck, practically anything that’s available in Vista is available on XP now too, right?

Well, not exactly. But this isn’t a matter of whether all of Vista’s useful features and functionality are being made available on XP. It’s a matter of whether enough of Vista’s useful features and functionality are being made available on XP. In other words: Is XP still good enough? No, XP with SP3 isn’t as “good” as Windows Vista, but remember that it doesn’t have to be. It only has to be good enough. And maybe it is. It’s certainly good enough to make people forget all about Linux on the desktop. It’s proven good enough to keep people from switching to the Mac in dangerous numbers. And it appears to be good enough to make customers look at Vista and say, eh, there’s not enough there there.

And that’s a problem, at least for Microsoft and its current and future platforms. Because in this case, I think the company has kowtowed a bit too much to those who would see XP live forever. It cut a bit too deep from Vista and gave a bit too much to XP. Microsoft will tell you that this doesn’t matter. A Windows license sold, after all, is a Windows license sold. But that’s absolute baloney. If customers are standing put on the previous version, that means they’re not sold on the company’s technological vision, and they’re no longer lining up as Microsoft tries to lead them to the future. I mean, imagine a case in which customers were allowed to choose between a previous generation Toyota Camry and the all-new, designed-from-the-ground-up 2008 model, and the customers actually chose the old version by a roughly 2-to-1 margin, despite the fact that the price hadn’t changed at all? This would be devastating to any car maker. I believe it’s devastating to Microsoft for the same basic reasons.

But enough business theory. What I’m really concerned with here is how this affects you, the Windows user. And the question I put before you, again, is … Is Windows XP good enough?

Saying Goodbye To Old Technology

A reader recently made an interesting point: Windows XP, to his mind, was the tech story of the decade. He’s probably right. Microsoft has never made an OS of any kind with this lengthy a life cycle, and XP has lived on in the face of two major upgrades, Vista and 7, both of which were designed to obsolete it. But the success of XP has a dark side as well. And with most businesses still standardized on this Windows version, XP’s problems are starting to outweigh the benefits.

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Part of the problem is that XP still ships with wildly outdated non-core technologies, many of which are becoming favorite targets of hackers. Key among these are Internet Explorer (IE) 6 and, less obviously, Adobe Flash 6.

I’d be surprised to discover that I needed to defend my contention that IE 6 is arguably the most dangerous software any business could have deployed throughout their environment today. But it bears repeating: The web is the number one vector of electronic attack, and IE 6 was built for a different decade and, more important, before Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing initiative. Put simply, it’s just not safe to use.

The problem, of course, is that IE 6 is in fact still widely used. And this is despite two major IE upgrades, IE 7 and IE 8, both of which are dramatically more secure and dramatically more functional. (These two newer IE versions aren’t perfect, however. In the recent electronic attack on Google and other companies that emanated out of China, a vulnerability in IE 6, 7, and 8 was allegedly used. This begs a separate question: Does it make sense for any security-conscious business to use IE at all?)

So the possibilities of hacker attacks against IE aren’t all that surprising. But many admins may not even realize that Windows XP ships with a hugely outdated Flash version. In fact, it’s so old, that Adobe has shipped four major updates to the software since XP first arrived. It’s now up to version 10.

Because multiple vulnerabilities in Flash 6 can be targeted by hacker attacks and result in remote code execution exploits, Microsoft recommends that XP users update to the current Flash version. Common sense, right? But in the upgrade adverse corporate world, I have no doubt that millions of machines will continue forward unprotected.

A new level of vigilance is required here because as OS vendors like Microsoft have done increasingly good jobs of protecting their customers, hackers have moved on to other attack vectors, including applications software like IE, Office, and Adobe Reader and Flash. The popularity of such attacks makes sense; each of these solutions is used by hundreds of millions of users every day.

But when businesses are only slowly updating the technologies installed on users’ PCs–or not updating them at all–the situation is exacerbated. And the attack surface of your environment grows ever bigger.

I mentioned earlier that XP’s benefits–compatibility, familiarity, performance, and, let’s face it, the fact that it’s often already paid for–will soon be outweighed by problems inherent to using an OS that’s almost a decade old. These problems become all the more dangerous when combined with hackers’ new emphasis on unpatched applications as well.

