Tag rc

If you like me simply did the install without any care for the Product Key and you’re getting closer to that ‘doh! I’m going to deactivate soon!’ well, look no further, because it took me a few searches on Microsoft to find this Key Generator of sorts!

Simply visit this site: Windows 7 Release Candidate

Then simply select your Processor type and Language, and you’ll be prompted for your LiveID.

In my case, that meant copying/pasting the URL into IE, and logging in equaled my Product Key

So, get out there, generate your keys and get your Win7 set and running… until 2010 ;)

Our good friends over at Engineering Windows 7 have released this little gem!

Here’s what you can do to bypass the check for pre-release upgrade IF YOU REALLY REALLY NEED TO:

1. Download the ISO as you did previously and burn the ISO to a DVD.
2. Copy the whole image to a storage location you wish to run the upgrade from (a bootable flash drive or a directory on any partition on the machine running the pre-release build).
3. Browse to the sources directory.
4. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad.
5. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000 (pictured below).
6. Save the file in place with the same name.
7. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.

These same steps will be required as we transition from the RC milestone to the RTM milestone.

Wait, what the hell is going on here?!

Are you seriously telling me that by going and modifying a file, I can upgrade from the Beta version, RC and eventually to the RTM release of Windows 7?    Wowza! Now all I need to do is boot from VHD, and I have myself an upgrade path which is viable for real hardened testing :)

I was talking with a friend of mine tonight asking him what he used to do his blog writing, and he said he used the WordPress editor.  I was shocked, awed, even amazed.

He is a perfect candidate for using LiveWriter, if not for the simple reason that you can put words NEXT to text without having to do all forms of magic to get it done.

There is however one amazing feature of LiveWriter which not enough people realize.

If you go into the Help, you’ll find the Writer Team Blog!

That simple little action lead me to find (because I wondered if there was an update) That indeed there is an update! The RC for LiveWriter 2009 is out! I didn’t even know it was coming!

What’s new in 2009?

Well, you can go to the Writer Blog and find out more like here or here.

But I’ll cover a few of the things which I find particularly amazing and I think you’ll agree!

Oh my god! Word Count! What a simple yet elegant function! And here it is!

(These number of words are ofcourse, up until this point!)

That’s also Sweet! (found in options!)

Some of the new plug-ins seem pretty sweet!

FLICKR UPLOAD
Uploads an image to your Flickr account and inserts an inline picture into your post.

DIGG THIS
Automatically adds a DiggThis badge to your blog post after you publish it from Writer.

TWITTER NOTIFY
Automatically generates a TinyURL and sends a Tweet about your blog post after you publish it from Writer.

Speaking of images! (Like that one above) Your image manipulation options have gone through the roof!

Check out our ability to do text wrapping! Though a major pet peeve of mine is when I click “next” to an image after selecting Left, it keeps bringing me to the top! (hint hint) It’d really be nice for it to select the area next to the text so I can start typing there!

With the introduction of Center, it guarantees our place with the position of the text after an image.  It’d be nice to have some kind of universal everything I post should default to ‘x’ though I’ve yet to find these defaults/options to manage.

Check out those borders baby! Wow that is a lot of options to choose from and I’m not complaining!

Infact, I opt’d to give “reflection” a try here, looks pretty sweet!

But nothing can really compete with… a Watermark embedded into your image?!

You can manipulate the text, the font type and size, and especially the position.  Seriously, Wow, this is cool!

Let me say this again.  This is really cool!

Oh, did I mention how fricking cool TILT is?!

Some of the new Photo Album and other settings will be pretty sweet, but managing text, writing it, manipulating images and getting content into some usable fashion are my major deals with this as are a majority of folks I know who use LiveWriter.  Everything else is just CAKE!   I suggest you go out there and download this RC now! Get it out there, because is this pretty sweet, and will continue to be sweet!

Windows Live Writer 2009 (Release Candidate)
Version 14.0.8050.1202

Go, get your Live on!

Looks like it is upgrade time for Windows Home Server enthusiasts! (With appropriate backup ofcourse!)

The Windows Home Server team is proud to announce the availability of a Power Pack 1 Release Candidate for public beta testing. The update package can now be downloaded from https://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver in the downloads section.

Please be sure to review the release documentation contained within the download package for Power Pack 1.
Please also be sure to check out the Windows Home Server forums for important support information, an up to date list of known issues and some great test ideas. They can be found at the link below.
http://forums.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver/default.aspx?siteid=50

Below is a set of instructions to prepare a home server for testing the beta of Power Pack 1:

Please turn on the Customer Experience Improvement for your home server. The information provided to the team through this program is invaluable in helping us understand how we are doing against our testing goals.

Please ensure that you have a backup of all of your files and data. If your data set is large (the larger the better for testing purposes) this will take a while, so you might want to get started now!
The Windows Home Server team

E-mail: whsbeta@microsoft.com