Microsoft To Abandon Mainstream Support of Windows 7!

Windows 7 users have had a lot of fun recently. Poking fun at Windows 8 is a popular pastime as is teasing those too stubborn to abandon the Windows XP sinking ship, but now comes their own wake up call. Microsoft  has formally announced that mainstream support for Windows 7 will end on 13 January 2015 – just 5 months away.

“Every Windows product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it’s no longer supported,” the company explained. “Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to upgrade or make other changes to your software.”

Of course January 2015 will be much sooner than many people will have expected, especially the high profile attention given to the end of Windows XP support 13 years after release. By comparison Windows 7 is less than five years old.

That said there is good reason for Microsoft’s apparent lack of warning in this case: it is talking about two different kinds of support.

Mainstream Support Vs. Extended Support

On 13 January 2015 Windows 7’s ‘Mainstream Support’ will come to an end. That means no new Service Packs or features will be released. This is wholly different from the end of ‘Extended Support’ which is what happened to Windows XP on 8 April 2014.

Extended Support is the big one: no more security patches when hackers find holes, no performance improvements, nothing – the OS is effectively dead. Windows 7 Extended Support will not end until 11 April 2017. For comparison Windows XP Mainstream Support ended back on 8 April 2009.

Consequently most can breathe a sigh of relief, especially with Windows 7 currently running onover 50% of PCs around the world. If Windows XP was hard to kill, Windows 7 is likely to be even harder.

 

 

What Windows 7 users must know, however, is that they have to be running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 for these days to apply. Support for Windows 7 RTM (Released to Manufacturing – the original release software) was stopped back on 9 April 2013 – so if for some reason you aren’t keeping Windows 7 up to date do so immediately.

A similar issue appeared when Microsoft ditched Windows 8 support with just a month’s notice in April forcing everyone to immediately upgrade to Windows 8.1. After a hostile reception (includingfrom me) it increased the support period to 4 months.

 

 

Sales End Soon

For the record those who still want to buy Windows 7 instead of Windows 8 will also need to be snappy. Sales of Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate will formally end on 31 October 2014, though a date to end sales of Windows 7 Professional has yet to be established.

Interestingly Microsoft has also revealed end of Mainstream Support for a number of its other platforms including Windows Server 2008, Windows Storage Server 2008, Exchange Server 2010, Windows CE 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.8. The last of these is most interesting with Mainstream Support ending on 9 September 2014. Extended Support will then continue for another 18 months.

Why Your Mouse Cursor Is Slanted Instead of Straight?

Have you ever wondered why your mouse cursor rests ever so slightly to the left? Chances are, that little arrow on an incline is so ubiquitous that you’ve never even thought twice about its 45-degree lean. As it turns out, there’s a very good reason for it. Or was, anyway, back in a more pixelated age.

Over on Stack Exchange, computer software developer Bart Gijssens revealed the following explanation of the slanted cursor’s origins in response to this question on its design.

This is the historical reason:

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(concept drawing taken from document: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/xerox/parc…)

The mouse, and therefore the mouse cursor, was invented by Douglas Englebart, and was initially an arrow pointing up.

When the XEROX PARC machine was built, the cursor changed into a tilted arrow. It was found that, given the low resolution of the screens in those days, drawing a straight line and a line in the 45 degrees angle was easier to do and more recognizable than the straight cursor.

As you can see below, the original, straight cursor was indeed much more difficult to pick out amongst the blocks of basic text.

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And as Gijssens points out in a later edit, after Englebart created the left-leaning cursor, Steve Jobs borrowed it for his software followed by Bill Gates who borrowed it after him. At this point, we’ve just become so accustomed to our leaning (and still highly functional!) arrow that anything else would seem too bizarre. Besides, why mess with perfection?

Start Button Officially Returning with Windows 8.1, But not the way you remember it.

After a number of reports and a seemingly never-ending slew of complaints, Microsoft is officially bringing back the Start button with the upcoming release of Windows 8.1. As told by The Verge, the Start button will appear in both traditional desktop and Windows 8 views, but will not work in the way that long-time Windows users have become accustomed to — instead, selecting the button will bring you to the Windows 8 Start Screen or a new All Apps section. Similar functionality is technically already present in the latest version of Windows, which is currently activated by bringing your cursor to the bottom left corner of your screen.

Despite this, Microsoft was well aware of the flaws in its original design. Jensen Harris, director of the Windows User Experience Team at Microsoft, explained that “We knew we needed to change that [start tip] to the Windows logo.” He continued by saying “Once we had that there and we figured out that was the change we needed to make it was pretty straight forward to keep that same button in the same place in the task bar…it lends back a little bit of familiarity. It makes the whole PC work the same way.”

