Windows 7

Latest Windows 7 News

First Screenshots Of Windows 7 Build 7068 Appear

A Japanese blogger has posted first screenshots of the latest Windows 7 release with the build number 7068 and the build string 7068.winmain.090321-1322. The blog post itself does not contain additional information about that build which could possibly be attributed to the translation engine as the blog post is written in Japanese.
The three screenshots show [...]

27Mar2009 | Martin | 2 comments | Continued

Microsoft Locks Mpeg4 H264 Codecs In Windows 7

Windows 7 will support various popular multimedia codecs like Mpeg4, H.264 or AAC out of the box which reduces the codec finding troubles that some users experience when trying to play certain multimedia files in the Windows operating system. A Directshow developer for the ffdshow tryouts application took a closer look at how Windows 7 [...]

27Mar2009 | Martin | 2 comments | Continued

Technet Publishes Windows 7 RC Information Accidentally

A very observant Neowin user discovered the change of the official Windows 7 Beta Customer Preview page. The page contents were changed to contain information about the Windows 7 Release Candidate release prematurely. Microsoft has since then discovered the blunder and restored the old page but not before the information that it contained made its [...]

26Mar2009 | Martin | 2 comments | Continued

Gartner: Windows 7 SP1 Not Needed For Deployment

One of the major problems that Microsoft did encounter after the release of Windows Vista was that many companies that wanted to switch to the new Microsoft operating system decided to wait until the first service pack for the operating system was released before starting the deployment phase.
Business researchers at Gartner published a paper [...]

26Mar2009 | Martin | 1 comment | Continued

DirectX 11 Technical Preview For Windows 7

A lot of buzz surrounds the upcoming release of DirectX 11, a collection of application programming interface for the Microsoft Windows platform which was first announced at last year’s Gamefest event in Seattle (read DirectX 11 confirmed). The beta of Windows 7 was already released with DirectX 11 albeit a technical preview and not the [...]

25Mar2009 | Martin | 8 comments | Continued

Windows 7 Expected To Increase SSD Demand

Solid State Drives - SSD - provide several benefits to platter based hard drives including better shock resistance, faster access times and silence. They are still pretty expensive especially when it comes to Solid State Drives with larger capacities or above average performance. This is most likely going to change in the future according to [...]

24Mar2009 | Martin | 10 comments | Continued

Software That Did Not Make It

If you compare previous installations of the Microsoft Windows operating system like Windows XP or Windows Vista with the soon to be released Windows 7 you notice that several software programs and applications have been removed from the latter. APC Mag is running a rather short but informative post about some of the programs that [...]

23Mar2009 | Martin | 10 comments | Continued

Master List Of Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows 7 has introduced a lot of new keyboard shortcuts for those of us who prefer to use keyboards to mice for speed. Martin has already listed some shortcuts here, but I will keep this post updated with all Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts, so keep checking back for new Windows 7 Keyboard Shortcuts.
If you have [...]

22Mar2009 | Everton | 7 comments | Continued

Windows 7 Tweaks

There are a number of expert Windows 7 users who are now sharing their Windows 7 tweaks and mods with us mere mortals. Over at the Simple Thoughts site they have shared 12 Windows 7 Hacks.
Some of the 12 Windows 7 tweaks I don’t think are that useful, but here are the better ones in [...]

22Mar2009 | Everton | 8 comments | Continued

Windows 7 Logon Changer

Just a few days ago we mentioned that Windows 7 provides the means to change the logon background image without third party hacks or any other kind of system files manipulation as it was required in previous Microsoft Windows operating systems. The process had been primarily designed for the 

Class Data Sharing

Overview

Class data sharing (CDS) is a new feature in J2SE 5.0 intended to reduce the startup time for Java programming language applications, in particular smaller applications, as well as reduce footprint. When the JRE is installed on 32-bit platforms using the Sun provided installer, the installer loads a set of classes from the system jar file into a private internal representation, and dumps that representation to a file, called a "shared archive". Class data sharing is not supported in Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME. If the Sun JRE installer is not being used, this can be done manually, as explained below. During subsequent JVM invocations, the shared archive is memory-mapped in, saving the cost of loading those classes and allowing much of the JVM's metadata for these classes to be shared among multiple JVM processes.

