Experiences With Windows 7

On October 22, 2009, Microsoft will release Windows 7. What has been available is what is called a release candidate, or RC for short.

Release candidate 1, or RC1, has been available for quite some time. There are three stages software is supposed to go through: Alpha, Beta, and Release candidate. The alpha release is a very early version, possibly incomplete, and is only tested on the programmers' computers. The beta release is the next stage. The software may or may not be complete but now the programmers need to test it out on other people's computers. In these first two stages, major changes can be made. The last stage is release candidate. In this stage only minor changes can be made because a release candidate is a candidate for releasing to the public. If no major flaws are found, then this is the build released to the public. Of course, minor flaws will be fixed. However, if a major flaw is found, then a second release candidate is made available, RC2. And so on until there are no more major flaws. Programmers quite often misuse these terms.

Windows 7 did not need a second release candidate. RC1 is the version that will be delivered on October 22. Before it ships, software vendors may do something call RTM, Release To Manufacturing. This is when a software vendor will release the final version early to certain people or companies so they may test and design their software on it to make sure it works. Windows 7 RTM was July 13. Obviously this is several months ahead of the official release, but this is because Microsoft wished to avoid the Windows Vista fiasco again. Vista RTM was 2 months ahead of the official release but even then most companies failed to properly test their software and drivers. The result was problems with Vista even though the problem was mostly related to third parties.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 7:00 PM - Categories: Windows

More Information About Windows 7 User Account Control

Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft introduced a feature called User Account Control (UAC).  This was one of the features people didn't like about Vista. Windows Vista was, in fact, a major overhaul. Windows Vista did have elements of Windows XP, which was nothing but Windows 2000 updated which was nothing but Windows NT updated. But Windows Vista was really a large step forward for the Windows line and not a tiny step forward like XP was. The Windows NT based system files were remade to allow the desktop environment to be prettier and more secure. Of course, most people thought that just because their computer said Windows Vista ready -- you can thank Intel for that -- that their computer was made for Windows Vista. All the extra stuff that Vista was doing required much more power than older computers could efficiently handle. The extra security measures built in Windows Visa, such as UAC, also broke some older programs. Many hardware companies thought that the old Windows NT based drivers that had always worked on Windows NT to Windows XP would also work on Windows Vista. And even though the final Windows Vista was released to hardware and software vendors 1 month before it went on sale, they still were lazy and did not properly support Windows Vista. UAC was the one of the security features they failed to take into account. The result was, of course, Vista getting a undeserved bad reputation.

Despite all that, hardware and software companies did catch up. And the bad reputation made Microsoft work extra hard for their next revision, Windows 7. This is probably Microsoft best consumer operating system ever. Windows 7 is Windows Vista optimized. We have a whole page on some of the obvious changes to Windows 7. But one feature that is still around is UAC. The difference is, this time software engineers are taking it into account. Since this blog was not active when Windows Vista first came out, we will explain what UAC is and why you need it. Then we will explain the changes in Windows 7's version of UAC.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 12:00 PM - Categories: Security | Windows

The Mystery of the STOP 0x8E Windows Error

While working on a computer, I encounted a computer that would exhibit the STOP 0x0000008E blue screen but only just after I told Windows to restart. A quick Google search revealed that STOP0x0000008E is a very common problem. In fact, Microsoft had three articles about this very STOP code. These are my notes on how I fixed the STOP 0x0000008E KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED error that only occurs during a restart.

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Posted by Wade Burchette at 11:00 AM - Categories: Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) | Computer Repair Notes | Windows