The obvious way to mitigate many of the resulting problems is to upgrade. But as you’re all too well aware, upgrading comes with its own problems, not the least of which are the financial, training, and support costs. But as we’ve discussed over the past few weeks, this is a unique moment in time, and the ideal time to not just change for change’s sake, but to upgrade in ways that make sense. And that means reevaluating what’s installed on users’ computers, which cloud computing services you can perhaps take advantage of, which systems can be virtualized and centrally controlled, and so on.

But at the very least–that is, working within the confines of the systems you currently use–please be sure to thoroughly evaluate the software solutions you have running within your environments and ensure that they are all at least updated with the latest security fixes. We can’t all handle electronic attacks as well as Google apparently did in the recent Chinese situation. But we can at least do the minimum.

Hands-On with Windows Small Business Server “Aurora”: Notes from the Field

I’ve written about Microsoft’s new Small Business Server offering, code-named Aurora, a lot over the past few months. (Most recently in Windows Small Business Server “Aurora” Release Candidate.) Since then, I’ve been using Aurora as the basis for a new domain in my test environment, and I’ve spoken with Microsoft further about the product. Here are some notes from my time using Aurora over the past several weeks.

It’s simple. Aurora is simple, maybe too simple. That’s because it’s designed for the smallest of small businesses, where there is not only no IT staff but perhaps not even someone who is particularly knowledgeable about computers. Aurora needs to work in these largely unmanaged environments, and my take on this is that it will do so just fine. But Aurora really comes into its own when it’s run by someone who understands Active Directory and Group Policy: Push a bit beyond the surface UI and the entire Windows Server management infrastructure is there, waiting to be unlocked. A bit more about this in a moment.


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What’s confusing about Aurora, to me, is that it’s not clear what’s going on under the covers. Setup literally involves just a handful of steps, and the most taxing question you’ll answer is the name of the new domain you wish to set up. Unlike with traditional Windows Server versions, Aurora assumes you’re going to install it behind a home-like broadband router, like you’d get from a cable or DSL Internet provider, and it doesn’t assume that it will be providing DNS or DHCP services.

On the client end, Aurora also simplifies the process of connecting users (and their PCs) to the domain by providing a very basic web-based installer, which can be found at https:://server-name/connect. By default, users will connect via this interface, provisioning a new domain user account and PC in the process. If you’re used to micromanaging this, it can be a bit off-putting.

Launchpad can be too chatty. Users can optionally use the LaunchPad software on their PCs, which provides them with PC- or network-based health alerts. Even in my small environment, these alerts have proven to be way too chatty, in my opinion, and users who are tasked with ensuring that the environment is kept in a steady, healthy state will quickly become overwhelmed by the number of alerts. These alerts change the LaunchPad’s notification icon to yellow when there’s an issue to resolve (a computer has important updates to install) or red for something very serious (a computer has a hard drive that is nearly full, or an out-of-date anti-malware solution).

Aurora is particularly prickly about getting the remote access and server backup capabilities online and working properly. If you don’t do either, you’ll be notified somewhat incessantly. For some reason, it’s easier to disable client backups than it is server backups.

Shares are confusing. Aurora, like the Windows Home Server products on which it is based, comes with a set of default shares that provide access to server-based storage over the network. However, this isn’t a home server, so the shares aren’t designed around media content like music, photos, and videos. Instead, you get shares called Users and Company. Fair enough, but I found the process of creating new shares–and worse still, removing unwanted shares (Company??) too difficult, and I suspect the IT-less Aurora user base will as well.

What’s really different, however, is that Aurora (like “Vail,” the next version of Windows Home Server) also creates a unique drive letter in Explorer for each share. So the Company share can also be accessed, on the server, by the Y: drive, and the Users share is found at W: too. Why is this, I asked? According to Microsoft, these mapped drive letters make it easier for users to find the shares in the file system (they were previously somewhat hidden on in D:\Shares in WHS v1). And they’re easier to back up as well.

OK, fair enough. But there’s no UI for deleting shares and their accompanying drive letters simultaneously, at least not in the standard Aurora management UI, called the Dashboard.

Extensibility is the key. Where Aurora is really going to prove impressive is via its new add-on model. The problem, for now, is that there are no Aurora add-ons to test, though there is a hint in the UI that one is coming for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, or BPOS, which provides hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and other Microsoft servers. I’m eager to try such an add-on, but I’ll need to wait. So I asked about other add-ons that may be coming.

From the look of things, it’s going to be pretty exhaustive. Microsoft plans add-ons for on-premise servers, like Exchange 2010, as well as for hosted services, and there is a very interesting set of management add-ons coming that will simplify Group Policy and other management features. Also coming are add-ons that will negate the very real need, currently, to logon to the server via Remote Desktop Connection to perform many management tasks. Those will all be exposed through the Dashboard in the future, which will be a nice change.

