Editor's Note: This is a legitimate research study, the firm is very reputable and all information is private. I encourage all of our users to participate.

Dear ActiveWin.com Member: Strickman Research, a marketing research firm, has contacted us for assistance in reaching out to you with this invitation to participate in a paid research study. If you qualify for the study, they would ask for no more than 20 minutes of your time and would pay you $100 US:

What are we researching?

We are looking for people who have left comments on various blogs and forums about operating system software they’ve used. We are looking for people who have previously “published” their suggestions online and expressed their wishes for certain features or functions they would like to see in future versions of various PC operating systems. Such comments can run the gamut from very technical to very broad, for instance comments like: “I wish it would boot faster.” or “How can I share files between my home computers?” would suffice. The wishes and suggestions can be implied in a question where one is hoping to find a solution to a particular problem.

We are looking for comments published online between 1/2005 – 12/2008. More recent assessments of newer operating systems, published in 2009, may also be pertinent.

How do I participate?

If you left a written comment on a blog, forum or informational website which was, broadly speaking, a suggestion or wish for a certain feature or function you would like to see improved in your computer’s operating system, please find your specific comment or comments online and paste the link/s in an email to us at uk@strickman-ripps.com.

Please include:

What should I expect?

Once we have received your email, and reviewed your comment/s, a representative from Strickman Research will contact you by phone to ask you a few qualifying questions. This call will take no more than 10 minutes of your time. If you qualify (95% of applicants should qualify) we will schedule you for a recorded internet video chat at your convenience that would take no more than 20 minutes of your time and for which you would be paid $100 US in the form of a VISA cash card.

If you do not meet the criteria for our research study, we will most likely let you know in the first few minutes of our phone call. We will not trouble you any further and we will not store or share you contact information.

"We are looking for participants age 19 and older in, or very near the following regions: UK, France, Germany, Australia, USA, and Canada."

Kristankenney.com So, I was digging around in a recently leaked build of Windows 7 Home Premium and ran across a very interesting clause in the Microsoft Software License Terms which hints towards the possibility that Microsoft are going to be offering a family pack licensing plan which covers up to three computers in your household if you purchase a special “family pack” of Windows 7 Home Premium.

Microsoft is surveying potential customers as to what it should name its forthcoming Office Web Applications suite.

The rumors circulating earlier this week were true: Microsoft has decided to pull the plug on its MSN/Windows Live Butterfly program.

Over the past few years, the Butterfly testers got pre-beta Windows Live products and services before the public had a chance to test them. They provided Microsoft with regular feedback and did some community outreach.

Microsoft has announced the pricing scheme for the various versions of its new Windows 7 operating system pricing. And once again, Microsoft is insisting on confusing some folks. At the same time, Apple offers a relatively easy pricing plan for its upcoming Snow Leopard operating system.

StatCounter says Microsoft's Bing search engine grabbed more than 8 percent share of U.S. Web searches in June. The news could be an anomaly or a sign that Bing is luring users from Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Microsoft has bet big on Bing as it seeks to grab a piece of Google's massive Web services user base.

Microsoft is recruiting a set of select testers for its “Dublin” distributed application server, and is preparing for a public beta of the technology that is due out later this year.

If you are like us, we are always on the cutting edge (what do you expect – we work for Microsoft ) and because of this we have to often find unusual methods to work around the fact that OEM’s are not always “up to speed” and releasing installers and such that are for operating systems that are still in beta.

Because of this, many of you might find yourself scratching your head when you attempt to update your client or server hardware using the OEMs installation file (*.msi or *.exe). In this post, I want to share a couple of examples of where I was able to successfully get around this using a pretty “unknown” piece of functionality in Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2.

AdWeek is reporting that Microsoft has selected ad agency McCann Erickson to develop its campaign fo  the Microsoft “Pink Project.”

Brandon LeBlanc: Back on May 26th, we announced Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 hit the RTW milestone. The first wave of languages (English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese) was made available on Windows Update at that time. Today, we are releasing the remaining languages for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 to Windows Update.

