With rumors abounding that we’ll hear something about Windows 7 at D6: The All Things Digital Conference later this week, comes a CNet News.com interview with Steven Sinfosky, the Microsoft honcho behind Windows 7. There are a few nuggets to be found in the interview but only a few. For example, the plan is to keep the driver model the same so that we won’t have to go throw the same sort of catch-up game waiting for drivers that we did with Vista (and XP).

We also learned that at least in this interview, Sinfosky isn’t going to spill the beans on what the plans are for Windows 7. There’s a lot of of “we aren’t going to talk about that now” in the interview, especially on things like a “minimum kernel.”

I call Snake Bit.

The interview is more about why Microsoft is not talking about Windows 7 at present and the giant pendulum swing that occured after the negative reaction to Vista. From the interview you can glean that some in Microsoft felt that they were a little too open in discussing the potential of Vista. Remember, things changed radically along the path of Vista’s development. Sinofsky seems to have clamped down in a major way and is talking about talking about (or not) Windows 7. I’m guessing there’s starting to be a reacton to the silence which prompted the access for this interview. While it might be a good PR move to talk about why you aren’t talking, in my opinion, the hyper-reaction to issues with Vista, shouldn’t necessarily lead to such a strenuous Apple-like clamp down. Certainly there is a middle ground.

Chris Flores also talks about how Microsoft isn’t talking about Windows 7 on the Windows Vista Blog as well. Looks like there is a major PR effort being launched about how Microsoft will communicate (or not) about Windows 7.

Do you see the message displayed in this graphic when you shut down and reopen Microsoft Outlook 2007?

James Kendrick says he’s seeing it on all his machines. I see it more frequently than I would care to as well. In fact, I’ve begrudgingly learned to live with it, sad to say. A number of the commenters on jk’s post say they’ve never seen the issue while some have. The problem occurs when the Outlook data store, either a .pst or an .ost file, does not shut down properly when exiting Outlook. OK, fair enough, but why does that happen?

From what I can gather there are several issues that can cause an improper shutdown and several fixes/workarounds that I’ve seen. If ever there was case for the well worn cliche, Your Mileage May Vary, (YMMV)this is it.

Microsoft’s solution

Microsoft suggests in this Knowledge Base article that the problem can occur if:

• Antivirus software is scanning the file (I assume that means the .pst or .ost)
• There is a forced Microsoft Windows shutdown before the Outlook.exe process shuts down completely.
• Outlook add-ins are present.

As a recommendation, the KB article suggests the following:

If you see this issue frequently, and you have to exit Outlook shortly before you shut down your computer, it may be better to shut down Windows while Outlook is still running. We recommend that you do this instead of of exiting Outlook and then shutting down Windows shortly after that.

Outlook add-ins

It seems from my research that just about any Outlook add-in can cause a problem, including (and there are a number of reports of this,) Microsoft’s OneCare. You’d think they would have figured that one out by now in Redmond. To find out if this is what might be causing your problem open Outlook in Safe mode (/safe) and this will disable all add-ins. Then comes the trial and error part of adding them back in one by one until you find the culprit. You can find out which add-ins are disabled and re-enable them by going to Help/Disabled Items. A number of users report that this solves their problems, once they’ve identified the offending add-in, but note that your mileage may vary. One of the guilty culprits in my usage has been MindJet’s MindManager and I keep that turned off. Fortunately, when it has caused a problem, I get a report that says that the add-in was the culprit. In many of the cases I’m seeing in my research, it is a mystery to tell which add-in causes the problem. I’m also testing Xobni, and I think that might be why I have been seeing this occur more frequently of late.

Automatic send/receive

One suggestion I’ve discovered is to make sure Outlook isn’t polling for a send/receive when it is offline. You can do this by going to Tools/Options/Mail Setup and hit the Send/Receive button. Uncheck the box under ‘When Outlook is offline’ that says ‘Schedule and automatic/send receive every….’ Again, some report that this solves their problems. Others do not.

A not so appealing workaround

A number of sources have suggested turning off the Outlook services in Task Manager before shutting down Outlook. Talk about a silly workaround.

No easy conclusions

For whatever reason, this can, at the least, be an annoyance and at the worst perhaps cause data loss. You would think that Microsoft would have more to offer here about this, and I’m sure there are probably other causes and workarounds out there. But from what I’ve found there are too many variables out there to offer something definitively at the moment.