Microsoft is also going to offer something called a Premium Add-on for Aurora that will provide a fully licensed copy of Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2. This provides features not found in Aurora–like Hyper-V–and lets you extend your new domain with a second domain controller. And it is a second machine: Contrary to the upgrade possibility suggested by its name, the Premium Add-on is installed on a second server, not over the existing Aurora box.
Summing up…

Put simply, Aurora lives up to the needs of its stated mission and will be an excellent solution for very small businesses. But where this thing will really come into its own is in the hands of someone who really knows their way around AD and GP. Just implementing something like folder redirection, for example, could make a huge difference for users. These kinds of capabilities, I think, will be out of reach for typical Aurora users, however, unless they sign up with a forward-looking Microsoft partner that understands the product and the ways in which they can provide value on top of the base package. Yes, Aurora is in many ways a starter server. But lurking underneath the hood is (almost) the full power of Windows Server, just waiting to be unleashed.

Droid Attack Spells Doom for iPhone

Last year, while I was on a business trip, my wife surprised me during a phone call by telling me that she was going to purchase a Motorola DROID and finally enter the smart phone age. This was surprising on a number of levels. She’s notoriously tight-fisted with money, for starters–is there a nice way to say that?–and isn’t the type of person to jump at the chance to toss $80 a month into the wind. She’s notably ambivalent about technology, too, which may be a shocker to some given to whom she’s married; to her, computers are a tool, and years of Mac usage did nothing to indoctrinate her into the Apple cult. (In fact, she uses–chose–a Windows 7-based Dell laptop last year.) And then there’s the DROID itself. This is a decidedly masculine smart phone, the antidote to Apple’s namby-pamby iPhone, and it was marketed then (as now) in a very aggressive fashion.

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“You’re getting … a DROID?” I could hardly believe it.

But she did it. And for the past year (almost), she’s been quite happy with her choice. She’s a Gmail and Google Calendar user, so the Android OS makes sense for her. And watching her latch onto things like Facebook has been both fascinating and disturbing.

But I’m not here to write about that. No, this is about something even more disturbing than my wife posting to Facebook. Last week, after a flurry of sudden work-related activity, I found myself the somewhat bewildered recipient of my own Android-based smart phone, in this case a DROID X. The reasons for this are complex, but basically I’m now an employee of Penton, the owners of this site, and I’m expected to meet certain corporate expectations. I’ve resisted, tried to, held out as long as I could. But now I have this phone.

WINDOWS 7 SECRETS

About the book
Go beyond the obvious and explore the secrets behind Windows 7 with this comprehensive guide. Leading authorities in the field expose the hidden functionality within the Windows 7 operating system, revealing everything from its new features and functionality to modifying the system to work for you. These expert tips and tricks will help you gain the skills you need to quickly go from a Windows 7 user to a Windows 7 expert.

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Paperback: 1080 pages
Publisher: Wiley
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470508418
ISBN-13: 978-0470508411
Errata, additions, and notes

The tech industry changes on a daily basis. And hey, we’re human too. Here you’ll find everything that’s changed–and any mistakes we’ve found–since the book was first published.
1. Selecting the Right Windows 7 Edition

Understanding the Differences Between the Product Editions
Pages 28-33
I maintain a much more up to date and complete version of this chart in my article Windows 7 Product Editions: A Comparison.

US List Prices for Windows 7 OEM Product Editions
Page 42
Current NewEgg OEM prices are as follows:
Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit or 64-bit) – $105
Windows 7 Professional (32-bit or 64-bit) – $140
Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit) – $175

Windows Anytime Upgrade
Pages 42-43
For more information about Windows Anytime Upgrade, please read my articles Windows 7 Feature Focus: Windows Anytime Upgrade and The Windows 7 Netbook Experience
2. Installing and Upgrading to Windows 7

Upgrading from One Windows 7 Version to Another with Windows Anytime [Upgrade]
Pages 76-79
The section is misnamed (the word “Upgrade” was omitted). For more information about Windows Anytime Upgrade, please read my articles Windows 7 Feature Focus: Windows Anytime Upgrade and The Windows 7 Netbook Experience

Performing a Clean Install with an Upgrade Version of Windows 7
Pages 80-82
Microsoft withheld Windows 7 Upgrade media from book authors and press, so Rafael and I weren’t able to fully understand the difficulties surrounding this type of Setup until the OS shipped. Not coincidentally, I’ve spent a lot of time documenting how you can use the Windows 7 Upgrade media to perform clean installs of the OS. You should read Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media and the Windows 7 Upgrade Scenarios series for much more information on this topic.

