The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version.

Windows Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)

DOWNLOAD (4.8 GB)

Sha 1 hash – 6FE9352FB59F6D0789AF35D1001BD4E4E81E42AF

All of the following come on a disk image file (.iso), you can burn it to a DVD using a DVD Burn software.

64-bit Windows Developer Preview

• Windows SDK for Metro style apps
• Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview
• Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Developer Preview
• 28 Metro style apps including the BUILD Conference app

Windows Developer Preview English, 64-bit (x64)

DOWNLOAD (3.6 GB)

Sha 1 hash – 79DBF235FD49F5C1C8F8C04E24BDE6E1D04DA1E9

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 64-bit PC.

Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86)

DOWNLOAD (2.8 GB)

Sha 1 hash – 4E0698BBABE01ED27582C9FC16AD21C4422913CC

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 32-bit PC.

System Requirements

Windows Developer Preview works great on the same hardware that powers Windows Vista and Windows 7:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
• Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

You send a link to your audience, and then everyone you invited watches a synchronized view of your slide show in their browser. The Broadcast Slide Show feature requires a network service to host the slide show. You can use
PowerPoint Broadcast Service which is provided by Microsoft(and it is free ) or a broadcast service provided by your organization, hosted on a SharePoint server that has the Microsoft Office Web Apps installed.

Anyone with the link to your slide show can view it! That is, if an invited audience member forwards the link to someone else, that other person can view your slide show as well, provided that they have access to the service.

Broadcast your presentation

1. On the Slide Show tab, in the Start Slide Show group, click Broadcast Slide Show.
2. You can change broadcasting service or use default free service from Microsoft. Here I am using default service.
3. PowerPoint will connect to MS server and you have to enter you Hotmail/live username and password
4. Finally you will get a link to the broadcasting page. Send that link to your friends so they can view the presentation.

Also note the bellow points

Any transitions in your presentation are shown as Fade transitions in the browser.

Screensavers and email pop-ups can disrupt the audience’s view of the slide show.

Audio (sounds, narration) is not transmitted to the audience through the browser.

You cannot add ink annotations or markup drawn onto the slide show during the presentation.

If you play a video in your presentation, the browser does not show it to the audience.

Happy Broadcasting

We can copy files by copying and pasting, but how difficult it is when you have to synchronize many folders/files.

For example:- I have to backup my photos. softwares and documents from my laptop to my external hard disk regularly. I download updated softwares from many sources, photos from my camera and also many files and documents from mobile and mails to my laptop’s backup and arrange them in different folders. When I am free, I backup all these data to to my external hard disk. If I do this manually, I have to check all the folders for new files, copy and paste and I might miss many files. But I can do this in a single click by using a backup software.

Microsoft SyncToy is a free synchronization software, you can download it from Microsoft’s website. SyncToy can help you synchronize, copy, backup and maintain folders of files on your computers. You can synchronize files between different folders in the same hard disk or with your external drive.

The simple, fast, and familiar Windows interface lets you point and click to define your folders and the SyncToy actions you want performed on each folder pair . You choose the appropriate action when you create a folder pair, and the action determines how SyncToy handles file conflicts such as:

• Files that have been renamed in both folders,
• Files deleted from one folder and renamed in the other,
• Files renamed in one folder and modified in the other, and 
• Many other file conflict situations.

SyncToy enables you to save how you want your folder pairs synced so you can sync again and again with a single click of a button.

SyncToy lets you sync a single pair of folders or all of your folder pairs with a single click. You can even set up SyncToy to run unattended.

The powerful preview feature in SyncToy shows you exactly what is going to happen before any files are touched. Preview even gives you a chance to unselect any proposed actions before you start.

Steps to Synchronize files using SyncToy

1. Download and Install SyncToy
2. Click on Create New Folder Pair
3. Select Left and right folders and click on next button. These are the folders we are going to synchronize.
4. Select synchronization action
   • Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other. For example, you have two computers. You keep a copy of pictures, documents, and/or tunes on both. Changes often occur on both computers. You want SyncToy to notice additions, deletions, changes, and renames on both computers, and then do the right thing to bring the folders back in sync. Synchronize is the SyncToy action to use.
   • Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right. For example, when you travel, you take a copy of your pictures, tunes, and documents to work on. When you return, you want SyncToy to notice the files you added, changed, deleted, and renamed in the left folder, and you want SyncToy to recreate those additions, changes, deletions, and renames in the right folder. Echo is very similar to Synchronize, except Echo works only left to right.
   • Contribute: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions. For example, you have a compact flash, SD, USB thumb drive, or other removable media that you take with you when you travel. You probably delete some files on the removable drive while you are away so that you can add or change other files. When you get back, you only want SyncToy to recognize new, renamed, and changed files, and you want the new stuff copied to the right folder. Contribute is the same as Echo but without the deletes.
5. Enter a name for your folder pair and select ‘Finish’
6. Click on Change options to change the options. You can include or exclude subfolders, specify the types of files you want to include and exclude.
7. Run SyncToy to synchronize the two folders in your folder pair.
8. Finished
9. To synchronize again

You can preview a SyncToy run to see what operations would take place during the run and also create another folder pair, and/or Delete the folder pair.

Download Microsoft SyncToy from – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en
If your windows is 64bit – Download x64, else downloax x86

Running XP in windows 7 XP mode

Windows XP Mode (formally Virtual XP) is a new feature in Windows 7. It’s a licensed, virtualized copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3 running inside Microsoft’s own Virtual PC framework. Windows XP Mode is specifically designed to help small businesses move to Windows 7. Windows XP Mode provides you with the flexibility to run many older productivity applications on a Windows 7 based PC.

