Windows 7 on shelves: 22 October 2009

Much earlier than previously announced, January 2010, that is, three months, Windows 7 will be available for the general public on shelves this coming 22 October, but IT professionals, developers and other folks closer to the action, will get their hands on Windows 7 RTM already this summer. Read more here. Brandon LeBlanc, from The Windows Blog explains in detail who gets what and when.

Burn ISO images directly from Windows 7

Burning ISO images used to require the installation of additional third-party software in previous versions of Windows, including Vista, but now with Windows 7 you can create your DVD from an ISO image right there in the Windows Explorer (see left). Another of the niceties of Windows 7!

Free Windows 7 timeline

I bet that a this point in time you already downloaded and installed one of the best operating systems ever created by Microsoft (ain't the latest version or model of anything supposed to be the best?). Well, just a reminder of the key dates to keep in mind: downloads of the RC will be available up until August 20, 2009, and the expiration date of such a treat will be on June 1, 2010, but before that your PC will start shutting down every two hours starting on March 1, 2010. And if you're still running a copy of Windows 7 Beta, it will shut down on August 1, 2009, that is, on this coming weekend!

SOLUTION: Fixing Windows 7 dual boot with Windows Vista

You can have a dual boot computer with both Windows Vista and Windows 7, but be careful when installing Windows 7 (assuming that you had first Windows Vista). This is what happened to me: I installed Windows 7, on my "old" machine running Windows Vista (Yes, you can run a lot of new (and old) software) on an empty partition that used to hold Windows XP. At the time of the installation, I selected, surely enough, the reserved partition, asked the setup program to format it, followed the prompts and finally had a brand new Windows 7 RC on my VAIO computer. Everything OK, right? Wrong! I was hoping to see the dual boot screen to pick between Vista and Windows 7 but the machine went straight to Windows 7...! What happened to my more than a year old reliable Vista?! I kind of panicked but I was sure that my Windows Vista partition was intact (I could see it from Windows 7, with another letter, though) and knew also that boot.ini is no longer an option, but rather a more sophisticated and secure loader architecture called Boot Configuration Database or Store (BCD) handled by the Windows Boot Manager program (bootmgr), replacing the traditional Windows NT loader (ntldr). I probably could've used that program directly from within Windows 7 to view and modify the contents of the BCD, but it occurred to me that the original Vista disc would do the trick and I was right. I booted the computer with the Vista disc and selected 'restore' or 'repair', which gave the choice to repair the Windows Boot Manager startup option that was missing (i.e. Vista), and the boot option now reads "Windows Vista (TM) Ultimate (recovered)", creating a copy of the then current boot configuration data at C:\Boot\BCD.backup.0001. I know that this issue is far more complex and requires much more attention and that I was probably lucky. My main concern was that I needed some special partition for my particular PC, but that wasn't the case. On the other hand, what would you do if "Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration"? Find it here.