Here are a couple of other tech forum threads that I’ve found with discussions of the issue.

• Tech Support Guy
• All About Microsoft Outlook

After installing Vista SP1 I reported that one of the things that didn’t seem to work as quickly as pre-SP1 was opening Outlook. In an attempt to try and track that down, I decided to do a little Outlook house-keeping and see if that would improve things.

I typically have far too many emails in my InBox and about once a month or so I’ll go through and file things away appropriately. No, I’m not a Getting Things Done follower, and yes, I’m a filer. So, anyway, while doing some filing, I noticed that I couldn’t get any search results to materialize after awhile. No real problem, I figured I was just taxing things as I was moving  quite a few emails around, so I decided to rebuild the Search Index. Only problem was the Search Index was not reporting any locations, nor would it let me add any. So, I knew I had a problem. A reboot fixed that. (Remember the days when we used to blog ‘a quick reboot fixed that.’ Those days are gone, just like $2.00 a gallon gasoline here in the states.)

Once the reboot was accomplished, I was able to do the rebuild. The result? Outlook is running a little faster and Search is a little quicker, but not enough to say it isn’t because my InBox is a little cleaner. I will say this though, in the short period (less than a day) after doing this, I notice that there is much less disk-thrashing going on behind the scenes than there was previously. Again, far too early to really tell as to why or what that really means, but it is very noticeable. Makes me wonder if rebuilding the Search Index isn’t something we should do every few months or so.

In case you’re wondering, or haven’t already figured it out for yourselves, here’s a quick how-to on rebuilding your Search Index in Vista.

If you want your Outlook and OneNote files indexed make sure those programs are open and running.

• Go to Control Panel.
• Choose Indexing Options
• Choose Advanced
• Choose Rebulid
• Go do something else. Depending on the size of your data, this could take awhile. If you’ve got a lot of data to re-index, you might want to do this overnight. 

Note also this is where you can change the location of your Index File.

Long Zheng of istartedsomething thinks we might hear and/or see the first public info about Windows 7 at D6: The All Things Digital Conference on May 27. On the scale of rumors, I’m not sure if this rates up there with Apple Tablet rumors in terms of accuracy or speculation, but this is from a source and there isn’t any confirmation anywhere else, so keep that in mind. One thing is for certain though Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer will appear together and I’m sure some of what they will be talking about his Bill’s imminent departure.

Here are some thoughts and reactions to some software and updates I’ve been working with lately.

Vista SP1

• The install went fine. As expected it took several days before things really settled in after the install was complete. I’ve noticed a few quirks that I’m not sure I can pin any specifics on though.
• Outlook is the only application that seems to take longer to load under SP1 than it did before. I’ve noticed this with Xobni installed and not installed.
• Some times screen rotation is absolutely faster than it was before. Sometimes it seems like it will take forever to get the screen to reappear.
• Moving large files is noticeably faster.
• I’ve had more system hangs under SP1 than I had before installing it, and I’ve noticed that it takes much longer to get the system back to a state of running smoothly after a reboot, than it did before.
• Accessing other computers on our office network is considerably more hit and miss than it was before. Once a month or so, I would not be able to access the network prior to installing SP1. Now, sometimes this occurs several times a day. It often requires a reboot to fix it.
• My guess it is time for a clean install and then adding SP1 to that.

Xobni

I’m not sure if this Outlook add-in solves anything for me or not. While I like the searching functionality it provides and the ability to track conversations through various emails, I don’t find the search any more or less reliable than than Windows native search. Going back and forth I’ve been able to get less than reliable search results with both.

As mentioned above I’ve seen a slow down with Outlook loading since I installed Vista SP1. I’ve uninstalled Xobni to see if that had any significant impact and to be honest, I can’t tell one way or the other, but at various times, and in various scenarios, Outlook will take quite awhile to load.

EverNote

This is becoming more and more of an application that I rely on as I move between computers. While still in beta, I love being able to store and retrieve info between multiple platforms and devices. The Windows client needs to do some serious catching up with the Mac version on a number of things, most importantly:

• We need the same PDF support on the Windows side that we have in the Mac version.
• I want a thumbnail view in the Windows version. Now. Please.

