Windows 7 In The News - A Month After Launch

Windows 7 has been out for a month now and most everyone agrees that it's an improvement over Vista.  As for testing with Windows 7, it looks like there's more to this new version of Windows than simply a better implementation of Vista.  Aside from the security issues described in the links below, and the fact that the federal government cannot use Windows 7 yet, there are some pretty interesting unknowns.  The two that impressed me most were the hidden tool for examining energy usage (might be useful during testing) and the way it handles crashes - Windows 7 actually modifies how it allocates memory after several crashes, which would affect how reproducible a bug might be.  See if you agree:

In an inauspicious beginning to the week, the first zero-day bug for Windows 7 has emerged. The bug touches on Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB) program -- specifically, SMBv1 and SMBv2 on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft has issued a security advisory describing workarounds, but says most users would be protected from attacks by blocking two ports at the firewall. Windows 7 Gets Its First Bug

Windows 7 has a hidden tool that will help you by examining your energy use and suggesting what you can do in order to improve it. To get a power efficiency report, Computerworld’s Preston Gralla provided the following steps... Tips and Tricks for Windows 7

If an application crashes a few times, Windows will automatically apply a shim that intercepts its memory operations. FTH will over-allocate memory, and keep a copy of freed memory so that attempts to re-read it will succeed. Windows 7's dirty secrets revealed

More than a dozen federal agencies, including the White House and all branches of the military, are testing Windows 7, according to Microsoft. But it may be another six months before agencies can move ahead with Windows 7 deployment because a government-mandated security standard hasn't been finalized. Government Use Of Windows 7 Hinges On Security Spec

Spotty support for networked all-in-one printers in particular may be a testing, QA, and certification issue; some notebook drivers aren't yet available either. Windows 7's Spotty Driver Support

Last week, security vendor Sophos published a blog post in which it said that Windows 7 was vulnerable to 8 our of 10 of the most common viruses. Microsoft has responded to these test results, which are a classic case of "scare 'm and they'll fall in line". Microsoft: Sophos Windows 7 Malware Test 'Sensationalised'