Channel 10 just posted an interview we did about a month ago about the Windows 7 Play To feature that I work on, which lets you easily push music, pictures, video, or recorded tv to other network-connected displays or speakers around your house. Check it out:

Or, you can view it directly from within your media player.

Play To is available on the right-click menu of media items selected within Windows Media Player and Windows Explorer, and also from the playlist area within Windows Media Player. Media items can be selected from within your own media library, or a shared media library on your home network. I plan on writing about this feature in much more detail soon, so stay tuned.

Some internal components make use of the system rating (processor/memory/graphics/disk/etc.) to determine whether a machine is capable enough for certain features (such as media transcoding and transparent windows). Update your system rating quickly from a command prompt by typing: winsat formal

Some of you may not have realized that if you commonly play music (or pictures/video/recorded tv) from a shared library within Windows Media Player, those items are offered up in the jump list along with frequent media content from your local library. This is really great for laptop users who store their media on a centralized media server (Windows or standards-based digital media server found in most NAS devices). Without having to open WMP and browse the shared library, I can simply play my favorite music with a single click!

I self host Windows 7 everyday; except I have the luxury of more recent builds than the general public. However, to ensure I can discuss features and bugs as beta testers see them, I have both the beta and the most recent build (give or take a week) installed. To differentiate between the builds I wanted to rename what is presented in the boot screen. Since Vista, boot.ini is no longer an option, so here is how to accomplish the rename:

From an administrative command prompt, type bcdedit. This will list all the installed operating systems known by the boot manager. To change one of the attributes (such as the description), you need to know the identifier. Copy the identifier value (from the output of bcdedit.exe) for the OS you want to change the description for, then:

bcdedit /set ID_YOU_COPPIED description “Win7 Rocks”

If you want to change which OS is started by default:

bcdedit /default ID_YOU_COPPIED

I was very happy to see a subtle change in the Windows 7 networking configuration settings that validates a static change to TCP/IP settings. By default, If you decide to manually enter any of IP address, Subnet mask, Default gateway, or DNS server address, Windows 7 will do a validation test to make sure what you entered hasn’t broken connectivity. You can easily disable this if you are testing or don’t care to validate the changes.

This subtle change will go a long way for those who have to support their friends and family over the telephone Is anyone really making static changes to their TCP/IP settings these days? Certainly not for casual users.

Many of you have already seen the new window management features in Windows 7, such as Aero Peek and the ability to snap windows to the top/bottom/left/right to maximize, minimize, and dock. However, you probably don’t know that Windows 7 provides keyboard shortcuts to improve window management further.

1. Windows key + Up arrow = maximize working window
2. Windows key + Down arrow = minimize working window (or restore a maximized window)
3. Windows key + Left arrow = dock working window to the left
4. Windows key + Right arrow = dock working window to the right
5. Windows key + Space = Peek at the desktop

For folks with multiple monitors, you can move windows between those monitors by using the Shift key:

1. Windows key + Shift + Left arrow = move the working window one monitor to the left
2. Windows key + Shift + Right arrow = move the working window one monitor to the right

I’ve heard mixed feelings about the new Windows Live Messenger behavior when running on Windows 7; specifically, how the application stays docked in the Taskbar while running in the background.

The nice thing about the application always being in the new taskbar is the ability to more quickly interact with commonly used features. A Windows 7 jump list gives you fast access to common tasks for the application, such as changing your presence, accessing your Windows Live mail, etc. This is great if you’re a frequent user of the application.

However, if you’re like me and are not a frequent user of the application, having Windows Live Messenger always on your Taskbar even though you didn’t choose to pin it there, is a bit of an annoyance. You might prefer the previous behavior where the application runs quietly in the background within the notification area until an event comes in; or if you choose to open the application. To do this, navigate to where you installed Windows Live Messenger (usually %ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Messenger\), right-click on msnmsgr.exe and choose properties. From the Compatibility tab, specify the application should run in compatibility mode for Windows Vista.