Internet Explorer 8 is a decent browser, but there’s a new ad for it (showing only online, according to Idsgn, which is where I read about it by way of Daring Fireball) that not only doesn’t make me wanting to use IE, but has me contemplating going door to door, beseeching my fellow human being to avoid it.

With Firefox 3.5 now finished and available for download, Microsoft used the occasion to tout the speed of Internet Explorer 8. Whereas previously Microsoft focused on page load times, the company today made the case that IE8's "Accelerators" make it faster to use.

Microsoft will start pushing Internet Explorer (IE) 8 to business users via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) on August 25, according to a June 29 posting on the IE Blog.

The presales of Windows 7 have started, OEMs are gearing up new machines that will come with Vista installed but some free upgrade coupons for when Windows 7 is finally released in early fall. The question that a lot of current Windows users are going to be asking themselves is which of the three different versions should they get. I know because I’ve been asking myself the same question and thanks to Ed Bott I have a much clear idea of the route to take.

A top Microsoft executive today denied reports that European users will pay more for Windows 7 because of the company's wrangling with antitrust regulators.

We are happy to announce that Hotmail customers in the US, Canada, and Brazil can now add other e-mail accounts to Hotmail!* No need to sign into multiple services to check all your messages on the web. Instead, you can see any POP-enabled e-mail account (including Yahoo! Mail (Plus), AOL Mail, and Gmail) right from your Hotmail account. You can put all of your messages together in your inbox or each e-mail account in its own folder, your choice.

Gartner has slammed Microsoft's plan to limit the number of computers eligible for free Windows 7 upgrades, claiming it could stall PC sales.

Microsoft released the File Server Migration Toolkit version 1.2 (FSMT 1.2), which will help you migrate file shares from computers running Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Storage Server 2008 to computers running Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Storage Server 2008. You can use it to consolidate multiple file servers or simply to migrate files between servers.

If any Aussies out there wasn’t entirely sure of going to the Microsoft TechEd Australia conference on the Gold Coast this year or not, then here’s an offer to nitro-boost your thought process a little. Microsoft Australia is going to be hosting the largest hands-on Windows 7 evaluation in the world by offering each paying attendee with one of 2,300 HP Mini netbook preloaded with Windows 7 for free.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: I keep hearing about how Windows 7 is going to be just the CPR that the ailing PC industry needs to get itself out of the hole it’s in. It seems that folks, both consumer and enterprise, are going to be flocking to their favorite OEMs and throwing cash at them in exchange for brand-spanking-new PCs running Windows 7.

As users await the release of the next version of the Windows operating system, Microsoft is working with the government to establish secure system settings that are expected to become the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) for Windows 7.

Earlier this month, Microsoft released the alpha version of its security guide for the new operating system. At the same time, it is working with the Defense Department to harmonize the setting with the FDCC. Ideally, the two components will constitute a single standard for secure configuration when Microsoft releases the operating system this fall.

Making a circle with his hands and speaking the words "Crab Nebula," Microsoft researcher Hrvoje Benko summoned the image of the interstellar dust cloud in front of him.

Benko was demonstrating how to use an omni-directional projector, one of 13 up-and-coming technologies on display at the Microsoft Research TechFair at the Newseum Wednesday. Hundreds of representatives from businesses and government agencies attended, viewing technologies with applications ranging from detecting robot-generated spamming attacks to text messaging vocally while driving.

Microsoft has been building out its datacenter network for the past few years. In July, the company plans to bring its Chicago and Dublin, Ireland, datacenters online.

Microsoft is still investigating how to deliver web functionality to European users of its upcoming Windows 7 OS.

When Windows 7 ships on October 22, European users will be forced to use the Win7E version, which will ship without a browser following European Union antitrust rulings. But the question of exactly how these users will be given access to the web is still under investigation, Microsoft today admitted.

It was just a year ago (June 27 was the actual date) that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates relinquished his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft. Has much changed as a result?

Microsoft may sell Razorfish, its online ad agency, and use Morgan Stanley to broker a deal, according to a report by the Financial Times. Microsoft originally purchased Razorfish as part of aQuantive in 2007 for $6 billion in a bid to expand its online advertising platform, an area in which the Windows maker has heavy competition from Google.