Installing Windows 7 on a Mac
Pages 84-88
An updated version of this section–which includes information on new Mac virtualization products that provide support for Windows 7 Aero effects–can be found in the article Best of Both Worlds: Windows 7 on the Mac.
3. Hardware and Software Compatibility

No changes or additions.
4. What’s New in the Windows 7 User Interface

Secret: Microsoft offers a number of wonderful pre-built Theme Packs…
Page 133
Microsoft changed the URL for its Personalization Gallery, which provides pre-built Windows Themes and other downloadable add-ons.
5. Where’s My Stuff? Finding and Organizing Files

An excerpt from this chapter is now available as the article, Windows 7 Feature Focus: Libraries.
6. Personalizing and Configuring Windows 7

More tricks and tips
Leo Laporte and I provide at least one software pick and Windows 7 tip each week on the Windows Weekly podcast.
7. Windows 7 Security

Install an antivirus solution
Page 255
Microsoft Security Essentials is now available for free, and I strongly recommend this AV/anti-malware. solution to all Windows 7 users. (It’s what I use to protect my own PCs.) Find out more in my Microsoft Security Essentials review.
8. Users, Accounts, and UAC

No changes or additions.
9. Networking and HomeGroups

Ad-hoc wireless networking
Page 314
Windows 7 supports wireless, ad-hoc (peer-to-peer) networking, which lets you share a wired (Ethernet) or 3G wireless connection over a standard Wi-Fi interface. Rafael discussed how this functionality is actually available in all Windows 7 product editions (contrary to Microsoft documentation) in his post Windows 7 Starter Hides But Allows Ad-Hoc Networking. I discussed this feature in episode 133 of the Windows Weekly podcast as well.

An (updated) excerpt from this chapter is now available as the article, Windows 7 Feature Focus: HomeGroup.
10. Complete Your Home Network with Windows Home Server

Power Pack 3
In November 2009, Microsoft released Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 (PP3), which significantly enhances the experience of using WHS with Windows 7. You can find out more about this update in my article Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Preview.
11. Digital Music and Audio

No changes or additions.
12. Digital Photos

No changes or additions.
13. Digital Videos and DVD Movies

Editing Digital Video with Windows Live Movie Maker
Pages 503-526
Microsoft has shipped a major upgrade to Windows Live Movie Maker that substantially changes the application’s user interface and capabilities for the better. Please read my Windows Live Movie Maker Review for more information.

Ripping DVDs in H.264 Format
Pages 549-551
A major update to Handbrake, version 0.94, adds many capabilities to this free DVD ripper, including soft subtitle support and major performance improvements
14. Microsoft Zune: A Digital Media Alternative

Zune 4 and Zune HD
Microsoft has released a major upgrade to its Zune platform, Zune 4. This includes the new Zune HD digital media players, the Zune 4 PC software, and more. To discover everything that’s changed here, please refer to my five part Zune HD Review and, more generally, my Digital Media activity center.
15. Digital Media in the Living Room: Windows Media Center

Internet TV
Page 638
Microsoft released a nice Media Center update that significantly enhances the capabilities of Internet TV and support for the Netflix movie streaming service.
16. Having Fun: Games and Windows 7

Free Microsoft games
Microsoft announced that it will make Windows Vista Ultimates games Tinker and Texas Hold ‘Em available for free to all Windows 7 users. They still haven’t appeared however.

Games on Demand from Games for Windows – LIVE
Page 691
Microsoft announced that is evolving Games for Windows – LIVE to include a portal for accessing and downloading LIVE-enabled titles electronically. This will apparently work similarly to Xbox Live Arcade games on the Xbox 360’s online service.
17. Seven to Go: Windows 7 Mobility Features

Using Windows 7 with a Netbook
Pages 732-734
I’ve written a bit more about this topic in The Windows 7 Netbook Experience.
18. Using Tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs

No changes or additions.
19. Windows in Your Pocket: Windows Mobile and Other Mobile Devices

Windows Mobile 6.5
Pages 771-772
I’ve spent a lot more time with Windows Mobile 6.5 since the book was published. You can read about my experiences with this interim release in my multi-part Windows Mobile 6.5 Review.
20. Browsing the Web

No changes or additions.
21. Managing Email and Contacts

No changes or additions.
22. Managing Your Schedule

No changes or additions.
23. Your Life in Sync: Windows 7 + Live Services

No changes or additions.
24. Keeping Your Data Safe: File and PC Backup

No changes or additions.
25. Troubleshooting and Recovering from Disaster

No changes or additions.
26. IT Pro: Windows 7 at Work

No changes or additions.