Voila! Windows Live Messenger is tucked nicely away in the fly-out list for applications running in the notification area. Events happen the same way whether you run the application in compatibility mode, or in the default mode as part of the Taskbar. Even better, when you decide to use the application, the great new experience is revealed (the icon is displayed in the Taskbar; light-up notifications, jump list and all).

In past Windows releases, Microsoft came out of the gate hot and heavy during early development stages to talk about features, new capabilities for developers to harness, and how the ecosystem can benefit from new hardware support. This approach may seem positive on the surface in terms of translucency for both consumers and the ecosystem of hardware and software partners; however, the downside is significant, largely resulting in confusion or distraction.

Causing the Windows ecosystem to be unproductive in their investments is irresponsible and in the end hurts end users the most. The lack of solid video and sound drivers at general Vista availability are perhaps the best examples.

With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft is being deliberate about what is disclosed publicly and when. Everything discussed will be actionable for the ecosystem so they too can make deliberate investments. If all goes as expected, consumers will have a very clear and consistent message about what Windows 7 is about and what features they can expect.

This approach will no doubt come with mixed emotions, so I’m eager to hear what you think the right balance is between deliberate disclosure and open translucency.

I get asked this question so frequently that I thought I’d share my feelings more broadly. I personally feel Vista is a great alternative to XP, but doesn’t resonate as the feature-packed release consumers longed for after five years of development during a time of significant competitive pressures in the consumer space. Much of this is perception driven by those positioned to gain from misinformation; however, there are clearly lessons to be learned and improvements to be made. Perception and emotional connection are definitely related.

I use Vista every day, and have come to appreciate the many subtle improvements such as deeply integrated search. Vista looks more polished than XP too. I find that I’m able to navigate more quickly, interact with files and peripherals more meaningfully, and generally accomplish frequent tasks much more efficiently than when using XP. I’m more productive using Vista than XP. There are many reasons why Vista is a better client OS, but the majority of these reasons are related to more agile architecture, scalability, and new software development platforms. Vista provides a platform for amazing new software to be written; however, built-in applications (which are not actually part of “Windows”, but users don’t distinguish) didn’t consistently leverage these new platforms and therefore demonstrate the platform as an example.

In a nutshell, Vista has stronger roots as a technology release than a user-facing feature release

Because the focus in Vista development was on technology (the plumbing), we ended up with significant changes in all major driver models: networking, audio, and video; not to mention peripheral connectivity (e.g. USB and network attached devices). All of these major changes caused massive churn with our hardware partners, and ultimately led to a period of instability when the OS was released; just at the time when users expected a polished, rock-solid product. Now that SP1 is behind us, these instabilities from driver partners are largely gone. Vista today is very compatible with devices and software; in fact, I’ve not yet encountered a piece of hardware or software that does not work with Vista that has been released in the past five years.

We needed Vista. Each of these new driver models and technologies were necessary to increase stability in the long term, and to springboard innovation for our future releases. I don’t argue that Vista planning was not executed well, and such drastic changes should have been balanced better across releases (jog before sprint) to minimize user and partner impact – believe me, this was one of many lessons learned. All this said, the advances made in Vista are allowing us to deliver best-of-breed features in our next release; for that, I am proud of the advances in Vista – even if they are mostly plumbing.

Changes in the company have been made (publicly for that matter) to address these areas by way of reshuffling of top talent and organization ownership adjustments. The company will also, very soon, respond to the perceptions and misinformation about Vista. As I mentioned earlier, I am an avid Vista user and am very happy with my experience (especially since the dust has settled after the release of SP1). Having been involved in planning and development of our next release (Windows 7) at many levels, I am very proud to say we have our MOJO back. I’m impressed every day at the quality of work, and progression being made. I have no doubt this next release will inspire confidence and a new found emotional connection for Windows users. I can’t wait to start talking about this work in detail. Stay tuned!

I should have already known this, but learned yesterday that you don’t have to manually traverse/modify/view the Windows Registry via RegEdit. From a command line, type reg /? to see your options. For example, I’m often reviewing a knowledge base article that involves viewing or editing a registry key. A quick copy/paste via the command line will really speed things up.

By way of example, if you wanted to see Outlook policies for HTTP RPC, you could type:

reg query "HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\RPC"