Chinese Microsoft enthusiast blog LiveSino.net today posted a bunch of links to some interesting portfolios by a handful of Chinese designers who works at the Microsoft Advanced Technology Center (ATC) Studios in Beijing. What many people don’t know is that the ATC has been largely responsible for the user experience design of Windows Mobile. This however is no longer the case as WM 6.5 was their last project, but up and until now, they’ve been busy conceptualizing the future of Windows Mobile. Most of those concepts have never surface in public before, until now.

Microsoft will limit to 25 the number of free Windows 7 upgrades for customers who buy PCs with Vista between June 26 and the new operating system's Oct. 22 release date " a restriction that could discourage businesses from purchasing large numbers of PCs over the next four months.

With the proliferation of IP devices on the enterprise network, network services like DHCP are expected to deliver on ever increasing load while maintaining low response times. DHCP Server in Windows Server 2008 R2 has been enhanced and tested to deliver far higher levels of performance and scalability than in previous releases of Windows. The cornerstone of the performance improvement in the DHCP server in the latest release has been aggressive caching of the lease records in database.

Jumplists are a new feature of the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. They provide quick application specific access by linking to functions and folders that are often used. This could for example be used to open the write email window in Microsoft Outlook or the most recent documents in Microsoft Word or Excel. Jumplists are available after a right-click on an icon in the Windows Taskbar.

Long Zheng: I’ve been a big fan of the guided tour videos Apple makes available soon after a new product launch. It’s an effective way of showing off a new product without looking like an advertisement, at the same time educating potential customers about the features of the product without a wordy manual or features list. Now Microsoft has a series of guided tours for Windows 7 too.

Microsoft receives feedback through many channels, but it chose to place itself in the hot seat in May at a closed-door meeting of its Interoperability Customer Executive Council (ICEC). The feedback that it received helped Microsoft form a more pragmatic approach to interoperability that focused on customer scenarios, two executives said, but critics maintain that Microsoft is not entirely sincere in its efforts.

Long Zheng: I always get a kick out of reading about Longhorn-era technology that never saw the light of day, only to be implemented years later. Days ago, a couple of then-Microsoft designers working on what was Windows Codename “Longhorn” at the time were granted a patent they filed all the way back in 2005. On closer inspection, their idea is reminiscent of the Aero Snap feature in Windows 7 today, but arguably more powerful.

In the last two years pretty much every major vendor in the IT industry rushed to develop a rich VDI portfolio and roadmap. Each of them did its best to acquire promising startups, to announce new and highly efficient remote desktop protocols, to sign partnerships with OEMs for the next generation thin client.

Many businesses struggle with getting paper-based information into the electronic workflows that are enabled by Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, Access and SQL Server. By using document imaging software and multifunction peripherals, knowledge workers can seamlessly and securely integrate paper documents into the electronic workflow. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Ed White explains what IT professionals should know when integrating document imaging software with Microsoft applications.

A couple more Microsoft veterans are leaving the company, Microsoft acknowledged this week.

One item buried in Microsoft’s announcement on June 25 about its retail pricing plans for Windows 7 is how it intends to deal with Windows 7 E, the one and only version of Windows 7 it plans to sell in Europe.

Microsoft attempts to rebut claims by the Email Standards Project that its upcoming Outlook 2010 lacks sufficient standards support. Windows maker Microsoft plans to use the Word rendering engine to display HTML e-mails, which the Email Standards Project claims lacks CSS support and thus will render those e-mails incorrectly.

A report in Advertising Age earlier this week, entitled “Microsoft to Create ‘Office Suite’ for Advertising,” had me wondering whether Microsoft had decided to pursue a strategy I first heard about years ago: Creating customized versions of Office for specific vertical markets.

Microsoft is considering offering Windows 7 on a thumb drive to allow Netbook owners to more easily upgrade their machines, a source tells CNET News.

The move, which is still under consideration, is one of several things Microsoft has looked at to try to make it convenient to upgrade machines that don't come with a CD or DVD drives.

Microsoft executives have said that they recognize that upgrading Netbooks poses a challenge and are exploring ways that the company can make it easier. In an interview on Thursday, Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said that Microsoft had nothing to announce on that front.