The Mac version needs to allow me to view Inked documents sooner rather than later.

Windows Live Mesh

It is still far too early to tell if this will deliver on the promise it holds as a syncing tool and more. I do like what I see here so far, but so much hasn’t been implemented that commenting is really unnecessary. That said, I’d like to see those things start rolling out pretty soon.

CTitanic has posted an interesting video on Mobility Site that features a handwriting recognition showdown between Vista and Leopard. Fascinating to watch.

This will be good news for those who use MindManager and need to do some project managment. MindJet, the makers of the excellent mindmapping tool, MindManager, has acquired JCVGantt, a project managing tool. MindManager has long been one of the premiere Inking applciations for the Tablet PC, and accordng to James Kendrick of jkOnTheRun, JCVGantt is also very Ink friendly. I’ve used and continue to use MindManager as one of my core apps, but have never used JCVGantt, but it looks like this will be an interesting addition to the MindJet family and for users.

If you are a previous MindManager owner you can purchase the JCVGantt add-in for $129. If you’re heading into this for the first time a combo package will set you back $399. There is also a 21 day free trial.

In the always on and always raging battle between Microsoft and Google (and I guess Yahoo depending on how that all turns out) over search and your eyeballs Microsoft is today launching a new attempt to grab your searching interest: Microsoft Live Search Cashback. The idea is to pay cash back to searchers who use Live Search Cashback to browse and purchase designated products. They’ve got a roundup of participating merchants lined up. Supposedly the cash coming back to users can range for 2% to 30% depending on a number of variables. You’ll have to sign up to use the service and once you do you can either search on the Live Search Cashback site, or hit a special icon on regular Microsoft Live Search results.

A user only gets his/her cash back if they make a purchase in what is being called Cost Per Acquisition, meaning the advertiser only pays when you plop down your dollars. Funds are put into an online account and pay outs can be via direct deposit or into a PayPal account. You’ll need to accumulate a $5 balance before the cash comes back to you.

Todd Bishop has a write up on this on his blog and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this as the day rolls on and the announcement is made.

Note: This is only available in the US and you need to be 18 years or older to participate.

So, here’s a question, GBM readers. Is this kind of incentive of interest to you? Will you sign up and use this kind of service for your online purchasing? 

It looks like Microsoft might be trying to pump up the volume a bit on Vista’s speech recognition, even though news of this seems to be under the radar so far. They’ve recently released a technical preview of Windows Speech Recognition Macros, a package designed to extend Vista’s speech capabilities by allowing users to create their own macros. Lifehacker has an article on this along with a number of videos of this in action.

I’m wondering if this might give a boost to the often forgotten capability of speech recognition on Tablet PCs.

Frank “CTitanic” Garcia has been on the trail of background processes and services in Microsoft’s Vista OS that slow down or degrade performance in mobile devices like a dog on the hunt. He’s recently posted an article on his discoveries about Superfetch, which is designed, among other things,  to load the programs you use most frequently into memory so that they will load more quickly when called.

What Frank is positing is that this only works as designed depending on the hardware you're running (amount of memory and hard drive speed.)

What I have found, if you have 2 Gb or more of RAM and a fast HDD (7200 RPM or more or a SDD), Superfetch will do what Microsoft says it should do. If you have 1 Gb of RAM or less and a HDD running at 4200 RPM you should be thinking about turning off this feature because you HDD activity wont let you work.

It certainly appears slower spinning HD’s could be the villain in all of the “disk-thrashing” that so many are experiencing. Which is frustrating given the responses from OEM’s when many bloggers and pundits questioned the inclusion of the slower spinning drives on these mobile devices. We heard often that given how Vista operated behind the scenes that a 4200rpm or 5400rpm drive worked better with the mobile processors, than faster options. My suspicion on this is that no one really checked all of this out over time. In my personal experience, things seem to do better in the early going with a new system or new install. It is only after time that you begin to see the disk thrashing that can bring things to a halt. This makes sense when you consider that Superfetch is learning how you operate the machine.

