The new version will be limited to 25 users, and is designed to fit in with cloud services such as hosted Exchange.

More info here: http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/beta.aspx

We went live with Windows 7 as soon as we could. As Microsoft Partners we had access to it with the first release for Volume Licence customers. The release for OEM licences (the ones you get preinstalled on PCs when you buy them) is the 22nd (Thursday).

To put it simply, it is an excellent OS. No doubt there will be applications out there that are not compatible, but we haven’t found any yet. Everything we run has ran perfectly. It has coped with all our hardware, from the newest to oldest, with no driver issues.

Of the new features the one I’ve used most is the XP Compatibility mode. This allows you to run a fully licenced (on Windows 7 Enterprise) Windows XP virtual machine. You can then load any older applications directly onto this virtual machine, and then drag them to your desktop, so you can use older applications transparantly on your Windows 7 PC. As I’ve said, I don’t have any old applications that haven’t worked – but I have used it to run a seperate IE7 browser, useful when you are trying to log on to a website as two different people at once.

I’ve also started using Bitlocker to Go to encrypt USB Thumb drives. I’ve lost more of these than I own, and never put anything sensitive on them, but now I needn’t worry, the contents are encrypted and no one can get on them.

As someone who never understood why people didn’t upgrade in their droves to the superiour Vista from XP, I’m hoping that people will get the bug on Windows 7. It behaves itself, looks pretty, and most importantly works. Of course it is a bit different from XP, so if you are still on that you will have a bit of a learning curve – but it isn’t that steep.

We will have a stand at the Bishop’s Stortford Means Business Show (http://www.bsmb.co.uk/) on the 21st and the Stansted Business Show (http://www.b2bessex.com/) on the 6th November, so if you want a look at Windows 7 come along and have a peak.

If you are still using tape or disk based backup then you need to look at this. The LiveBackup system acts as an onsite backup library, backup virtual server as well as a staging platform for internet based off site or USB disk syncd backups.

It is as bullet proof a backup system we’ve seen for SMBs.

Have a look at www.shadowfaxlivebackup.com for more info.

(p.s. I just managed to overwrite a file I was working on. No problem, our LiveBackup had a copy from 15 minutes ago that I could recover.)

But I hit a snag. Embarrasingly the recovery password for our Live Backup was stored on our help desk server, and that was unavailable because of the other server crashing. That meant I did not have the recovery key, which meant I couldn’t recover the server. I could have extracted it from the help desk server if the disaster was for real, but it would have been a time consuming task. And had the whole office burnt down, then there was no way I could have got it back.

Of course now I have that password saved securely away from the office. But it brought home to me the importance of the disaster recovery plan. And the importance of keeping that plan off-site and making sure the correct information is in it, and the correct people can get it.

(I drove to the office and rebooted the server, it came straight back up and George got to his party in time.)

Microsoft have reached an agreement with the European Commision whereby there will be an easy way of switching Internet Explorer off, and allowing OEMs to produce PCs with another browser set as default.

Good.

To sumarise, business customers with Software Assurance should be able to download the RTM (Release To Manufacturing) on August the 7th (tomorrow!).  If you don’t have SA already then you will be able to buy Volume Licence on the 1st of September.

Consumers, which includes businesses that buy OEM licences (the ones bundled with new PCs) should be able to get it from 22nd October. It will depend on the PC manufactuered though.

Microsoft Partners (us!) will get it on August 16th, so we’ll start rolling it out in our office around then. Having tested all our essential apps on the pre-releae versions of course!

Interestingly as well there is going to be a ‘family pack’ licence for Windows 7 Home Premium. This will allow you to install Windows 7 on up to 3 PCs, covering the average family. It hasn’t been announce which countries it will be available in, so I’m hoping it will be made available here.

Which brings me to Windows 7′s XP Compatibility Mode.

I get really wound up by a lot of application developers. I’ve had rows with them before over Vista compatibility of their applications. Probably 9 time out of 10 the application can be made compatible with Vista by simply obeying the rules, rules that have been around for years. The ‘problem’ with Vista is that due to public demand the rules have been tightened, and are now enforced. Microsoft have a program for certifying applications for Windows (you may have seen the “Designed for Windows” badges) which is not too arduous to get your software certified by. If you do that one of the things that your software will do is write files in the correct places. Or rather not write files where it shouldn’t. Vista’s enhanced security puts a stop to writing in some of the wrong places, and thus a stop to badly written applications.

So when I see features such as the XP Compatability mode I look at it as a mixed blessing.

What it does is give you a fully licence virtual copy of Windows XP that can run on top of your Windows 7 installation. Any XP only apps then get installed on that, which runs seperatley and unaware Windows 7. You can then copy the application icon to your Windows 7 desktop and enjoy the loveliness of Windows 7, but still have the application available running in Windows XP.

The mixed blessing for me is that although it will knock down a lot of barriers to using Windows 7, it also gives developers an excuse to stick their head in the sand and not update their application. It also means that end users will be able to keep that unsupported old application going for that bit longer – increasing the risk of depending on unsupported software to run your business.

If you are using an application that you are not sure about Windows 7 compatibilty, now is the time to badger the developer. They should be actively testing and converting code right now, and maybe running Windows 7 in house already in anticipation.

Windows XP Compatibilty mode will be included in Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2009/04/24/secret-no-more-revealing-virtual-windows-xp-for-windows-7.aspx