With new web-based instant messaging (IM) now available in Windows Live Hotmail worldwide, we are preparing to retire MSN Web Messenger. The old MSN Web Messenger experience will end on June 30, 2009.

With Hotmail’s new web-based IM, you can chat from your Hotmail inbox or contact list, instead of going to MSN Web Messenger (http://webmessenger.msn.com/). Go directly to the Windows Live People page (also known as “your contact list”) at http://people.live.com and sign into Messenger (orange arrow in the picture below) to continue instant messaging on the web with your Messenger friends.

"Pre-order at 50% off and select "Release Date Delivery" option at checkout (see details). Amazon Prime™ members can select "FREE Release-Date Delivery" at checkout. Limit 3 per Customer on Home Premium Upgrade and Professional Upgrade. If you purchase full or upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate, on or after June 26, you will qualify for a Windows 7 Upgrade at the reduced price of $9.99."

One item buried in Microsoft’s announcement on June 25 about its retail pricing plans for Windows 7 is how it intends to deal with Windows 7 E, the one and only version of Windows 7 it plans to sell in Europe. Windows 7 E is Windows 7 without Internet Explorer 8 — or any other browser — preinstalled. The company is intending to release Windows 7 E in Europe in the hopes of potentially heading off the worst of the remedies expected to be imposed by European Commission authorities who have yet to issue their final rulings in the Opera browser-bundling antitrust case against Microsoft.

Microsoft executive Scott Howe said mobile advertisements will increase to 5 to 10 percent of worldwide media spending within five years, with a gradual rise in adoption by companies and marketing agencies as a tool for extending their brands, according to Reuters. However, pushback from watchdog groups over mobile ads suggests that mobile advertising may meet further resistance.

Microsoft’s decision to change the rendering engine in its Outlook mail client from HTML to the Word rendering engine back in 2007 wasn’t one of its most popular moves. In fact, there are still more than a few Outlook users who are hoping against hope that an online campaign might result in Microsoft backtracking with Outlook 2010 and going back to HTML rendering.

Who knew? And apparently some lucky software testers and program managers can even start working for Bing AutoPilot.

Today, on the 25th of June 2009 marks the 11th birthday of Activewin.com.

The Active Network was born on August 25, 1997 when founders Byron Hinson, Robert Stein, and Wayne Flyers opened the ActiveIE.com website for the first time as a small hobby to provide the best information about Microsoft’s newly released Internet Explorer 3. Our gem, ActiveWin.com is the result of the conversion of the original website into roughly what you see today and was born on June 25, 1998. With the goal of providing the latest Microsoft company news, information, downloads, reviews, drivers, tips, support, software/hardware news, FAQs and much more this site was able to attract loyal viewers which ensure the prosperity and growth of this network.

On June 25, Microsoft took the wraps off its Windows 7 retail pricing. Bottom line: If you preorder (U.S., Canada and Japan only for now), you can save more than 50 percent over what comparable Vista versions cost. If you don’t, you’ll pay roughly the same for Windows 7 as you paid for Vista at retail.

Windows XP and Vista have started installing updates at shutdown, in certain cases, without displaying a warning or requesting permission, according to reports by several readers.

Brief Description

Outlines supported and unsupported upgrade paths for Windows 7 SKUs.

Microsoft wants to show you how to cut your utility bills.

The software giant will enter the burgeoning business of home-energy management on Wednesday with Hohm, a free Web application designed to show consumers how to conserve electricity and natural gas. Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie, is scheduled to introduce Hohm and discuss Microsoft's energy strategy at the Edison Electric Institute utility industry conference on Wednesday.

Aero Glass remoting provides a user experience in a remote session that is comparable to a local session. This feature is now available for Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) as well as Windows 7 as a virtual machine (VM) hosted on a Hyper-V machine, in addition to the Windows 7 client.

Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft has hired away yet more Yahoo execs, as TechFlash reported on June 23.

Europeans who purchase Vista-powered PCs starting Friday will have to do a "clean install" of the free Windows 7 upgrade they'll receive later this year because Microsoft has yanked Internet Explorer from the new OS, according to a Web site that regularly publishes accurate information about the company's plans.

