Windows 7 Pre-RTM Build 7137 98 Screenshot Gallery

Windows 7 Build 7137 is the latest interim development milestone of the next iteration of the Windows client that was leaked into the wild. While the build indeed provides confirmation that Windows 7 is moving toward the RTM milestone, it will not satisfy the hunger for the gold release of the operating system. Fact is that even as early as Beta Build 7000, Windows 7 feels ready for release. And while the Redmond-based company beat its own estimates for general availability, now pressing ahead for a pre-holiday (read mid-October 2009) launch, it is not about to rush the release of Windows Vista's successor. This even though, technically, Windows 7 Release Candidate Build 7100 is as close to RTM as possible.


“As you can imagine, our team is quite busy working through this next phase of Windows 7. We definitely appreciate the millions of downloads and installs of the Windows 7 RC. Things are going as we expect at this point. On a personal note, I wanted to thank all the folks who have been sending me mail. I’ve received a lot of kind words and support regarding the RC and quite a few people saying 'hurry up and just release it'. We outlined the steps we’re taking for this next milestone and aren’t going to rush things. We’ve got a lot of work for sure,” revealed Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group.

Sinofsky provided the update earlier this week. There isn't much there, but mentioning that everything is going as expected in fact means that Windows 7 is on track to being released to manufacturing and the to the public in the second half of this year. Microsoft is yet to discuss any official upcoming delivery deadlines, but will most likely do so later in the development of Windows 7 towards RTM. According to unconfirmed reports, the pricing for Windows 7, for example, will be unveiled to the public in mid-June 2009. I've said it before, and I'm willing to repeat it, it will be a mistake for Microsoft to price Windows 7 above Vista, no matter the quality gap between the two platforms.

Stick with the RC

Windows 7 Build 7137 brings nothing new to the table. At least not on the surface, because the product is evolving toward RTM. Testers that are currently using Windows 7 RC Build 7100 should stick with that release. Users looking to get aboard the Windows 7 testing wagon should also download and install Windows 7 RC available from Microsoft. Using the activation product keys from the Redmond-based company, Widows 7 RC can be used until at least March 2010, at which time the operating system will start to shut down every two hours. Complete expiration will come on June 2010.

As Windows 7 Build 7137 (7137.0.090521-1745) was compiled on May 21, Microsoft has undoubtedly moved onward with producing interim builds of the platform. Still, users should be extremely careful when it comes down to accessing Windows 7 releases from torrent trackers or other illegal sources, as the risk is that the bits could be infested with malware. Always make sure to check SHA1 and MD5 information, and if the data is not available, then better not risk the download.

Even before Windows 7 Build 7137 was leaked, there was chatter on a few forums built around Windows enthusiast communities related to leaked details of Build 7140. A screenshot allegedly from that release started circulating, and got picked up by a few blogs. That screenshot was fake. And there is no way of telling what exactly Windows 7 Build 7140 will bring to the table. But try and take reports about Windows 7 development milestones with a grain of salt, no matter where they originate.

At this point in time, unconfirmed reports indicate that Microsoft managed to take Windows 7 all the way to Build 7141. But as I have already said, this means nothing more than the software giant continues to produce interim builds of the next version of the Windows client, softening all the rough edges before the product is released to manufacturing.


Windows 7 Build 7138 Service Pack 1

One interim build of Windows 7 that manages to stand out from the crowd is 7138. Windows 7 Build 7138 comes with Service Pack 1 already installed according to information leaked by Wzor. Both copies of the Windows 7 client Build 7138 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Build 7138 feature Service Pack 1 already installed. The full build string for both the client and the server version is 7138.winmain_win7ids_sp090523-2200.

No word from Microsoft on just what the new Windows 7 SP1 builds mean, but it is highly unlikely that the Redmond-based company has already debuted the building and testing of the first service pack for Windows 7. My best guess is that the software giant is simply testing the mechanism of integrating service packs into Windows 7, but it is nothing more than a guess. However, from the screenshots leaked in the wild, it appears that 7138.winmain_win7ids_sp090523-2200 is as real as it gets. Furthermore, it seems that Microsoft has moved as high as 7141.0.winmain_win7ids_sp.090528 with the Windows 7 builds containing service pack 1.

32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 (Release Candidate) RC Build 7100.0.090421-1700 is available for download here. Read More .....

Windows 7 Compatibility

With the next iteration of the Windows client, Microsoft is hard at work from day one to ensure that the development of every element of Windows 7 has Application Compatibility at its core, even though this was synonymous with changed features and designs that needed retouching. Grant George, the corporate vice president for testing in the Windows Experience team, has revealed that as far as Application Compatibility goes, Microsoft has just one purpose with Windows 7, namely ensuring that all the programs that currently work with Windows Vista will also work with its successor.

