Microsoft pulled a fast one and put up the Windows 7 RC download a day early. Now it time to get it and play with it. I understand that XPM is supposed to be testable, so lets see what it is, and don’t forget to report bugs you find so maybe we can get the worst bugs out of it before it ships.

You can download it at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

They did set it up so that if the download gets interrupted it will pick up where it left off, which should make things a little easier on that end.

Windows vista I have looked at, and for the most part, considering it the spawn of Windows ME. Vista has its good points, and Microsoft tried with it, but with a moving target, stripped down capabilities compared to what it was supposed to have, and massive delays on getting it to market, Microsoft really messed up.

It wasn’t just that older software would not run on it, but software and hardware companies didn’t buy into it. It took forever for applications to be written for it, let alone all the issues with hardware drivers Vista has had.

Well, it seems that Microsoft can learn from its mistakes. Windows 7 has been in beta for a little while now, and most people call it a big improvement from Vista. The first Release Candidate becomes public on May 5, and yes I’m going to get it. What I am looking forward to seeing how it works is the newest feature announced for Windows 7. XPM the feature is called, and if it works the way it is supposed to , well, there will be very little reason not to move to Windows 7.

The idea behind XPM is basically Windows XP sp3 running in a virtual machine, which allows legacy apps to be run normally. The kicker to XPM is the idea that it runs seamlessly in the background. Apps that require XP still get shortcuts installed to your normal Start menu and when you launch the app, it seamlessly launches in its own window, even though it is on a virtual machine, you don’t see the virtual machine running. You don’t have to start a virtual machine session first. Supposedly, it just works.

We shall find out how well it just works rather soon. This is the one thing that if it works right, could save Microsoft’s reputation.

Ok, with all the security blogging I’ve done this week, I figure its time to do a post about something a little different.

There is a bunch of Beta software out there, and more coming soon. Currently Windows 7, Exchange 2010, Firefox 3.5 and Ubuntu 9.04 are all out in beta form. Exchange, unfortunately, I don’t have a real way of doing proper beta testing on or reviewing.

Windows 7 I will be getting with the RC1 on May 5. I want to test the heck out of it and post a review as I do test it. I figure while I’m working with Windows 78, I can check out the new beta of Firefox and see what is up on that.

Finally, Ubuntu 9.04. Yes I run Ubuntu on one laptop and an old Celeron machine. The old desktop won’t be getting 9.04, but the lappy definitely will. I’ve been wanting to do a wipe and reinstall of the laptop for a while now, and this looks like the perfect chance. Mind you sometime today 9.04 is officially released, or so it was announced earlier this week. If it takes another day or two before I get my hands on it, then oh well.

So much going on, and while I do all of that, I am waiting to see which way the wind blows for the next version of office this week. Its been announced that the beta for it later this year will be open to the public, then announced that it woun’t be, then announced that it will be. I think someone at Microsoft needs to get on the ball with a decision on that one.

Another Patch Tuesday happened this week, and this time 6 of the patches are for security holes which have exploits out in the wild, including the Office holes that I complained about last month. There are a total of 8 patches out this month and while that is good, you might want to check on the other updates this month due to end of mainstream support for XP, Office 2003, and Exchange 2003. All three will continue to get security updates for a few years, but all of them will no longer get new features, or non-critical updates.

Also, released today was the Beta for Exchange 2010. I know, most of you are just starting to use Exchange 2007, but if you have a test environment for this new version of Exchange, I would suggest using it and report on bugs to Microsoft so we can get a less buggy release of it.

Finally, SP2 for Office 2007 is on the horizon, and it will give Office native ODF file support. This means that if something is saved in Open Office’s normal formats, Office 2007 should be able to just open it.

Sorry that this blog has been a bit spotty this week. Work has been really busy, and I’ve been learning about some new initiatives and offerings that we are doing at the office. Let see if I can get some time to do some more posts, even if its just the evenings.

So here is a question for everyone, When you beta test software such as IE8 or Firefox 3.5, do you have a special machine to load them on, how long to you test them for, and what do you feel the best practices are?

I have been remiss in doing a lot of beta testing mostly because I don’t want to loose any access or break anything on my machines, so I fifugred I”d ask around so I can give better reviews on this blog.