For those using Windows Mobile devices, Microsoft has made Windows Live Mobile available for download. (Here’s the download link.) Windows Live Mobile allows users to sync up their Hotmail or Live Mail accounts and contacts. Curiously though Microsoft has dropped Windows Live Messenger client from the package for mobile phone users. The explanation is that Microsoft is doing this to support carrier’s plans for IM services on their respective phones. There is a browser based alternative though.

Read more from Brandon LeBlanc on the Windows Experience Blog and Stay Connected, the Windows Live for Windows Mobile Team Blog. 

Rob has been reporting on his experiences with installing SP1 on the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC most of the evening. Seems like things went relatively smooth. I'm now downloading the service pack on  the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet PC. It didn't show under Windows Update initially, but after running the Lenovo Update software twice it did manage to show up. BTW I despise Lenovo's software updater. It always seems to have to update itself before checking for new software. SP1 is taking awhile to download so I'll report after the process is over in the morning.

Please remember, if you're going to install SP1, make sure you backup and/or image your system. Just in case.

UPDATE 1: Download complete. But guess what? I get a Windows Activation message saying the system needs to be reactivated due to a change in hardware. I'm sure that has something to do with some of the Lenovo updates, although I don't recall a BIOS update. But, I'll just say this, (and it has been said many times before) updating Windows Vista and the hardware it runs on is like going to the dentist for multiple root canals. I think that should be printed on every sticker on every machine.

UPDATE 2: Things seem to have gone well. The install completed before I turned in for the night. I left things up and running over night knowing full well that Vista has some sorting out to do after an update like this. I can't say I'm seeing any significant or noticeable improvements this morning, but there still seems to be quite a bit of things sorting out as evidenced by some continued disk thrashing this morning. More as it comes.

Assuming your system has been cleared for take-off by the Vista SP 1 process, here are the steps (with pictures) to get Vista SP 1 going.

1. Go to Windows Update and check for any updates.
2. Download and install any that are there
3. Reboot when prompted
4. Go to Windows Update again and click Check For Updates
5. When Vista SP 1 displays, download it and begin the install process

Here are the screen shots and pictures I took of the entire process after downloading Vista SP 1 via Windows Update. It took less than an hour. My download for the Dell Latitude XT was about 66 MB.

By the way, I used TechSmith's SnagIt to grab all the screenshots, except for the Stage 1 - 3 shots when the OS wasn't booted up.

Daniel Escapa links to a nifty little tool for OneNote 2007 by Artem Larin. InstantNavigator allows you to enter the name/title of a note and the list of notes is instantly updated with notes that contain the matching parameters in the title.

Daniel Escapa lists a handy tip for OneNote 2007 users who also use Office Communicator 2007.

OneNote joins the party: Communicator and your phone have never been closer; in fact, for some, they are one and the same. Since no phone is ever far from a notepad, we integrated Communicator with Microsoft Office OneNote. If you have OneNote installed on your computer, you can launch it from any conversation; the conversation context will be automatically stamped into the note page, and the notes you take will be linked to the conversation. If you later restart this conversation, click the OneNote button to find your notes, which you can review or update. Similarly, if you open a previous conversation from the Conversation History folder in Outlook, click the OneNote button in the toolbar to open the notes for this conversation. 

Sounds like a handy productivity tip.

I'm working on an InkShow to highlight some of the new features of Bluebeam PDF Revu 6.0, so I found these latest tips from Bluebeam Insider to be quite beneficial.

Is there a way to go back to the old look of Revu, prior to 6.0?

While we don't have a time machine to go back to your old Revu interface, with version 6.2 you can now choose "classic mode". This will sync your Revu interface with the color settings you've selected for your Windows desktop.

Here's how to change to "classic mode"

Am I able to Search a PDF for particular key words?

Yes, using the Search tool, you can search not only the current PDF document but you can also search all open documents or even entire folders. Then, check off individual search results to Highlight, Strikethrough or Redact, just to name a few.

See the time saving features of Search

Last week came word that Microsoft had to delay the release of XP SP3 and Vista SP1 due to some complications with the Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System.

Well, it looks like the issues have been worked out temporarily and the service packs will now be available again via Windows Update. Microsoft developed a filter that will prohibit machines running Dynamics RMS from installing either of the two updates. Microsoft is still working on a fix that will resolve the issue completely.

