Only three years in development, this upgrade is on a fast track (average deployment is about four years). While Windows 7 beta has has been around for developers, the general public was given the chance to download from the 9th January.

The release was also a red mark for Microsoft. While it was to be a limited public release (2.5 million public downloads) Microsoft servers quickly became overloaded and by the weekend they decided to remove the download limit altogether.

We downloaded the beta and loaded it on a test system that we felt met the basic requirements (P4 3.4gHz processor, 3GB RAM, 128 MB Radeon X700, 160GB HD, DVD) about what an average home user would have on their desktop that might be considering upgrading.

It took less than an hour to install and some restarts but it’s runs well and considering it’s a first release beta from Microsoft, it works incredibly well.

We were impressed with its speed and the new taskbar, where you can pin your favorite applications but also jump straight to opened documents and also pin favourites, too. We’ve not found any application that doesn’t run apart from needing a little tweak to Google’s Chrome browser.

So, in our limited example, it looks like Microsoft has a winner here – the next job will be to attempt to persuade those who have paid for Vista to upgrade again and to undo the negative press around the Vista story.

We’ll see how it goes.

Using the tool and the free service, you’ll be downloading the updates that you need for your devices.

DriverMax is able to display a complete report of all drivers (versions, release dates) installed on your system. This feature can also be very useful when you want to analyze the differences between the drivers installed on different machines.

Features:
Many of the situations where windows is running slower can be caused by faulty driver installations. While windows stores versions of older drivers just in case you want to go back it sometimes overwrites older versions with more recent ones.

DriverMax’s export wizard will only export the drivers you select by copying the needed files to a folder or a compressed .zip file, alowing you to backup older drivers in case of a conflict with the updated driver. The Import Drivers wizard allows you to install all the drivers that you exported earlier to .zip or folder.

The most powerful feature of DriverMax is saving the hassle of reinstalling windows. After reinstalling windows the service installs all drivers from one place in less than 5 minutes – sparing you of searching, inserting disc after disk and losing precious time. The entire operation might take up to 5-10 minutes.
Just one single computer restart will be required after all drivers are reinstalled!

You can download DriverMax here: http://www.innovative-sol.com/soft/dmx/drivermax.exe

Note: DriverMax works on Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 2003 (all service packs).

Read the full article here:

http://downloads.pcworld.about.com/businesscenter/article/145471/microsoft_abandons_yahoo_acquisition.html

Who Am I?

So who the hell am I? Besides being your run of the mill excellence, sarcastically witty winning machine? I’m NAME WITHHELD, it’s nice to meet you intertrons, it has taken quite a bit of work to get to this stage being in Alaska and all. There are these road blocks put up by what I like to call, “The Darkside” and they don’t take kindly to just anybody stealing their intertrons.

So without further ado, I’m an Apple loving fanboy who often get’s flack from the fellow co-workers and bossman about it as they moan away at their PC’s running to the sound levels of jet engines, or having to defrag their boxes while my machine works. It’s a love hate thing I say, moving on from being the Apple fanatic, I’m known to be somewhat of an avid hobbyist in terms of photography.

My job here is to make your TASK WITHHELD and let me tell you what, you’ll love the work we can deliver you. COMPANY WITHHELD is a soluton winning machine where we as a collective try to minimize any downtime with thorough testing and not getting overly gadget happy. I sit in my corner of the office, reading away realizing everyday that my talents are endless, and that everyday there is something new to learn and deliver for clients. For instance my latest project, which is under wraps however I can inform that lately I’ve been trying to play alot with TECHNIQUE WITHHELD. Originally, I used CREATOR AND TECHNIQUE WITHHELD, but then moved on to NAMES WITHHELD technique, which was a dream to work with. As stated on the site, it’s a stripped down technique and it saved me quite a bit of time and allowed me to build up the project very efficiently and hopefully the client thinks I am WIN and will decide to go live with it.

So there’s my introduction, I’m the work monkey, I’m funny, I’m the man (my name tag tells me so), I take pictures of cool stuff.