I should have started my Windows 7 coverage with this article instead of divulging more exciting User Interface stuff. Before we get overwhelmed with even more Microsoft news, I think it’s important to get the essentials straight before we go drifting off daydreaming about geeky OS fluff.
Talk of the day:
I just got my hands on the Windows 7 build (6801) that was handed to PDC attendees a while back. It’s the M3 release I wrote about in my latest article on the Windows 7 UI. I’m currently installing it in a virtual machine and will be installing it on a laptop in a few days to a hands-on view and get a feel for what it’s like.
I’ll report back soon.
(click thumbnails for full-view)
With Vista behind us, enthusiasts can now start looking into future developments of their favorite operating system. Microsoft’s ‘Professional Developers Conference’ (PDC) of late has shed a satisfactory degree of light on the impending seventh iteration* of the Windows-platform, and revealed numerous incremental improvements over an already very mature OS. As many speculated, the improvements made to Windows have proven to be mainly evolutionary and fit-and-finish-based. This fact predominantly shines through in the ‘User Experience’ of the latest development milestone (M3). Let’s focus on the current state of the Windows Taskbar for now.
* According to Microsoft; there has been a lot of controversy on the web about this.
Windows 7 will only partially retain its current task-management paradigm, as Microsoft’s currently prototyping a ‘new’ way of navigating your way through windows. This revolutionary –old- method, as it turns out, is very reminiscent of Mac OS X’ dock, which mixes app launchers and running applications in a [somewhat] arbitrary fashion.
It certainly seems so from the screenshots that have been popping up all over the internet lately. A lot of them are most likely souped up for conceptional purposes, but one thing certain returns steadily: the click-wheel-like interface. Usually the Windows Logo Orb is seated in the center of a wheel with numerous icons surrounding it. These images are by no means official, nor were they acknowledgded by Microsoft.
They’re certainly fancy looking, though I wonder about the practicalities of it. Translucencies in the user interface as a whole seem to be coming back, too, sometimes turning out nearly transparant, other times more opaque.
Windows 95, codenamed Chicago, has finally been released! It is the most exciting and promising release of the Windows Operating System ever. Along with it, Microsoft introduces 32-bit computing for the first time and with it, is planning to replace MS-DOS and Windows 3.1(1). At last, anyone with or without prior computing skills can easily step into the world of Windows without a steep learning curve.
But, most noticeably, Windows 95 introduces a major paradigm-shift with its revolutionary Graphical User Interface (further referred to as ‘GUI’). Windows’ exciting new GUI is ‘document-centric’ and far easier to use and understand than its predecessor ‘DOS’. Gone are the days of the command prompt. Point and click is the promising motto of Windows 95. The ‘Start’-button is the most prominent element in this concept, since it’s the central access hub to everything on your computer; from the Help-function, to the new Control Panel, to every single program you’ve ever installed.
Clicking the button invokes cascading menus to expand in a beveled style, like every other element in the renewed Windows user interface. Old Windows 3.1 application immediately adopt this refreshing look and fit right into their interesting new environment.
The gray bar that runs along the screen horizontally is also a new feature and is called the ‘taskbar’. It holds the Start-button, the task-buttons and the system-tray. Every running application is accompanied by a button, which allows decent multi-tasking for the first time. The system tray shows programs running in the background and the system clock at all times.
Every object can be interacted with: a left click usually selects an element, double clicking opens a document or starts a program and right clicking usually shows a contextual menu. Don’t know what a certain icon stands for? Right click it!
Resembling a real desk, the Desktop is the home of numerous system icons, like ‘My Computer’ and ‘Network Neighborhood’. User created content and shortcuts can also be placed on the desktop, however. Shortcuts are icons that point to applications and files, making it easier to access them.
DOS is still an integral part of Windows, even though it’s initially used as a boot loader. Windows 95 has full support for DOS and can even run several command prompts at the same time, each in their own consolidated, configurable shell. You can choose to run DOS application windowed or more traditionally, in full screen. Run DOS and Windows 95 alongside each other for the best of both worlds!
Through the use of the VFAT file system, Windows finally allows support for long filenames. These can be up to 255 characters long (mixed case). Also, file extensions no longer need to be a mere 3 characters long. This support is confined to Windows 95 only, though, since this feature isn’t supported by DOS and earlier version of Windows. When encountered in these OSes, they’ll be truncated to their 8.3 cousins. For example: ‘Checklist for Trip to Venice.xls’ becomes ‘CHECKLIS.XLS’.
Plug and Play or PnP is a technology that detects hardware automatically. Many peripherals can be automatically installed, doing away with the intricate hassle of driver-gathering and installation. These devices have to be especially equipped with this technology, though. Until it is broadly available, this feature will be greatly crippled. Fear not, new devices are being released as we speak.
Older computers are supported too, since the user can easily specify a driver for an unrecognized device.
