On Tuesday, Microsoft explained why the Windows 7 start menu is now a start screen in Windows 8: no one used it.

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Just a day before Microsoft drops support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), the company announced on Monday that people running some versions of Windows 7 can “downgrade” to the aged operating system for up to 10 years.

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It happens every couple of years. Microsoft’s newly installed head of small-business efforts goes on the road to talk about how the company sees vast potential in the huge numbers of underserved firms that all want the capabilities of big business software without the cost or complexity. The new executive assures me that Microsoft gets it and promises Redmond is rededicating itself to the market.

This time around, the executive was Birger Steen, a Norwegian oil trader who ran Microsoft’s Russian subsidiary before moving to Redmond last year to take over the small and midsize business sales effort. In addition to his unusual background, Steen also came in with a different pitch. Refreshingly, Steen said he didn’t really think that small businesses are all that poorly treated.

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According to two reports published by Forrester Research, a strong majority of US consumers are aware of the Windows 7 operating system, and consumers who were early adopters were generally very satisfied.

Yes, you read that right. Very satisfied. And I’d have to say that I see the same feelings amongst those who have upgraded. People, in particular those exposed to Vista, do indeed seem to be very happy with Windows 7.

As a rule, consumers don’t buy new operating systems, they buy new computers. These computers come supplied with an OS. While us tech-geeks obsess over such details, to the average consumer the OS is seen as part of the PC, much like the hard drive or CPU. But this pattern seems to have been broken with Windows 7, where some 43% of those who moved up to Windows 7 did so by upgrading an existing PC.

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Depuis le 1er mars, Microsoft met à disposition des usagers de Windows XP, Vista et 7 son service « ballot screen » qui permet de choisir un navigateur parmi les douze proposés. Selon la Commission européenne, il devrait s’afficher sur plus de 100 millions de PC d’ici la mi-mai.
Le monopole d’Internet Explorer sur les PC en Europe c’est fini. Depuis hier, Microsoft a répondu aux accusations de pratiques anticoncurrentielles prononcées par Bruxelles en lançant son écran multi-choix ou « ballot screen » permettant à l’utilisateur de sélectionner un autre navigateur par défaut que celui de Microsoft parmi les 12 proposés. Le service est à disposition des usagers de Windows XP, Vista et 7. Pour autant, le choix d’un autre logiciel qu’Internet Explorer ne se traduira pas par la désinstallation de ce dernier. Toutefois, sur Windows 7, l’utilisateur a la possibilité de désactiver IE et de le retirer de la barre des tâches.

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In this post, Ed Bott will share my experiences, including close encounters with some very nasty malware and some analysis on how the latest showdown between Microsoft and the pirates is likely to play out.

You won’t find names or direct links here—although these guys seem like genuine enthusiasts, I have no intention of giving them any free publicity. But if you’re interested in tracking down the tools I tested you should have no trouble finding them using the clues available in screenshots and descriptions here.

If you do intend to try this stuff out for yourself, I recommend extreme caution. My hunt for utilities that bypass Windows 7 activation technologies led me to some very seedy corners of the Internet. First, I did what any red-blooded wannabe pirate would do and tried some Google searches. Of the first 10 hits, six were inactive or had been taken down. After downloading files from the remaining four sites, I submitted them to Virustotal.com, where three of the four samples came back positive for nasty, difficult-to-remove Windows 7 rootkits. Here’s one example:

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Microsoft has made available for download Windows-7-friendly versions of two of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) tools as part of its campaign to get more businesses to move to Windows 7, and soon, Office 2010.

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Windows 7 is barely out the door, but that’s apparently not stopping some Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) employees from talking about the next version of the OS.

In a Jan. 31 MSDN blog post, ‘Sharad’, who claims to be a member of Microsoft’s Windows Update team, acknowledged fielding a growing number of outsider questions about Windows 8 but said it may not end up bearing that name. Instead, Sharad called the forthcoming version “Windows.next.”

“The minimum that folks can take for granted is that the next version will be something completly (sic) different from what folks usually expect of Windows,” Sharad wrote in the blog post, which has since been deleted but is viewable through Google cache.

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Few periods in Microsoft’s existence have been as bruising as the past two-and-a-half years. Ever since the company shipped Windows Vista, it’s been one public relations catastrophe after another. First, there were the instabilities — wave after wave of bad press about buggy drivers and spotty backward compatibility. Then came the revolt, with users demanding that Microsoft extend the life of Windows XP indefinitely in a tacit rejection of the company’s Vista road map.

It looked like the end was nigh for Microsoft’s desktop hegemony. Vista would be the albatross that finally brought the company down, ushering in a new era of platform-independent applications running on Linux or Mac OS X. Apple, in particular, made hay with Vista’s troubles, lampooning the unpopular OS in a series of well-crafted TV spots. These truly were heady times for those banking on Microsoft’s demise.

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Microsoft said Tuesday it is looking into battery problems apparently affecting Windows 7 notebooks.

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