“Our engineering process includes automated quality checks to assure public APIs don’t change, and our test engineers have the right tools, engineering time and information that is used to find application issues as early as possible in our development cycle. Telemetry information is collected to assess and prioritize the breadth of applications our users depend on, paired with market data and install base information, across a wide variety of software categories to make sure they work as expected in our new OS version,” Grant said.

At the same time, Microsoft is carefully handling the fabric of Windows 7 in order to make sure that the evolution of the platform will not impact compatibility. One illustrative example in this regard is Legacy Code Removal. Stripping down legacy code in Windows 7 is a process involving extensive documentation, as well as Microsoft working directly with application developers that are impacted in order to resolve the issue. The Windows engineers also build automated tests designed to evaluate applications that are flagged as problematic from telemetry data.

“Throughout the development process we are running tests in the background creating an ongoing validation of new code relative to application compatibility,” Grant explained. “As code is getting ready to be checked into the main build, if a compatibility failure is detected in an automated regression test the checkin is halted. At that point the code is scanned for known compatibility issues and if an issue is detected the developer is asked to fix the problem. Of course we also develop new tests throughout the course of developing Windows 7 in order to broaden our coverage of third party software.”

But Microsoft is by no means limiting the app compatibility testing of Windows 7 to third party programs alone. The Redmond company also analyzes middle tier technologies including Java, the .Net Framework, and so on and so forth in order to ensure that they will all play nice with Windows 7. What the software giant is doing is actually isolating approximately 4 to 6% of applications belonging to the same family, namely with similar technology, data processing, etc. By ensuring compatibility with the set of 4-6% of applications in a certain family, the company provides assurance of compatibility for all similar apps.

“In addition to 3rd party stand alone applications we test a subset of OEM pre-installed software and their inbox applications for compatibility. The software tested come from the engagements we have with our OEM partners and their submitted installation images. These images are tested on clean installations of Windows 7 and upgrades from Windows Vista on OPEM standard hardware. This level of coverage allows us to best replicate the initial experience with Windows 7 for many of our customers. Because many of these applications are closely aligned with the OS, hardware and drivers, it is not unusual for an OEM to provide updates to this software with a new OS release,” Grant stated.

But in the end, Microsoft has also equipped Windows 7 in order to help end users deal with the compatibility issues that will get away. The next version of Windows will be able to detect failed application installations due to incompatibility problems. Following such a failure, the operating system will provide the user with a wizard designed to help identify a compatibility mode for a problematic app. Read More .....

Windows 7 Beta Application Incompatibility Behavior

Microsoft is not only serving Critical security updates designed to patch vulnerabilities in pre-release versions of Windows 7, but also refreshes meant to boost the operating system’s compatibility level. With Win 7, the Redmond company placed a strong focus on delivering backwards compatibility with Vista-tailored software and hardware products, and even went as far as labeling the next iteration of the Windows client with version 6.1, while its precursor was just 6.0. Still, compatibility, just as security, is an ongoing effort, and Microsoft is ready to start improving Windows 7 as early as Beta Build 7000.


In this regard, the software giant made available for download the first compatibility update for Windows 7 Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta. “Install this update to resolve issues with non-compatible applications for Windows 7 Beta,” Microsoft informed, indicating that the bits were also delivered through Windows Update, even if also available via the Download Center. It is important to note that in Windows 7 refreshes aimed to improve compatibility will be delivered under the same model as in Windows Vista.

“Application compatibility updates cause several types of behavior in Windows 7 Beta. The following are the three most common behaviors: Hard Block – the update puts a hard block on the application (a hard block prevents an application that is incompatible with Windows 7 Beta from running on the operating system); Soft Block – the update puts a soft block on the application (a soft block provides notification when an application that is incompatible with Windows 7 Beta starts to run); Update – the update improves the application’s functionality in Windows 7 Beta,” Microsoft stated.

The Redmond company failed to reveal the exact issues that the first application compatibility update for Windows 7 Beta resolved, however, the software giant is bound to continue providing such refreshes in the future.
- Download the Update for Windows 7 Client Beta (KB967062) package now.
- Download the Update for Windows 7 Client Beta for x64-based Systems (KB967062) package now.
- Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 for Itanium-based Systems (KB967062) package now.
- Download the Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems (KB967062) package now.


Read More .....

Windows 7 Performance and Productivity Tips

1. Find bottlenecks

From what we’ve seen so far Windows 7 is already performing better than Vista, but if your PC seems sluggish then it’s now much easier to uncover the bottleneck. Click Start, type RESMON and press [Enter] to launch the Resource Monitor, then click the CPU, Memory, Disk or Network tabs. Windows 7 will immediately show which processes are hogging the most system resources.

