Windows 7 – Cool Features – 004

Like I’ve said on my last post, I’ve finally installed Windows 7 on my home PC.

Now that I’m really exploring the new O.S. as a “normal user”, I’ve found a nice new feature that I don’t really know to name of it.

What I do know is that this feature allows you to automatically change your desktop wallpaper/background.

To do this, you just need to go like ways to the Desktop Background Personalization:

• .: Right-Mouse click
• .: Personalization
• .: Desktop Background (at the window bottom)
• .: Select the images you what to “slide show”
• .: Define the time between changes
• .: Save changes

This is not very… geek but it’s just one more nice things that Redmond guys did for us.

Surrendering to the hype!

It’s done. I’ve finally installed Windows 7 Beta 1 on my home PC.

After a lot of blog reading, internet reviews and feeling the hype that this industry claims for the 7th version of Windows I decided to give it a shot and install the beta version.

All I could say about this, would sound to you a déjà vu of everything you’ve listened last month about it, but the truth is that this may really be the best operating system Microsoft developed yet.

The performance and usability are outrageous in a good sense.
The way things are put in place makes you go there naturally although they are in different places from other O.S.versions.

The taskbar takes a little while to get used to, but after a couple of hours or less you just don’t want to use the old taskbars anymore.

Everything works smoothly and because a lot has already been said about this O.S. I just want to congratulate Microsoft for the excellent job done with the new Windows Media Player 12. Nice interface and again, like everything, runs smooth and gentle.

Oh, and the new design of the Windows Logo on Windows start really shows how Microsoft is now concerned about how Windows look and feel.

Last word about this version, that although it doesn’t look like, it’s still a beta version and some things could/will change until RTM version.

Just hope the focal and interesting points don’t disappear ‘till then.

AppDeploy – New Website Added to BlogRoll

I’ve added a new website to my BlogRoll list.

The website is AppDeploy.com and its something like an excellent database with thousands of switches for installing applications silently or unattended and also as an interesting forum where you can talk with other people and try to find information for you specific application.

Hope you enjoy it!

Microsoft Office 2007 – Get more options for Office Customization Tool

Has some of you may know, the deployment of Office 2007 can be simplified with a tool called Office Customization Tool (OCT) and a Config.xml file.

This week I’m attending a 3 day Premier Workshop called “Deploying and Managing Microsoft Office 2007 in the Enterprise” where I got a good informatin about OCT that I haven’t realized.

This tool was updated in November of 2007 .
I always used the default tool version (that can be accessed through setup.exe /admin command-line).

This new version has some new option, and one of them it’s really handy, and it about don’t showing the annoying first-run dialog box everytime you open an Office application.

This new version it’s an upgrade for the existing one, and it’s applied like *.adm files for example. In this case, *.opa files.
Just copy the downloaded file to the correct directory and the next time you open OCT, the new options will be available

Please make notice that after upgrading OCT you need to recreate your *.msp files.

Download it at:
2007 Office system Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX, ADML) and Office Customization Tool version 2.0

Windows 7 – Cool Features – 003

Today, I’d like to share with you another cool feature announced to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Please remember that like in Windows Vista (who doesn’t remember WINFS!) Windows 7 is still on BETA version, so some of this feature may not be included on the RTM version.

Now, this cool feature is called Offline Domain Join and is pretty much what the name says. In the new Windows versions, you’ll be able to join machine to your corporate domain without them to contact directly with the Active Directory.
For this you’ll just need 3 “simple” steps:
1. Precreate the account in AD DS.

2. Send the relevant state information that the domain-joining computer needs to consume to a text file.

3. The computer consumes the information in the text file, and then when it starts it is joined to the domain.

For more information, you can consult the step-by-step provided from Microsoft’s Technet website:
Microsoft Technet – Offline Domain Join: Step-by-Step Guide