Microsoft announced today that June 30 is indeed the final cut-off for manufacturers to make Windows XP a pre-load option on PCs, with an exception being made for those now popular low cost portables, like the Asus Eee, Intel Classmate, and others. Those low cost portables will still be allowed to ship with Windows XP Home Edition through June 30, 2010 or one year after the general availability of the next version of Windows.

In familiar Microsoft fashion, they've also come up with a name for those low cost, XP Home Edition sporting portables: the Ultra Low-Cost PC. Now, don't get those confused with their more powerful brethen, the Ultra-Mobile PC, ok?

Here is Michael Dix, General Manager of Windows Client Group Product Management explaining what a Ultra Low-Cost PC is:

PressPass: What are ultra-low-cost personal computers (ULCPCs)?

Dix: ULCPCs are a new and growing class of mobile computers designed for first-time PC buyers and customers interested in complementing their primary Windows-based PCs with companion devices with limited hardware capabilities.  These machines vary, but they typically have smaller screen sizes and lower-powered processors than more expensive mobile PCs. While originally intended for students and other first-time PC customers in emerging markets, we’re now seeing interest in these affordable devices in developed countries as well.

One thing we’ve heard loud and clear, from both our customers and our partners, is the desire for Windows on this new class of devices. We are enthusiastic about this category because it enables us to bring the benefits of Windows to more customers. ( emphasis mine )

If memory serves me right, wasn't one of the major goals of the Ultra-Mobile PC / Origami initiative to be in the $500 range, which is where these Ultra Low-Cost PCs are currently priced? Wasn't it also designed to be a companion device that also had limited hardware capabilities?

That Q & A reads just like what the Ultra-Mobile PC / Origami space was after and targeting several years ago, but apparently lost its way. Now, the industry and consumer has let Microsoft know what it wants and the type of low impact software it wants to run, and Microsoft is wisely listening. This little tidbit bodes well for mobile devices - running Windows on devices with less than 4 GB of flash-based storage:

We are also taking a number of steps to enable our partners to support this growing class of computers, such as publishing formal design guidelines to the Web to enable manufacturers to build Windows-based flash-based machines with even greater hardware limitations (e.g., under 4GB flash-based storage).  We believe these guidelines will enable PC makers to build more reliable, low-cost and easy-to-maintain ULCPCs for customers. 

This makes me wonder, though - where does this all leave the Ultra-Mobile PC? Could we start to see a shift in to the ULCPC area? By the way, thanks for muddying up an already muddied up space with the new name.

via Mary Jo Foley

I’ve been meaning to link to this for awhile, but it kept passing me by. So, with apologies to Ed Bott and Media Center Show Podcast host, Ian Dixon, here’s a link to a great chat between the two on what to expect (and not expect) in Vista Service Pack 1. Well worth a listen to if you haven’t made the jump to SP1 yet.

By the way, I haven’t made that jump yet. I’ve been just too busy of late to make the commitment.

Microsoft's Nick White let us all know today that Vista SP 1 is now available for download via Windows Update. Nick has some good info on how you get begin the download process now, rather than wait until mid-April for it to automatically download.

If in running Windows Update you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed, there are a number of good reasons for this (Eight in fact, see the whole list). Below are a few of the most common reasons why you might not see SP1 on Windows Update:

   * You have not yet installed all the prerequisite packages you need for Windows Vista SP1. To install them, visit the Windows Update control panel and click on "check for updates."

    * You have a pre-release version of SP1 and need to uninstall it before installing SP1
    * You already have it. To determine if you already have SP1 installed, Open the Start Menu, right click on Computer and left click on Properties.
    * We released SP1 in these 5 languages: English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese. If you have any other language installed, SP1 will not yet be offered to you. (You might not even know if you have an additional language installed! Check the Language control panel to see what languages you have installed)
    * Back in February we announced that we'd be using Windows Update to help make the update as seamless as possible for our users. Windows Update will detect drivers that we know may be problematic when updating to SP1 and will not offer the service pack until an update has been installed.

But I cheated....

If you have been following the site, you know I have bee having a HECK of a time trying to get Vista SP1 installed on my Lenovo x61 Tablet PC.  Well, with my last effort this weekend, I have it installed.

