WinHec 2008 just started and the keynote is available in three different quality streams that can be watched online. The keynote is available as a 100K, 300K or 750K video stream. The Keynote begins with a few information for the attendees of the WinHec 2008 conference and an introduction of the keynotes that are going to follow: The video contains both the keynotes of Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan and has a total playtime of 1:18 hours.

The keynotes contain some interesting information about Windows 7. One of the first presentations is comparing the boot time of Windows Vista with Windows 7. The test is running on identical hardware. Windows 7 is loaded several seconds before Windows Vista has loaded thanks to a few new features and optimizations such as:

• Increased parallel device initialization
• Less data read from disk
• Start Pearl / Sound changes
• Many detailed optimizations and enhancements

Windows memory consumption was improved in Windows 7 by making it independent of the number of open windows.

Microsoft was demonstrating the effect of opening lots of windows on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Windows Vista began to throw error messages after reaching a certain amount of open windows while Windows 7 was able to handle them without difficulties.

Another area of improvement was done to the power consumption of the operating system. Many users had the feeling that Windows 7 was using more power than previous Windows operating systems. Microsoft was demonstrating the power consumption of Windows Vista and Windows 7 on two identical laptops running a video DVD.

The Windows 7 laptop was able to last about one hour longer than the laptop running Windows Vista and the minimum gain is said to be 11% which should equal about 20 minutes of additional playback time. They are demoing some new tools to analyze the computer’s battery usage to fix errors that reduce battery life of the laptop.

Steve Sinofsky is demoing a lot of devices and how they interact with Windows 7, for example a Nokia N95 8GB, Logitech camera or Bluetooth 2.1 devices. One of the most impressive parts of the keynote is the demonstration of an Asus eeePC with 1GB Ram, 16 GB SSD hard drive and an Atom Dual Core 1.6 processor running Windows 7 as well as a gaming PC running Intel’s new Core i7 quad core processor and a Nvidia 280 GTS X2 graphics card running a Crysis demo on Windows 7.

WinHEC 2008 Keynote Summary And Recordings was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.

Windows 7 News! There is finally a sign of life, an official that is, from Microsoft about Windows 7. Microsoft kicked of the Engineering Windows 7 blog which is run by two senior engineering managers for the Windows 7 product. The interesting aspect of this specific Windows 7 blog is that it is maintained and run by Microsoft employees that are deeply involved in the creation of Windows 7 and that it aims for a two-way communication instead of just reports without interaction.

We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog.

Two events for developers have been mentioned in their initial blog post where Microsoft will provide “in-depth technical information about Windows 7″ and that the blog will inform interested users with regular posts about behind the scene developments. The two events mentioned are PDC (Professional Developers Conference) on October 27 and WinHec (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) a week later. Seems we have to wait two more months before we finally get detailed information about the Windows 7 plattform.

The last paragraph is especially interesting and comments on the flow of news since the first announcement of Windows 7. Microsoft is trying to gain control of the discussion and communication about Windows 7 which is understandable. Rumors have been filling the void space that Microsoft left by not talking to anyone outside about Windows 7 and it’s time to control the information flow as we are slowly seeing the finish line in sight.

They also mention that they want to “make sure not to set expectations around the release that end up disappointing you” which was a major error Microsoft made during Windows Vista development.

Engineering Windows 7 was posted on Everything Microsoft - Latest Microsoft News, Guides, Reviews & Themes. If you are not reading this content in an email newsletter, it is being used without permission.