Along with the return of the Start button — which will be present by default and cannot be deactivated — Windows 8.1 will also add the option to boot straight to the traditional desktop veiw, as well as the ability to view the Windows 8 Start Screen with your desktop wallpaper in the background.

In a separate report, The Verge highlighted additional features that will be introduced in the upcoming version of Windows, including an improved lock screen and enhanced built-in search functionality, which will allow you to search across the web as well as your computer or tablet.

Another welcome change coming with Windows 8.1 will be additional Snap View configurations for “Metro”-style apps. For example, clicking a link from within an app will bring up a 50 /50 view, and opening a picture will result in a 40 / 60 view. Even better, individual apps can have more than one window, allowing users to view multiple webpages at once.

Skyrdrive will also be baked into the operating system, and the cloud storage option will be visible from both File Explorer and apps as a location to save or load files. The new Internet Explorer 11 will be included as well, which enables the option to sync browser tabs between Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8 devices. For tablet and convertible-PC users, the virtual keyboard will be the recipient of some added functionality.

Availability for Windows 8.1 has yet to be announced, but Microsoft intends on releasing a preview version of the operating system at its Build developer conference on June 26th.

Another Microsoft ad disses iPad’s specs, multitasking, AirPrint and more

Wow, that was quick. Following on yesterday’s Windows 8 commercial which uses Apple’s Siri to highlight the iPad’s perceived flaws – such as its $499 price point versus an Asus VivoTab Smart and lack of Office (go figure), the Redmond-based software giant today release another ad along the same lines.

Suggestively titled ‘Comparison: iPad vs. Windows 8 Tablet’, the commercial pits an iPad 4 against an Asus Vivo Tab RT, which is based on the same ARM CPU technology like Apple’s tablet. However, the software maker has been caught cheating…

As you can see below, the commercial praises the Asus hardware for being thinner (0.37 inches versus 0.32 inches) and lighter (1.44lbs versus 1.16lbs) than the iPad 4.

Of course, the Windows maker also highlights its Office offering (“One Note app only comes with Microsoft Office”) and multitasking capabilities of Windows 8 that allow users to run two apps concurrently in split-screen mode.

You also need to buy a micro SD adapter for your iPad, the ad proclaims, and can only print to a special AirPrint-compatible printer whereas the Asus tablet prints wirelessly to “nearly all printers”.

Microsoft also has a nice web page up where users can choose to compare an iPad 4 to an Asus VivoTab Smart, Dell XPS 10, HP Envy x2 and Microsoft’s own Surface RT.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, Elliot Temple of curi.us points out that a comparison between the iPad and the Asus device on Microsoft’s web site is inaccurate, to say the least.

iMicrosoft claims the Asus tablet “has a bigger touchscreen” whereas in reality Asus’ device has 3.55 percent less area than the iPad, not 36 percent more as Microsoft depicts.

Elliot explains:

The iPad screen is 7.76 by 5.82 inches. The ASUS screen is 8.8 by 4.95 inches. ASUS is larger in one direction but smaller in the other direction, and has 3.55% less area than the iPad, not 36% more as Microsoft depicts.

How can the screen with a larger diagonal measurement be smaller? Because it’s a different shape. Long and thin gets you a bigger diagonal but a smaller screen, for the same diagonal inches.

On a related note, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates recently asserted that people are frustrated because the iPad “lacks real keyboard and real Office”.

Microsoft is also working on a smart watch!

Microsoft is working on a touch-enabled smartwatch, reports The Wall Street Journal.Citing unnamed supply chain sources, The Journal claims that Microsoft asked Asian suppliers to ship components for the device. If the reports are true, it would be joining the likes of Apple, Samsung, Google, and others looking to capitalize on a forecasted boom in wearable electronics. Microsoft has so far refused to comment on the rumors.

This wouldn’t be Microsoft’s first shot at making a smartwatch. Back in 2004 it fielded a product under the name SPOT that used FM radio signals to send instant messages from Windows Messenger, news headlines, stock information, and weather forecasts as part of a paid subscription service.

But production stopped in 2008, and the SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) project was finally canceled last year. Interestingly, Microsoft researcher Bill Buxton spoke at length on the 37-year history of smartwatcheslast month, possibly foreshadowing a return to the market.

The news comes days after a bleak report from IDC last week claiming that Q1 2013 marked the steepest decline ever for the PC industry, down 13.9 percent over Q1 2012, a trend that apparently accelerated rather than slowed with the release of Windows 8. It’s also the second significant leak in the report’s aftermath — last week The Journalreported that Redmond was also working on a 7-inch Surface tablet due later this year.