I did everything I could to get things to work - I had some e-mails, some forum posts even used my own experience - Nothing worked.  The last step I made was to uninstall everything off my machine - even uninstalled drivers as well - like the video, network...  back to the windows generic/default - Still didn't work.

What did I do?  I gave up!  Friday night I did the almost 3 GIG download of Vista with SP1 included - THAT installed just fine.  Unfortunately after 6-7 tries to do the upgrade I just couldn't take it any more.  So, I am now running SP1 and all is fine, except for the time it's taken me to reinstall everything back on this machine.....

James Kendrick over at jkOnTheRun has been posting his experiences on his new Fujitsu P1620. As a P1610 owner, I've been interested to read about the similarities and differences in the platforms. James ran into a problem on the P1620 with the touch screen going dead and unresponsive. After realizing that the P1620 uses a USB touch screen digitizer, he went into the device properties and disabled "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." As he rightly acknowledges, there is no reason why the touch screen should ever be allowed to turn off. That's just silly. Uncheck the box, and voila - problem solved. Read James' post for the full details.

I have run into this same problem with other USB based devices in systems, so if you have a feature that seems to die intermittently, check to see if it has this setting in the device properties in Device Manager.

via jkOnTheRun

Vista Capable became a phrase in flux with the release of Microsoft’s new operating system last year. Lack of drivers, graphics issues, things that didn’t work, and all sorts of headaches were cropping up daily. I criticized Asus and Microsoft for sticking a Vista Capable sticker on the Asus R2H at the time.

Well, now there is a class action lawsuit afoot that is challenging the entire Vista Capable designation on behalf of consumers. The lawsuit has been given sanction and is going forward. It turns out there are some pretty damaging emails from Microsoft employees about this. The New York Times is running a story on this today that contains some of the info, and also points to the internal Microsoft squabbling that occured in the run up to the difficulties. Most damaging are emails that make it look like Microsoft fudged things to help Intel meet some earnings targets with the decidely not Vista Capable 915 chipset.

Who knows how this will play out, but it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Huh? Microsoft has pulled an unprecedented move by dropping the prices on a couple of variants of the Vista operating system. Vista Ultimate will drop from $399 to $319. The Vista Ultimate upgrade drops from $259 to $219. Vista Home Premium upgrade will drop from $159 to $129. Given that there really has been no real “ultimate” in Vista Ultimate, I guess on some level this makes some sense to somebody, but in the end retail customers will get an opportunity to save some money.

Just when you thought it was over with program issues on Vista...  with the install of SP1, there are more issues with application compatibility.  I know companies are working hard to get OS upgrades in place when SP1 is released, but is this going to change the game some?  It might, but I would guess that many of the companies have time to get things worked out before the service pack is released to the public.

"Windows Vista Service Pack 1 contains many security, reliability, and feature updates for Windows Vista," the company said. "A program may experience a loss of functionality after you install Windows Vista SP1. However, most programs will continue to work as expected after you install Windows Vista SP1."

Head on over to a list provided by Microsoft of applications that are currently known to not work.

Looks like maybe my troubles are being felt around other places as well...  Glad I am not the only one with issues.  And it also looks like Microsoft has pulled one of the Hotfixes for now as well...  I think I'll try again once all this is worked out!

"We've received reports that some customers may be experiencing an unusual reboot cycle after installing KB937287, the servicing stack update we released last week. To prevent further instances of this issue, we temporarily stopped automatic distribution of the update and are investigating solutions to the problem. We believe this problem only impacts a small number of customers. We are working to identify possible solutions and will resume automatic distribution again after we address the issue."

I might not have been having the reboot problem, but I did have the same 'no boot' part happen as mentioned in the article.

One of the most requested features over the past five years has been the ability to ink on the desktop. So, when Microsoft released the Ink Desktop as part of Experience Pack for XP, there was much rejoicing. Then folks started using it, and frustrations ensued - erasing slowness, resizing problems, rotation issues, etc.

When Vista came out and Microsoft released Ink Desktop 2 ( and Experience Pack for Vista ), there was hope that the above issues would be fixed. However, many of the same problems surfaced and continued to frustrate users. Because of the practical use of writing on the desktop, many folks like me want to like it and use it, but eventually turn it off due to the problems.