While many information technology (IT) professionals are investing in specific areas of IT infrastructure, 55 percent say the economy has changed the role of IT and 51 percent say that budget constraints are the biggest barrier to their innovation, according to a new study commissioned by Microsoft Corp. and conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. The study results indicate that IT professionals in the U.S. are devoting less budget to innovation than their counterparts in the U.K., Japan and Germany.

The Windows 7 beta will begin bi-hourly shutdowns on July 1, 2009 and will expire on August 1, 2009.

Microsoft's new, free antivirus application Microsoft Security Essentials was released in a limited beta this morning, and now that we've got our hands on it, let's take a look at how MSE stacks up.

Microsoft has found themselves in yet another mix-up, yet its CEO personally apologized to devastated gamers. Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, has apologized for unclear remarks made last week regarding careless word choices that led gamers to believe that a Microsoft would be releasing a new gaming console. Ballmer reportedly made an announcement that that a new Xbox console will be released in 2010. What Ballmer really was talking about was Project Natal which was announced by Microsoft earlier this month.

Windows 7 offers end user and IT Admins a number of new networking features. Let us look at the top 10 Windows 7 Networking features…

One of the many passions held by Bill Gates is a passion for reading and so his desire to make reading on PCs a fantastic experience has been an effort ongoing for many years. In the 1998 COMDEX show, Bill Gates unveiled ClearType – hard to believe it was that long ago. Back when it was announced, very few of us had LCD monitors and those that did invested several thousand dollars in one that was 15” and 1024x768 (today one like that costs less than $100). The notions of smoothing and anti-aliasing have been around for many years and are common in the world of typography, animation, and games. ClearType took this to new levels by building on the properties of LCD panels. ClearType was subsequently included in Windows XP and continues in Vista and Windows 7—each release saw changes in the underlying technology, the fonts that support the technology, and the APIs available to developers. It is fair to say that over the years we have learned that there are a set of customers who simply find ClearType rendered screens less than appealing and wish to turn it off. We recognize this and want to make sure we provide the appropriate controls. ClearType is also part of the Windows platform and provides APIs callable and controllable by developers of applications. There is a conventional view that ClearType is a "visual preference" and through this post we want to show how there are elements that are such a preference but there are also elements that are APIs used by applications, just like applications can choose fonts, colors, and other attributes as required. This post goes into the details of Windows 7’s implementation along with some history and background. Greg Hitchcock is the development lead on ClearType and has worked on it since the start. He’s also one of the most tenured members of the Windows 7 engineering team with only 6 folks having been at Microsoft longer -- Larry is one of them :-)!

The Windows File Classification Infrastructure (FCI) is new to the first release candidate of Windows Server 2008 R2, which was made available last month and is due to be released in October. FCI is a robust identification system that allows you to set up rules that assign values to files based on their location or content. You can then take various actions based on those values, or you can instruct Windows to take those actions automatically.

Microsoft still suffers from Google envy: Steve Ballmer appears ready to make a bet of up to $11 billion that Microsoft's new search engine Bing can overtake its Internet competitor. At best, the bet is a long shot, and throwing away that amount of money could well do Microsoft irreparable harm.

Robert X. Cringely: I find it's best to live by a few simple rules. I don't micturate into the wind. I don't mix tequila with red wine (not any more, anyway). I never get into arm-wrestling matches with fat guys named "Tiny."

Here's another rule to live by: When you're the biggest PC software company in the known universe and you have to bribe and/or force people to use your products, said products are probably not very good.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen is selling his first broad consumer software since he left the company more than two decades ago, a program that lets users keep better track of e-mails in Microsoft's Outlook.

Stephen Chapman: About a month ago, I ran across a picture of an internal Windows 7 MCE box with a custom Windows 7 case. Doing a bit of research, I noticed it was being lugged around to various conferences/events... or maybe more than one of these was made. Regardless, I just happened upon a few more pictures to add to the collection. As I noted in my last post, I have no idea how this would be useful for anything more than demonstrative purposes... or perhaps an expensive entertainment system front-end. Anyway, on with the pictures