It seems that Microsoft is working on the starter edition of Windows 7 though the news hasn’t been confirmed till yet. According to Mary Jo Foley Microsoft has sent invitations to the participants of the Windows 7-beta program from Chile, Egypt, Lebanon, Brazil, Jordan and India to test this version of Windows 7.
According to the mail sent to the testers Microsoft is looking for testers with machines that adhere to the following spec list:

1 GHz processor
1 GB of system memory
16 GB of available disk space
Support …

Brian Keller,a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System has written a good review to install Windows 7 beta Virtual PC 2007 SP1.
Here is what the page reads-
If you have a spare test machine that supports the system requirements then I highly recommend installing the beta on your test machine. But if not, one way to mitigate the risks of using pre-release software is to use virtualization technology such as Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.
Creating a Windows 7 Beta 1 virtual image (aka virtual machine) is fairly similar to the …

If you have Windows 7 then definitely you must have got the Windows 7 pre beta keys along with it,remember that Windows is not a trialware,you cannot try the software unless you have the key.Those who want to extend the trial period for better testing the pre beta version of windows 7 or even the upcoming Windows 7 beta then here are the steps.It’s the same hack that is being used in Windows Vista to increase the trial period to 120 days.
Install any version of Windows 7 and remember not …

For more information on the beta, please stay tuned to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7 which is where we will post information about participation.
This post is about a Windows 7 feature that covers a lot of territory—it is about networking, user interface, sharing, media, printing, storage, search, and more.  HomeGroup is a way of bringing all these features together in a way that makes it possible for a new level of coolness in a home with multiple PCs running Windows 7.  A lot of us are the sysadmins for our own homes and for …

One thing you don’t see very often on corporate PCs and laptops: Windows Vista.
Nearly two years after introducing Vista, Microsoft is grappling with an unanticipated phenomenon: The latest version of its flagship Windows computer operating system remains a rarity in corporate settings. As a result, the software giant finds itself under acute pressure to stay on track with plans to replace Vista with the next version of Windows, code-named Windows 7, perhaps as soon as late 2009.
With the global economy stalling out — and with Apple Macs increasingly replacing Windows …

MyDrivers.com reports that on December 10, Microsoft has released a report to all OEM partners on Windows 7 technical support for the draft plan,so that the OEM partners could give feedback regarding  this to the company by January 10 which would be the release date of the official program of the project.
The plan is designed to help Microsoft’s OEM partners who have been selling pre-installed Vista as a  brand, because many end users would be waiting for the release of Windows 7 and delay the purchase of a computer.The plan …

We’ve talked some about performance in this blog and recently many folks have been blogging and writing about the topic as well. We thought it would be a good time to offer some more behind the scenes views on how we have been working on and thinking about performance because it such an interesting topic for the folks reading this blog. Of course I’ve been using some pretty low-powered machines lately so performance is top of mind for me as well. But for fun I am writing this on my …