GBM reader FeralBoy has a great discussion thread going in our forums talking about the need of a good solution for inking on the desktop, the issues with Ink Desktop 2, and hoping Microsoft or some talented developer will catch the dream and code a great solution for us.

FeralBoy on his latest struggles with Ink Desktop:

Today my desktop notes died. Well, they're still there, but they've been shrunk one too many times and refuse to resize themselves to a usable, non-blurry state, so I will have to delete them and start over.
Sigh.

Head over and check it out - it is a fascinating discussion.

Yesterday we alerted our readers via a story from Tech ARP about Vista SP 1 being RTM'd today. Official word from Microsoft has now been released confirming RTM, but indicating that SP 1 will not be available for download until March.

You can now stop visiting Windows Update every 30 minutes!

Tech ARP is reporting that Vista SP 1 will be released to the public on Monday via Windows Update. This is the first I've heard that SP 1 is being released this week, so we'll be following this for sure.

Tech ARP:

If you have been waiting for Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, well, you can now mark your calender. We just received word that Microsoft has scheduled Windows Vista Service Pack 1 for release to manufacturer (RTM) on Monday, February 4, 2008. That's just 3 days away! The OEMs will also receive Windows Vista Service Pack 1 during that week.

Microsoft will be deploying Service Pack 1 in two "waves". Wave 0, which is the one released on February 4, will only include five languages - English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The second wave, Wave 1, is scheduled for release 1-2 weeks later, and will cover all 36 basic languages, including Chinese.

Thanks for the link, Mickey Segal

UPDATE: SP 1 download will be available in March.

via ComputerWorld

Microsoft Windows Vista is celebrating birthday number one today on the anniversary of the public release. You can certainly say it has been a controversial first year. Vista has taken its knocks from many quarters, certainly from the mobile sector, but it has also continued to grow in terms of sales. If you follow the industry news, it looks like there is a growing trend that is moving beyond the “knocks” into the “Vista isn’t all that bad” column. That said, there is still a large chorus that wants to see Vista branded as a Windows ME type failure and move on. Some even say Vista is the best promotion that Windows XP has ever had. Recent confusing stories of a potential 2009 release of Windows 7 certainly doesn’t help. The final release of SP1 is supposedly just around the corner and there is a lot of emphasis and interest to see how well that changes the matter and the perceptions.

From a Tablet PC perspective, Vista certainly offered some great advances, (check out our GBM InkShows on Tablet PC features in Vista) and in many ways ushered Touch into the picture. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the big hope of making Tablet PC functionality available across the board by rolling it all into Vista (the bits are there, all you need is the hardware) didn’t yield the hoped for increase in interest and development of new Tablet PCs from OEMs. That is a marketing failure as much as it is anything else, as you need to look really closely in any of the hype about Vista to know that improved Tablet PC functionality is a feature.

If it seems that Vista has been around for longer than a year that is because it has. In the roll up to the final release to consumers, the various release candidates, the release to business customers, and of course the delays, were all covered breathlessly, and it seems, endlessly (certainly here on the pages of GBM), and rightly so.

TEO developer Josh Einstein has waged a one man campaign in the GBM Forums and comments throughout the year defending the OS from some of the charges leveled against it, and done so admirably, especially as it relates to issues that might be caused by drivers and hardware from Microsoft hardware and software partners. He’s raised some excellent points along the way and in our small world here, put the focus where it needs to be in some cases. In the final analysis though, the fact that Josh has felt the need to do so, demonstrates that Microsoft missed the boat by not being proactive in discussing and addressing some of the issues that caused concern. But then that seem to be the “accepted way of things” when it comes to talking about issues with operating systems and new releases. I think the large turnover inside Microsoft, shortly after Vista’s release, also had some impact on this as well, and if you ask me the timing of those moves was not only questionable, but in some cases damaging.

So, it has been a bumpy ride in Vista’s first year. In my one man’s opinion, there is still a lot to learn, still room for improvement, and there are still some questions unanswered. While Vista and some of its attendant issues have given me some headaches, I’ve used it almost exclusively since the fall of 2006 and continue to do so. For better or worse. Mostly better.