The CPU view is particularly useful, and provides something like a more powerful version of Task Manager. If a program has locked up, for example, then right-click its name in the list and select Analyze Process. Windows will then try to tell you why it’s hanging - the program might be waiting for another process, perhaps - which could give you the information you need to fix the problem.


2. Keyboard shortcuts
Windows 7 supports several useful new keyboard shortcuts.


Alt+P
Display/ hide the Explorer preview pane

Windows Logo+G
Display gadgets in front of other windows

Windows Logo++ (plus key)
Zoom in, where appropriate

Windows Logo+- (minus key)
Zoom out, where appropriate

Windows Logo+Up
Maximise the current window

Windows Logo+Down
Minimise the current window

Windows Logo+Left
Snap to the left hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Right
Snap to the right hand side of the screen

Windows Logo+Home
Minimise/ restore everything except the current window

3. Faster program launches

If you’ve launched one instance of a program but want to start another, then don’t work your way back through the Start menu. It’s much quicker to just hold down Shift and click on the program’s icon (or middle-click it), and Windows 7 will start a new instance for you.

4. Speedy video access

Want faster access to your Videos folder? Windows 7 now lets you add it to the Start menu. Just right-click the Start orb, click Properties > Start Menu > Customize, and set the Videos option to “Display as a link”. If you’ve a TV tuner that works with Windows 7 then you’ll appreciate the new option to display the Recorded TV folder on the Start menu, too.

5. Run web searches

The Windows 7 search tool can now be easily extended to search online resources, just as long as someone creates an appropriate search connector. To add Flickr support, say, visit I Started Something, click Download the Connector, choose the Open option and watch as it’s downloaded (the file is tiny, it’ll only take a moment). A “Flickr Search” option will be added to your Searches folder, and you’ll be able to search images from your desktop.

6. Schedule Media Centre downloads

You can now tell Windows Media Centre to download data at a specific time, perhaps overnight, a useful way to prevent it sapping your bandwidth for the rest of the day. Launch Media Centre, go to Tasks > Settings > General > Automatic Download Options, and set the download start and stop times that you’d like it to use.

7. Multi-threaded Robocopies

Anyone who’s ever used the excellent command-line robocopy tool will appreciate the new switches introduced with Windows 7. Our favourite, /MT, can improve speed by carrying out multi-threaded copies with the number of threads you specify (you can have up to 128, though that might be going a little too far). Enter robocopy /? at a command line for the full details.

8. Really remove the sidebar

At first glance you might think Windows 7 has got rid of the sidebar, but don’t be fooled. Gadgets are still hosted by the Sidebar.exe process, it’s just that this is now launched automatically when Windows boots. If you don’t plan on ever using gadgets then you could delete the Sidebar Registry entry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run, and recover a small amount of RAM. That might be a little risky, though, as we’re not quite sure what else the sidebar process does in Windows 7. The safest approach is to disable it temporarily by launching MSCONFIG.EXE, clicking the Startup tab and clearing the box next to the Startup entry. Now reboot and test Windows 7 for a day or two to confirm everything is still working, before finally deleting the sidebar Registry entry.

9. Load IE faster

Some Internet Explorer add-ons can take a while to start, dragging down the browser’s performance, but at least IE8 can now point a finger at the worst resource hogs. Click Tools > Manage Add-ons, check the Load Time in the right-hand column, and you’ll immediately see which browser extensions are slowing you down.

10. An Alt+Tab alternative

You want to access one of the five Explorer windows you have open, but there are so many other programs running that Alt+Tab makes it hard to pick out what you need. The solution? Hold down the Ctrl key while you click on the Explorer icon. Windows 7 will then cycle through the Explorer windows only, a much quicker way to locate the right one. (And of course this works with any application that has multiple windows open.)

11. Block annoying alerts

Just like Vista, Windows 7 will display a suitably stern warning if it thinks your antivirus, firewall or other security settings are incorrect.

But unlike Vista, if you disagree then you can now turn off alerts on individual topics. If you no longer want to see warnings just because you’ve dared to turn off the Windows firewall, say, then click Control Panel > System and Security > Action Centre > Change Action Centre settings, clear the Network Firewall box and click OK.

12. Parallel defrags

The standard Windows 7 defragger offers a little more control than we saw in Vista, and the command line version also has some interesting new features. The /r switch will defrag multiple drives in parallel, for instance (they’ll obviously need to be physically separate drives for this to be useful). The /h switch runs the defrag at a higher than normal priority, and the /u switch provides regular progress reports so you can see exactly what’s going on. Enter the command

defrag /c /h /u /r

in a command window to speedily defrag a system with multiple drives, or enter defrag /? to view the new options for yourself. Read More .....