beforeyoukillyourcomputer.com

WinGuggle is a small application that can Set, Change and Backup your Original Equipment Manufacturer’s Information. It can also get your Windows 7/Vista/XP and Office Product Key for Backup easily. How? No Installation is needed, Just unzip the archive and launch the application.

• Now includes Bitmap Browser for images available on your PC (Windows 7 and Vista are supported)
• System Summary of the most important information such as Hardware components, CPU information, Disk Drives, Audio and Video Codecs, Display Drivers and many more.
• Before installation or upgrading to a new OS, It is recommended to run WinGuggle System Summary to a separate disk like flash drives or removable drive first to archived automatically all the System Information needed and if problems occur, you can still view the previous System Information like Sound Devices and Display Drivers. Prevention is Better than Cure!

Features:

• Recover Windows 7/Vista/XP and Office Product Key (CD Key)
• Change OEM Logo and Information Completely (Windows 7, Vista and XP)
• Change Performance Information and Tools OEM Logo (Windows 7 and Vista)
• Removing OEM Logo and Support Information in Windows 7/Vista/XP
• Manual and Automatic Backup of OEM Logo and Information Settings
• Reset to Default Restores the Original Settings

Windows 7/Vista/XP
Download WinGuggle 2.1 Build 1 Revision 1 (x32/64)
Download WinGuggle 2.1 Build 1 Revision 1 (x32)

I am thoroughly enjoying Windows 7 at the moment but do find this video quite funny. Wolves! Love it!

A computer operating system is like a desk. It should be comfortable to work at; sturdy and stable; handsome to look upon, but not distracting; it should be able to store files and tools away when not in use, but keep them accessible when you need them. But above all else, an OS should get out of the way and let you get your work done. Now imagine if your desk were enormous—taking up a significant portion of the room you keep it in. To get started working requires unfoldings, knob-twistings and other complex procedures. When you finally are seated, you open a drawer on your desk to get a new pen and the drawer instantly snaps shut on you, saying “Do you really want to use that pen? It’s new and I don’t know where it came from.” Then you say, “Yes, I bought the pen and I’d like to use it. I know where it came from.” And then your desk replies, “All right, fine. Use the pen, but before you do, I want to make sure that I’ve expressed my reservations about that pen. It’s a fountain pen and those have been known to explode and shoot ink all over the place. You’ve been warned.”

It sounds silly, but that’s exactly the problem with Windows Vista, a big, creeping, cumbersome embarrassment for Microsoft the past few years. The worst part is that Vista was an honest attempt to deal with the consequences of the success of Microsoft’s Windows XP’. The ubiquity of Windows has made it a frequent target of cyber attackers and criminals, and the reviled User Account Control was intended to create a barrier so no program could install itself on your computer without your consent. The world got more dangerous, so Windows got more protective. The slow boot time and bloated size of Windows were consequences of the system’s need to be a photo viewer, media player, e-mail client and movie editor. And because, unlike Apple’s Macintosh OS, Windows is built to support thousands of potential computers with millions of potential peripherals, it must have generic support for most of those things built in.

Full story ~ Popular Mechanics

InformationWeek – Microsoft is offering the Home Premium version of its new Windows 7 operating system to college students for just $30. The OS usually sells for $119.

In order to qualify, students must enter their college or university e-mail address into a special Web site that Microsoft has established in partnership with distributor Digital River for the promotion.

Microsoft said it also may require proof of enrollment, but it was not immediately clear how rigidly the software maker plans to enforce the policy.

The Web site also features a link to Microsoft’s online Upgrade Advisor, which students can use to verify that their PCs are capable of running Windows 7.

What’s not known is whether scholastic IT departments will support Windows 7 when it debuts on Oct. 22nd. Many held off supporting Windows Vista when it debuted in early 2007 due to concerns about application compatibility.

Earlier this week, Microsoft said it plans to release a set of tools in late October designed to help organizations, including academic institutions, deploy Windows 7.

Source

Reuters - Panda Security, the Cloud Security Company, today announced that PandaLabs, the company’s laboratory for detecting and analyzing malware, has launched a beta version of its Panda 2010 security solutions to be compatible with the Windows 7 beta. Users who have installed the beta version of the new Microsoft operating system will benefit from the best protection against malware. Consumers can download it free from http://www.pandasecurity.com/windows7. The general release version will be available as soon as the new operating system is launched on October 22.

Panda’s 2010 solutions use Collective Intelligence, the company’s exclusive cloud-computing technology, to leverage the knowledge gathered from the community of millions of Panda users around the world. Each new file received is classified automatically within six minutes. The Collective Intelligence servers automatically classify more than 50,000 new malware samples every day. These technologies correlate information on malware received from each computer to continuously improve the protection level for the worldwide community of users. In addition, Panda’s 2010 solutions have perpetual, real-time contact with this vast knowledge base, guaranteeing users the fastest response against new malware that appears every day.