Via News.com

Microsoft is continuing to build upon the Zune service with a new software release that brings television shows to its video offerings, as well as other software enhancements. Launch your Zune software to get prompted for the new update. I'll be doing the same later today.

By the way, we are experimenting with some podcast production changes that we hope will finally allow our podcasts to be synced to Zunes.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that Zune, the company’s all-in-one digital entertainment brand, is adding new software features and content to the Zune online store, music community and Zune Pass monthly subscription service. Zune is expanding its video store to include downloads of popular television shows from COMEDY CENTRAL, FUNimation^® Entertainment, MTV, NBC Universal, Nickelodeon, Starz Media (including Manga Entertainment), Turner Broadcasting, Ultimate Fighting Championship^® (UFC) and VH1 that consumers can sync to their device and enjoy on the go. In addition, by further integrating the Zune music community into the core experience, the new software makes it easier for people to find and listen to the music they want, share it with friends, and take it with them wherever they go — whether they choose a Zune Pass or a la carte MP3 downloads. Zune Pass subscribers can now set up automatic, real-time feeds of the music their friends are listening to and add those songs to their collection or Zune device.

New updates to the Zune online music community include the following:

• Syncing Zune Cards to a device. Consumers simply drag and drop Zune Cards from friends to a Zune device and get updates on what friends are listening to every time they sync. If the song is available with Zune Pass, subscribers automatically have the full tracks on their Zune while nonsubscribers have full album information and artwork. If consumers hear something they like, they can add it to their collection with one click. Next time the user syncs his or her Zune, he or she will be asked to confirm the purchase.

• Enhanced friends search. Consumers now have the ability to add their name, location and bio to their Zune music community profile, making it easier than ever to find their friends.

• Instant friends. The true power of the Zune online music community is unlocked when friends are added and consumers can follow the music they’re listening to. Now, when new Zune owners join the Zune online music community, they’ll find the top music editors from the Zune Marketplace team already added to their friends list, giving them a head start in finding new music.

• Artist and album reviews. Inside the Zune music community, members have the ability to write and post their own reviews for artists and albums, providing another community-driven feature to support the exploration and discovery of music. The music community helps to find and recommend the best music.

• Reputation badges. Now members of the Zune community can earn badges that are displayed on their Zune Card showing they’re passionate fans or active members.

• Windows Live connections. Windows Live Messenger contacts will now be able to see what users are listening to via the Zune software. Clicking on the tracks displayed in the “Now Playing” feature will connect the Windows Live Messenger friend directly to that artist’s page on the Zune Social.

• Auto playlists. Users can create an auto playlist that updates itself automatically as new music is added.

• Browsing videos. Consumers can browse their video collection by genre and series, plus they can preview videos before they play them on full screen.

• Editing album and track information. Users are able to edit track or album information (metadata) quickly via multi-select and drag-and-drop. The advanced metadata editing features make it easy to edit multiple tracks or survey albums and artist information.

• Organizing collections. In addition to sorting by artist or album, consumers can now sort by genre. While browsing by genre they can further sort music by artist, album or release year.

• Gapless playback. Consumers will now be able to listen to an album without the brief gap between tracks, both on their Zune and in the Zune software. This is a must-have for live-concert recordings and compilation albums.

• Syncing groups. Zune software now syncs to multiple Zune players simultaneously. Users can prepare which content on their computer to sync even when their Zune isn’t connected. Consumers can create custom sync groups for music, pictures and videos.

• Zune reminders.

Congratulations to the following GBM Readers who won a 1 year 60 GB SugarSync account!

• Tom Escott
• Sharon (aka Sbtablet)
• Medic
• Steve Beller
• Adam the Dentist
• Benz145
• Eve
• Raymond Schaf
• Steven Vance
• Jamie Wright

Look for an email from us and SugarSync regarding your account upgrade to 60GB! Special thanks to SugarSync for sponsoring this contest.

For more information on SugarSync, stay tuned. I'll be doing another write-up later this week. In the meantime, be sure to checkout SugarSync and see if it might need your file syncing needs!

A number of folks are very excited about Xobni (that’s Inbox spelled backwards) the Outlook plug-in that promises to make handling your email a little easier. So for all of those who didn’t get into the closed beta, now’s your chance to experience this for yourself. Both The New York Times and VentureBeat are running articles on the release. You can download the public beta here.