Windows 7
Service pack 1 for Windows 7
Microsoft has announced that there will be a service pack 1 for Windows 7 but didn’t say when. It’s not news that that there would be a service pack, that was inevitable. The interest is in the timing, which may be as soon as this fall. At Computerworld, Gregg Keizer reports:
Microsoft today announced service [...]
Backups, System Restore, and System Protection in Windows 7
System Restore in Windows 7 is considerably more useful than in Windows XP. The overall service is actually called System Protection and has been extended to include backups of personal and data files. Also, the backup feature now provides for doing a disk image. I have written several articles on the details and they can [...]
Check out your CPU capabilities
Steve Gibson often comes up with free little utilities that do some useful task. With the trend to 64-bit computing, you might want to see if your CPU can handle 64-bits. Another CPU feature worth checking is to see if the security feature called hardware DEP is supported. Gibson provides a free program called SecurAble [...]
Another Windows 7 power management bug
Here’s another problem with power management in Windows 7. This one is described at Microsoft KB979444. So far I haven’t run into it but I haven’t been using a Windows 7 system over long periods. This bug involves a computer crashing after being used for a period of time. Here is Microsoft’s description:
You have a [...]
Windows Vista/7 power management bug
I personally ran into the following on a Vista laptop. I turned off the system in the usual way, putting the PC into the hybrid sleep mode. I then closed the lid. I could have just closed the lid and that would also have put the system to sleep. By both turning off the PC [...]
Windows 7 battery dispute continues
Although Microsoft is firmly denying that Windows 7 is causing any battery problems (see previous post), people are still pointing fingers at Windows 7. Computerworld has a roundup of what is being said.
Microsoft denies Windows 7 battery problem
In a previous post, I noted that there were reports that upgrading to Windows 7 was causing some batteries to fail. Microsoft says that Windows 7 is not at fault and that bad batteries are the problem. Ars Technica has more details.
Windows 7 stability update causing problems
Last week Microsoft issued some non-security updates for Windows 7. Unfortunately, one of them seems to be causing trouble. The problem update is KB977074. The best solution for those having problems seems to be to uninstall the update. Ars Technica has more on the problem.
Are Windows 7 upgrades causing battery problems?
There are a lot of reports that upgrading a laptop to Windows 7 is ruining batteries. As far as I can tell from what I read, new laptops that come with Windows 7 are not involved, just older systems that have been upgraded. More details are here.
A complete compendium of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts
The Windows Club has made available for download a free PDF file with a “complete” set of Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts. I put “complete” in quotes because there may be thousands of possible keyboard shortcuts in Windows; this ebook has just over 200. In any event, this is a useful reference work. The download [...]
Will it work on Windows 7?
That’s the question you may have about your favorite program before you change to a Windows 7 system. Microsoft has been periodically publishing software compatibility lists to help you determine what will run on a new system. You can download a large Excel file in XLS format at this link. Or you can do a [...]