Windows 7 Tip of the Week Master Libraries

Windows 7’s new Libraries features is one of the biggest changes to Microsoft’s latest client OS, and while their use doesn’t require a major rethinking compared to the previous scheme of physical and special shell folders, there are indeed some interesting and unique wrinkles to libraries. This week, I’d like to provide some pointers for getting the most out of libraries.


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As a refresher, libraries replace the old special shell folders from previous Windows versions–My Documents, My Pictures, My Music, and so on–with virtual folders that work much like physical (i.e. “normal”) folders but offer additional features. The key differentiator between libraries and folders is that libraries are not containers like physical folders that map to a single location in the file system. Instead, they aggregate content from multiple folders, providing a single view of all that data in a single place.

If you’re familiar with how relational databases work, then this comparison might make sense to you: In database-speak, physical folders are like SQL tables, because they contain data. You can filter and sort that data in different ways, but the data you see will always encompass only that single location. Libraries, meanwhile, are like SQL views: They provide a more malleable way to view data, often from multiple locations, all in a single place. The data you see in a view could come from two or more tables, just as the data you see in a library could come from two or more folders.

If you want to know more, I’ve written up a lengthy article, Windows 7 Feature Focus: Libraries, that fully explains this new feature. For now, let’s get on with the meat of this tip: How you can best take advantage of libraries in Windows 7.

Customize which folders are aggregated

By default, Windows 7 includes four libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. And each of these libraries, by default, displays content from two locations, one in your own user profile, and one in the Public user profile. So the Documents library is an aggregated view of My Documents and Public Documents, Music is an aggregated view of My Music and Public Music, and so on.

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Master Libraries

You don’t have to accept these defaults however. In each case, you can add additional folders to the mix and, just as important, you can also remove folders from the library view. To do so, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the library you wish to edit; I’ll use the Documents library in this example. (In Windows 7, new Explorer windows open with the Libraries view, and libraries are available from the Navigation pane.) Then, click the Locations link, which can be found under the Documents library heading and will read “2 locations” by default. When you do so, the Document Library Locations window opens.

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Master Libraries

From this window, you can perform a number of tasks:

Add and remove library locations. If you don’t want to utilize one of the default library locations, you can remove that folder from the list of locations. For example, you may not care about the Public Documents folder, as I don’t. So you can select it and then click the Remove button. To add a location, click the Add button. A standard File Open dialog will appear, allowing you to navigate through the file system, including to network-based locations.

(Well, some network-based locations: Windows 7 requires that the server-based system have the latest version of Microsoft Search installed since libraries utilize this technology’s indexing functionality to work. If you have a Linux-based NAS or other incompatible network storage device, you’re going to have to get creative. Fortunately, there’s a handy and free third party tool, the Win7 Library Tool, that will help you connect otherwise incompatible network locations to your libraries.)

Configure the default save location. By default, files you copy into a library are saved into what’s called the default save location, and this location, by default, will be your “My [whatever]” folder. So the default save location for the Documents library is My Documents by default. But it doesn’t have to be. Once you’ve configured other folders as locations in the library, you can change the default save location. To do so, right-click on the location in the Locations window and choose “Set as default save location.”

Change the location display order. By default, locations within a library are visually ordered in the order in which they were added. And with the default locations, the “My” folders are always listed before the Public locations. You can, of course, change this as well. To do so, open the Locations window for the library in question, right-click the location you wish to change, and choose “Move up” or “Move down.”
Custom view styles

Libraries are visually differentiated from physical folders by a small header that includes the name of the library (i.e. Documents library), a Locations link, and, on the right, a set of unique Arrange by options. These Arrange by options are not available in standard folder views and they can be quite interesting, especially for highly visual content like pictures.