The built-in Paint has been enhanced and WordPad has been introduced, which is pretty much a fully-fledged word processor and fully compatible with Word for Windows 6.0. An advanced media player has been included, along with support for full-motion video. Windows 95 is also deemed to be the most stable version of Windows ever, since 32-bit applications built for Windows 95 will not be able to crash the OS, as happened every so often in Windows 3.1. Full backwards compatibility has been retained, despite the completely new 32-bit platform. DOS and 3.1-era applications will continue to work flawlessly.
Microsoft recommends the following to run Windows 95 smoothly:
And optionally:
Windows 95 should run fine on Windows 3.1 era hardware, but better is recommended for optimal performance.
I’m very excited about this new OS, especially after the Windows 3.1(1) debacle. It’ll take a while before 32-bit computing becomes mainstream, but Windows 95 will be at the frontline. Who knows what greatness the next version of Windows will bring us!
Now, let us return to 2008…
In the light of Microsoft’s release of Windows Vista’s first Service Pack, I was inspired to finally format my laptop’s hard drive. I had been using it non-stop since September. My laptop, a Dell XPS M1710, thankfully shipped with a Vista DVD, as opposed to the usual ‘recovery partition’. I popped in the disc and rebooted.
A few dialog boxes in, right before I was able to select a partition for Windows to inhabit, Setup exclaimed with great fanfare:
Windows installation encountered an unexpected error. Verify that the installation sources are accessible, and restart the installation. Error code: 0xE0000100
And.. That’s it. No Vista for me, I reckoned. In search of solutions (of which I found none), I ended up doing some research on this glitch in the Windows Vista installation process. It turns out this exception doesn’t pop up very often due to its extensive prerequisite conditions (taken from Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article):
Install media is based on an image the manufacturer created.
The manufacturer used the System Preparation tool (Sysprep) to create this image.
The hard drive is partitioned into 2 or more partitions.
The Windows partition is larger than 40 GB.
The size of the partition is a multiple of 4 GB.
Admittedly, these are a lot of prerequisites, which explains why so few on the Internet have encountered it, let alone found a solution. Nonetheless, many people buy pre-manufactured computers, especially in the realm of laptops, so the vector for this issue is larger than you think.
Here’s the funny part.
Microsoft proposes the following solution: a hotfix to the DVD image. Great, but the catch here is that normal consumers are incapable of making such modifications to the image. Only official system builders, who own of the appropriate software - acquired from Microsoft, through their licensing program - are able to make these alterations.
This basically translates into: tough luck. You’re pretty much left in the cold with this largely undocumented issue.
It turns out, though, that Microsoft isn’t entirely to blame.
P.S.: In case you’re interested, this hotfix has to be requested from Microsoft through a special form. Just for the heck of it, I made an attempt at getting my hands on it. Of course, my request got denied fairly rapidly.
After having mucked around for a couple of hours, I came to the conclusion that Dell’s custom MediaDirect partition (their pathetic attempt at media center software) was invoking this. It somehow managed to corrupt the partition table, rendering Setup incapable of reading it.
Fortunately, there are things you can do to solve this. First off, check whether your computer/laptop is still eligible for warranty. If so, you can take a chance at trying to repartition the drive (this is what I did):
You can also (try to) request a new install DVD from your manufacturer. Most are hesitant to this, though, so be prepared. They’re most likely going to charge you an unreasonable amount of money or brush you off entirely.
If all else fails, you could also try to request a new hard drive to replace the defective one.
If you’re unlucky and you have to wait for a new install disc or hard drive, you might still be able to use your computer in the meantime. Without Windows. You could try to install a flavor of Linux. It’s free and not by any means perfect (like Windows), but it gets the job done fine. I’d suggest you try Ubuntu Linux, the most popular Linux distribution of this time. It’s newbie-friendly and loaded up with a lot of stuff to get you going. You may like it. And in case you run into trouble, there’s a great community waiting to save your ass, any time of day/night.
If you’re one of the lucky ones to have encountered this error, I’m curious to hear from you!
In this inter-connected world it’s sometimes hard to keep track of time — literally. With international communication spanning across the entire globe, you’re able to talk to people you’d probably never encountered without it. The only culprit to real-time communication is the differing time zones, though. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to keep track of multiple zones at the same time?
In Vista, there are at least two ways of incorporating this.
The first one is to use the Windows Sidebar. There’s a variety of gadgets available, amongst them various clocks. You’re not limited to one clock! Place as many as you are able to deal with on a day-to-day basis. The only prerequisite here is that you must be a Windows Sidebar user (and some resources to spare, perhaps). It does take up some screen real-estate, so it might not be suitable for normal aspect monitors (4:3 — as opposed to 16:9).
For those who don’t share an affinity with the sidebar, there’s also a built-in option that integrates with the system clock. Make the system clock visible by clicking on the the clock in the taskbar. Then, select the "Change date and time settings" link. Choose the "Additional Clocks" tab and voilà. Windows allows you to add two auxiliary timezones alongside . They’ll be displayed next to your local time when you click on the clock.