When I heard about this feature I thought “what’s new in this? We can install other OS using MS Virtual PC or VM ware”. But now I understand why this is a new feature.

The core of XPM are Virtual PC 7 (VPC) and the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) protocol. All you need to do is to install suitable applications directly in Windows XP Mode which is a virtual Windows XP environment running under Windows Virtual PC. The applications will be published to the Windows 7 desktop and then you can run them directly from Windows 7.

Client virtualization software, like Windows Virtual PC  is a pre-requisite to use Windows XP Mode. So first I installed a Windows update – Windows Virtual PC (Beta)(KB958559) : Windows Virtual PC (Beta) is the latest Microsoft virtualization technology that allows you to run many productivity applications on a virtual Windows environment, with a single click, directly from a Windows 7-based PC.

After rebooting my system, I installed Windows XP Mode Beta . It’s a single executable file, 445MB of size. Installation was straight forward, need to set only few setting like where you want to install, password etc. If anybody tried installing XP or any other operating system using MS Virtual PC or VMWare or any other virtual achine in any other operating system, you know that that installation is just like normal OS installation, have to set all those settings, need normal installation time etc etc. Also after installationn you need to allocate a good amount of RAM and other system resources for the virtual machine,  which degrades overall system performance. But Windows XP Mode surprised me.

Installation took only few minutes and launched XP. It is so fast, and taking only very less system resource, just like a normal medium windows application. Since it uses Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) protocol, the interface is little different from previous Virtual Machine mode, it’s like lognined into an XP machine using Windows Rremote Desktop application.

Now if you want to use XP machine, you can install Windows 7 with Windows XP Mode

Files:

Windows Virtual PC: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=65e1c5eb-df9b-415f-b2d6-27f6ef5dceb9&displaylang=en

Windows Virtual PC Beta: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0E8FA9B3-C236-4B77-BE26-173F032F5159&displaylang=en

Installation

First thing I noticed is the graphics, a cool installer background image. From windows vista onwards, installation is not a big task, need to set few regional and account information and the partition (and GUI tool for managing partition).

Started installation at 1AM and got my desktop at 1.15. So installation took only 15mnts.

7 GB for windows 7 files

Booting and shutdown

I got my login screen in 32sec and then the desktop in 13sec. So the total booting time is 45sec. But this is without any additional applications. This will change when we install other applications. Shutdown time is around 13sec… Starting windows screen is a new animation screen showing windows and login screen got a new background image.
Other big change is in the taskbar, it can be compare with the dock in mac. It groups items and shows preview of all the items on mouse over. Windows media player can be controlled from the preview itself. We can control the system tray icons from the “Notification area icons” in control panel.

My computer properties

My system rating

Desktop

Design, Graphics & Other Improvements

Design and graphics have a significant change in windows 7. Up to windows vista, the 1st thing i do after installation is disabling all the animations and effects. Even though windows vista have aero theme, it is not much impressive especially in transparency and all. But in windows 7, animations and other screen effects are good. I am not feeling to disable those effects especially its transparency.
We can easily change the aero colour settings; new slide show enabled desktop background with some new background theme sets like Windows 7, Architecture, characters, scenes, nature etc..

Ms paint toolbar

Another change is in the MS paint, it got new ribbon style tool bar and some new additional tools.
I wonder why they are not updated the notepad, it is still the same
They have also added some new sound themes and in that my favorite theme is Raga.

New wallpaper themes

New sound themes

Speed, Stability & Compatibility

I am feeling a lot of speed change in windows 7 compared to Vista. Booting, application loading time are faster in Windows 7.
I have installed only few basic applications in windows 7, so i can’t talk much about Speed, Stability & Compatibility. I installed MS office, winzip, Acrobat reader, multimedia codec and other basic home applications. All those applications are working fine. I tried to install AVG free and Norton internet security 2009, both have known compatibility issues but Norton is running. I want to install and try other development applications when I get time.

Preview in taskbar

Controll panel- All items. Some new features added

Windows-7-RC2 Booting image

This is a basic review of Windows 7 RC or say first look. I didn’t get much time to review in deep so i didn’t get any bugs . I will try the new features and post it when i get time. Please share  you experience

I am testing Windows 7 in a virtual machine, so it is very slow. But since I dont have a free partition in my Dell XPS laptop I have to use virtual machine. I am using Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1. 

This add-in is available to customers running genuine Microsoft Office.

Download Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS Add-in

Lina is a Linux virtual machine that allows users to run applications with the native look of their host operating system. It also lets you install applications with a mouse-click, no need to compile software from source code.

The features are

Native look and feel

With LINA, Open Source applications developed in a Linux environment can run on Windows, Mac OS X, and UNIX operating systems, as well as any flavor of Linux. Compiled and run on the LINA platform, these Linux applications adopt the appearance and interface characteristics of applications written for the underlying operating system. With LINA, users get the native look and feel of the operating system they are accustomed to.

Fully portable

LINA runs invisibly wherever installed, offering a fully integrated solution for development and deployment of cross-platform executables.

Secure and stable

With LINA installed, programs written for Linux will run securely, regardless of changes made to the underlying operating system. LINA insulates the underlying operating system from the applications running on LINA, and protects the user’s other programs and data from unexpected modifications.

Visit Lina Website