The standard Arrange by view in each library is folder, which causes the library to use standard folder views. The other choices vary by library:

Documents: Author, Date modified, Tag, Type, Name

Music: Album, Artist, Song, Genre, Ratings

Pictures: Month, Day, Rating, Tag

Videos: Year, Type, Length, Name

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Master Libraries

If you’re a real power user, you’ll recognize this as the Stacks interface that debuted quietly in Windows Vista, which did include virtual folder technologies, but not in an obvious way. Stacks are visual representations of a query, essentially, and in the above figure what you’re seeing is a Pictures library sorted by month.
Create your own custom libraries

You aren’t stuck with the libraries that God, er ah, Microsoft gave you. That’s because Windows 7 lets you create your own libraries. The reasons you might do so are many, but one possibility is a project you’re working on–perhaps a book like “Windows Phone Secrets”–that needs files from multiple places on your PC and, perhaps, your home network.

To create a new library, navigate to the Libraries view in Windows Explorer (or just open a new Explorer window). Then, right-click a blank spot in the window (or, the Libraries node in the Navigation pane) and choose New and then Library. A new library icon will appear with the name, New Library, highlighted so you can rename it. Do so.

Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Master Libraries

If you attempt to open the library, you’ll be told that it has no included folders to display. So click the Include a folder button to display a File Open dialog you can use to navigate to the correct location. Once that’s complete, you’ll receive a standard library view, and you can use the Locations link to add and remove location, determine the default save location, and so on.

Note that custom libraries can be shared on a homegroup, just like regular libraries. And some applications–notably the latest versions of the Zune PC software–can add their own libraries. (In the case of Zune, a new Podcasts library is added.) If you delete a custom library, none of the content it aggregates is deleted, just the library file.
Restore the default libraries

Finally, if you’ve mucked around with your libraries too much and wish to return them to their default state, you can do so by right-clicking the Libraries node in Windows Explorer and choosing “Restore default libraries.” This will not affect any custom libraries you’ve created, but it will return your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos libraries to their default states, with two locations and the default save locations.

Have any other library tips you’d like to share? Drop me a note and let me know.

Microsoft Plays Its Strongest Office 2010 Card: SharePoint

With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 launching this week and Exchange 2010 hitting general availability on November 9, you may think I’d be a bit preoccupied. OK, well, there’s actually some truth to that. But Microsoft is launching some other important software in the weeks and months ahead, and in my mind, this coming generation of platforms isn’t complete without it. I’m referring of course to Office 2010, which doesn’t include just new versions of the age-old desktop software, but also web versions of some of those applications and a major new revision to SharePoint.

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I’ve written a bit about the Office 2010 desktop and web software in the past, but if I can sum up my feelings about the most recent pre-release version, this summer’s Technical Preview, it’s one of ambivalence. On the desktop, Microsoft is finally providing the lauded ribbon user interface to all Office applications, not just a hand-picked selection. But aside from Outlook, which is getting a fairly major update this time around, the other applications are seeing mostly minor, evolutionary changes only. On the web, the Office Web Applications are somewhat disappointing right now: They’re being positioned solely as add-ons to the traditional desktop apps, and not as full-fledged (“first class” in Microsoft parlance) standalone solutions of their own.

The one bit of new news is that Microsoft revealed this week that a public beta of Office 2010 will hit sometime in November. I believe this refers only to the traditional desktop applications and not the Office Web Applications, but it should still prove interesting, especially if Microsoft extends the functionality we saw with the Tech Preview.

The big news this week, however, is SharePoint. Months ago, when Microsoft contacted me about the Office 2010 Tech Preview, it had only vague information to share about SharePoint 2010. But this week, at the SharePoint Conference 2009, it revealed a feature-complete version of the software that, too, will enter public beta next month. As Microsoft promised, it is a major release.

For the 3 or 4 readers who are unfamiliar, SharePoint is Microsoft’s content and document management, enterprise search, and collaboration server suite. The key to SharePoint, I think–and this is something we’re starting to see more of in other Microsoft products–is that it provides an environment in which the users can actually create and manage their own collaborative web sites. In the past, trying to set up an FTP site, file share, or other dumb dumping ground for shared files required administrative oversight, slowing down the process and pulling admins away from more critical work. It’s all about power to the people, without any of the usual security concerns.

For SharePoint 2010, Microsoft is extending this popular platform in several key ways. From a user experience consistency standpoint, it’s picking up the ribbon UI, of course, and a new one-click layout functionality. It’s providing integration pieces for key new Office 2010 app technology like BackStage. And looking ahead to the ways in which SharePoint 2010 will be used in the real world, SharePoint 2010 will also come in two versions aimed at Internet-facing sites, one for on-premises servers and one for hosted versions.