Full Story

Microsoft said that some “in-place” upgrades from Windows Vista to the new Windows 7 may take some users more than 20 hours to complete.

The best that users can hope for is a 1 hour and 24 minute process, said Chris Hernandez, who works in the Windows deployment team, in a company blog published Friday.

So-called “clean” installs, where the user overwrites an existing edition of Windows to end up with the newest version of the operatiing system, but no former data or applications, take less time: from 27 to 46 minutes.

Hernandez said the in-place upgrade times were obtained from lab machines in three different configurations — labeled low, mid-range and high-end — with three simulated users: a medium user, a heavy user and a super user. The profiles differed in the amount of data and the number of applications that were on the PC before the upgrade to Windows 7.

Full Story

Microsoft has ported back changes to its AutoRun and AutoPlay features to Windows Vista and XP to help users fight malware that spreads through USB devices.

Microsoft made the change in Windows 7 earlier this year to stop the spread of the infamous Conficker worm, which was taking advantage of the functionality to silently jump from PC to PC. With the change, Windows will no longer display the AutoRun task in the AutoPlay dialog except for removable optical media such as CDs and DVDs.

The functionality was made available for XP, Vista and Windows Server 2003 and 2008 on Aug. 25. Information on how to download the updates can be found here.

The decision to make the change followed the well-publicized growth of malware spreading via USB devices during the past couple of years. In fact, a report by Symantec (PDF) found that self-copying to removable media was among the most common means of malware propagation in the second half of 2007.

“McAfee expects increased attacks involving USB sticks and flash-memory devices used in cameras, picture frames, and other consumer electronics,” Dave Marcus, director of security research at McAfee Avert Labs, blogged in January. “This trend will continue due to the almost unregulated use of flash storage across enterprise environments as well as their popularity among consumers.”

Source

Microsoft still has a variety of issues with its software licensing structure, according to a new research note by two analysts at Directions on Microsoft. Previous attempts at restructuring the often-complicated licensing for Microsoft products has resulted in benefits to the enterprise, particularly with new technologies such as virtualization. Windows 7 has the potential to introduce new licensing issues upon its general release on Oct. 22.

Microsoft licensing is likely to remain “unwieldy” in the near future, although solutions to licensing issues do exist, according to a new research note by two analysts linked to Directions on Microsoft, an independent organization that tracks the company.

The Sept. 8 research note by Rob Horwitz, CEO and founder of Directions on Microsoft, and Paul DeGroot, the organization’s research vice president, breaks down five reasons why Microsoft licensing is supposedly difficult:

1. A Variety of Products and Markets
The sheer size of the Microsoft product portfolio, coupled with the company’s global reach and multiple markets, means a “one-size-fits-all product packaging, licensing and pricing approach couldn’t possibly work.”

2. Decentralized Decision Making
The different product groups within Microsoft decide their licenses and pricing, often independent of the company’s central licensing division. Each of these product groups operates with an eye toward its own competitive profile and revenue generation.

3. New Technology
Technological innovations such as multicore processors and cloud computing can force Microsoft to adjust its licensing structure, which in turn can complicate life for customers as new rules and exceptions are introduced.

4. Limited Enforcement and Compliance Tools
“Most Microsoft products do not include features to help medium and large organizations match product use to license purchases or comply with license usage rules,” Horwitz and DeGroot write. “Customers are responsible for building the complex infrastructure and processes necessary to police themselves.” This can lead to excessive purchases of licenses or inadvertently signing up for programs such as Enterprise Agreements.

5. Lack of Inventive
According to the research note authors, “Microsoft executives don’t see current licensing policies as a problem … and the executives are reluctant to tinker with such a complex system.” The sheer amount of effort and cost involved in restructuring licensing policies also acts as a drag on the potential for system reform…

Full Story

Microsoft paired a quad-core Intel Core i7 microprocessor with a solid-state-disc drive and what Ruston Panabaker, the principal program manager for strategic silicon partnering at Microsoft, called a generic build of Windows 7. Panabaker fired up the system, and presto! An 11-second boot time.

Sure, this was most likely a fresh build on fresh hardware, and an SSD makes all the difference in the world. But there was a little magic going on behind the scenes, as well

According to Panabaker, the boot process can be parallelized across all four cores and all eight threads provided by Intel’s hyperthreaded processor. “It’s an Intel reference design,” Panabaker said. “But with high-performance hardware, this shows what system manufacturers can do.”

Part of the improved performance comes from the telemetry data that helped Microsoft boost battery life by a significant amount when running on Intel’s next-generation processors. Other work was done by Microsoft itself, removing “thread locks” that stalled the system. Intel also works with the Windows 7 scheduler to migrate threads to idle cores, and then to shut those idle cores down if there truly is no work to do.

Full Story