PCTips Box

Microsoft made no secret out of having, for some time now, been cooking the next iteration of Windows, a translucent development process with very little transparent areas including details such as multi-touch, support for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and the evolution of the Windows Vista kernel, graphics and audio subsystems. Pieces of the Windows 7 puzzle are indeed starting to come together, and a more consistent perspective will be delivered at the company’s 2008 Professional Developers Conference, that will take place between October 27 and 30 in Los Angeles.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and with Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, have made it clear that Windows 7 will be the evolution of Windows Vista. With the current operating system acting as the foundation for the next, there have already been mentions of Windows Vista SP2 or even Windows Vista R2, but since actual details are gagged, all speculations about Windows 7 are fair game. In this context, Gates has also mentioned that Windows 7 will be a product of Microsoft’s philosophy that states “do things better.” The Redmond company’s Co-Founder indicated that Vista has given ample opportunity for improvements with Windows 7.

The intimate connection between Windows 7 and Windows Vista manages to raise questions as to just how much of the current Windows client is going to survive into the next version, and just what sins it will pass along. Hopefully, Microsoft has learned relevant lessons from Vista, and will not repeat the Wow mistakes. There are of course a few things that the Redmond company can do to ensure this. (more…)

Windows Vista introduces a new tool on top of what its predecessor Windows XP had to offer in terms of dealing with licensing resources, from the product key to information related to the activation status of a machine. The Windows Software Licensing Management Tool can be accessed via the “slmg.vbs” command and will offer users the possibility to activate, rearm and display the activation status of Vista, but also to install and uninstall product keys. In this context, the “slmgr.vbs –upk” command, designed to uninstall a Windows Vista product key, may result on the Business and Enterprise SKUs of the operating system into the scraping of all the licensing information, synonymous with a lost activation status, and the transition of the platform into reduced functionality mode.

“After you run the slmgr.vbs –upk command on a Windows Vista-based computer, you cannot see the licensing information as expected. Additionally, the Windows Vista activation status is lost. (more…)