Sunday, January 11, 2009

Running Windows 7 Beta in Virtual PC 2007

After taking more than 12 hours (yes, I subscribed a low cost package from ISP) to download the Windows 7 Beta ISO (see my previous post), finally i can play around with it. Installing it on my existing OS will be too risky, thus Virtual PC comes to my mind.

As rumour says, I tried it using a guest OS as Windows Vista and it works. Say not more and let's see some steps and screenshots.

1) After creating a new vmc & vhc files, capture the ISO downloaded. You can follow tutorial here. The setup will be started. When it asks for guest OS, choose Windows Vista.

2) You might need to adjust the RAM for installation to run smoothly.

3) Now, you see it is loading files and starting Windows.


4) Choose the language to install, ..., etc.




5) And Windows 7 Beta is installed successfully.

6) ScreenSaver cannot be loaded for Virtual PC with standard VGA virtualized.

7) Some basic themes for customization. I see it as a competition with wincustomize.

8) MS Paint get a Ribbon-look.

9) Our "Show Desktop" now resides on bottom-right.

10) And we can try the Internet Explorer 8 Beta as well.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Mixed fortune for Mobile OSes

This week is a week with full emotion, for OS developers. For UIQ lover, they saw UIQ finally filed bankruptcy. While Palm OS lovers, Palm makes a comeback at CES.


UIQ:
Quoted from theregister:

"Motorola had 11 UIQ phones (or variants) planned for release next year, and now all have been cancelled in the most recent company reorganisation."

Sure Nokia purchase of Symbian was not a simple business move.
I wonder what will happen to MotoDev Studio for UIQ, an integrated development environment based on the Eclipse IDE, and Sony Ecrisson's Symbian OS Docs & Tools. They could be phased out soon and extinct anytime. Will Sony Ericsson & Motorola embrace Windows Mobile OS fully since the only Symbian OS is now totally owns by another competitor (a.k.a. Nokia), like Samsung?


Palm:
With new OS("WebOS"), new handset ("Palm pre") introduction at CES, it revives the hope of Palm Inc. to gain the market once they dominant, and it tries to woo more developer to it:

"It was built with developers in mind,"

and:

"The entire UI is based on a "desktop + cards" paradigm, where "cards" replace "windows" or even "apps." You start with a display area that contains a blank desktop and an iPhone-style dock at the bottom."

And more news of Palm at CES is covered by engadget:

Windows 7 Beta is out

So fast, Microsoft released Windows Vista 2 years ago, now we have another new Windows OS release, a.k.a Windows 7, in beta form to public. You can get it here:
a) Windows 7 Beta 32-bit (downloading)
b) Windows 7 Beta 64-bit (not yet tested)
For more information, you can visit this site.

This site have offered various tips to let you play around with it.

#p/s: For Windows developer, the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA, or the so called Platform SDK v7.0, is released as well.