What are your thoughts?

So we're on a long weekend and what else to do than to play around some.  I have an extra SATA drive sitting here and I decided to see how Windows Vista x64 would do on my Lenovo x61.  I'm just finishing the install and getting up and running, but I'll report over the next few days as to how things are going.  Any questions you would like to ask, just let me know.

GottaBeMobile.com forum member Shogmaster has produced a great video demonstrating the differences between Vista based handwriting recognition using a Toshiba R25 Tablet PC  and a MacPro running Leopard OS X using InkWell plus a Wacom PenPartner tablet. It is pretty clear, Apple has a long ways to go to catch up to Microsoft in the recognition department.

Looks like the editors at PCWorld decided to compile a list of the biggest disappointments in tech this year. It also looks like they picked the 15 biggest stories and just found some negative things to say about them. From social networks to Vista (which got #1) and Apple’s Leopard (#8) to the iPhone (#5), it all gets smacked along the way. From the way I read it, (with the exception of taking a knock at the Telcos) if you made this list, it looks like you made an impact in 2007. Go figure.

Here’s the link.

In the midst of service pack releases, Microsoft has also rolled out an update that seems to address the notorious Sleep of Death and Vista Insomnia issues we’ve been reporting about of late. Here’s the link to the info and download, and here's what is addressed. This update is called a "preview release" so apply it with that in mind.

This article contains an update that resolves issues that may affect some Windows Vista-based computers. These issues have been reported by customers who use the Error Reporting service or Microsoft Customer Support Services.
This update improves performance, responsiveness, and reliability of Windows Vista in various scenarios. This update resolves the following issues on a Windows Vista-based computer:

• You receive a "Stop 0x000000A0" error when you try to switch the computer to the hibernate state.
• You receive a "Stop 0x0000009f" error when you switch the computer to the hibernate state or to the standby state. Or, you receive this Stop error when you resume the computer from the hibernate state or from the standby state. This problem occurs on a computer that has a wireless network connection.
• The disk does not spin down after a specified time of inactivity.

Additionally, this update can help improve performance when you perform operations that are related to large disk I/O. After you apply this update, you may notice up to a 15 percent performance improvement in some copying operations and when moving some large files.

So far I've seen nothing that suggests this is included  or not included in Vista SP1, although the preview release status sounds like it is not. I have not installed this yet, but hope to do so today. More info on the Windows Vista Blog.

As we blogged last week, The Vista SP1 Release Candidate is now available for public download. If you’re looking to see what fixes are contained in the Service Pack, check out this post by Long Zheng of istartedsomething. Keep in mind, this isn’t the final release, it is a release candidate, so if you’re going to go all install happy, take the necessary pre-cautions. (Ask Matt about that if you’re interested.

Here’s the download link and more info on the release. Note that the SP1 RC is also listed as being available on Windows Update. So, if you want to hold off you might want to check your Windows Update settings and adjust accordingly.

After a failed attempt at SP1, I thought there MIGHT be a reason to try again so quickly after getting recovered from the crash...  Maybe Vista would really see all 4 gig of my memory that I have in the Lenovo x61...  Forum member zegrafilm is reporting that his/her machine is now reporting all 4 gig of space - even with a screen shot.  But, after reading some more, and seeing K0LO's comment in the same thread, I think it's just a show, not useable...  dang!!

Part of the change log (as commented by K0LO in this same thread) states:

With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4BG in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change.

Maybe I should try and put the 64bit OS on my x61, 64bit would actually see and use all 4gig of memory...  That would make for a fun weekend project!

Craig Pringle gets the credit for coining the phrases Sleep of Death and Vista Insomnia to identify issues with sleep and returning from sleep in Microsoft Vista. As he states, both are real issues mobile users have to deal with. The Vista Insomnia issue is more than annonying. You put a device to sleep and at some point (invariably in my case when it is tucked in my bag) the device decides to wake up on its own.

Craig points to an fix in SP1 that might address the Insomnia issue from the long list of What’s Under The Hood, that Long Zheng recently published.

• Addresses the problem of the Video chipset (VSync interrupt) not allowing the system to stay asleep.

He’s going to give it a try and report back. I’ll have my eyes peeled for what he discovers.