In J2SE 5.0, class data sharing is supported only with the Java HotSpot Client VM, and only with the serial garbage collector.

The primary motivation for including CDS in the 5.0 release is the decrease in startup time it provides. CDS produces better results for smaller applications because it eliminates a fixed cost: that of loading certain core classes. The smaller the application relative to the number of core classes it uses, the larger the saved fraction of startup time.

The footprint cost of new JVM instances has been reduced in two ways. First, a portion of the shared archive, currently between five and six megabytes, is mapped read-only and therefore shared among multiple JVM processes. Previously this data was replicated in each JVM instance. Second, since the shared archive contains class data in the form in which the Java Hotspot VM uses it, the memory which would otherwise be required to access the original class information in rt.jar is not needed. These savings allow more applications to be run concurrently on the same machine. On Microsoft Windows, the footprint of a process, as measured by various tools, may appear to increase, because a larger number of pages are being mapped in to the process' address space. This is offset by the reduction in the amount of memory (inside Microsoft Windows) which is needed to hold portions on rt.jar. Reducing footprint remains a high priority.

File sharing's threat to agency data is growing, analysts say

By Gautham Nagesh, gnagesh@govexec.com 07/10/2008

The security breach that led to the loss of personal information for 800 clients of a Washington-area investment firm, including that of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, is becoming increasingly common in the federal government, according to a peer-to-peer intelligence company.

Comment on this article in The Forum.Justice Breyer was among those clients whose private information, including birth dates and Social Security numbers, was exposed by a security breach at Wagner Resource Group, an investment firm in McLean, Va., according to Chris Gormley, the chief operating officer at Tiversa, which monitors peer-to-peer networks for questionable material. Wagner hired the company to investigate the breach and to tighten security at the firm.

"This is happening literally to millions of people in our country," Gormley said. He praised Wagner for taking proactive steps to tighten security, saying the company was now doing more to prevent a serious theft than what most companies or government agencies do.

The breach occurred when an employee loaded the file-sharing program LimeWire onto his computer. Users download LimeWire and other peer-to-peer file-sharing programs to share files, most commonly music and movies, with other computer users. The software does not require them to access a central server to download files. Peer-to-peer software allows them to download files directly from other users' hard drives, but if a user hasn't properly configured the software, such as blocking access to files that may contain personal information on a hard drive, then anyone with the peer-to-peer software can access and copy personal files.

The recording industry has fought against peer-to-peer programs for years over who is legally responsible for the data that is shared.

Gormley said most users often are not aware that files they share can include all documents and files on their computer, not just music or movies, and do not understand the information they are making available to anyone logged on to the same peer-to-peer network. Stealing credit card numbers, health care information, industry secrets and trafficking in child pornography are some of the ways that criminals exploit peer-to-peer technology.

The government also has experienced significant problems with peer-to-peer file sharing. Last month at least 1,000 patients from Walter Reed Army Medical Center had their medical records and Social Security numbers compromised. At a hearing in July 2007, executives from Tiversa told the House Oversight Committee that military documents, including classified documents, were readily available for download on popular peer-to-peer networks.

"It hasn’t stopped despite the hearing," Gormley said about the classified documents. "You never expect to see classified documents out on networks open to the public. All you have to do is type in the right words. . . . Foreign governments are out there looking for it."

Peer-to-peer programs not only open up government data for theft, but also make it easy for users to exploit the computing resources of other users, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a security research group in Bethesda, Md. He said one large agency found that an employee had downloaded a peer-to-peer client onto a computer that had access to the agency’s data servers. The security center noticed a spike in traffic to one server and learned that the agency had become one of the largest suppliers of child pornography in the nation.

"It’s a two-sided problem," Paller said. "You open your data up for others to see and you open your computers up for others to use."

Peer-to-peer theft is increasing because agencies and companies are relying more on virtualization and telework and are outsourcing work to contractors. "When they work from home, people do whatever they want," Gormley said. "They’re not under the IT [department’s] watch."

For example, in a case cited at the House hearing, the chief privacy officer at the Transportation Department exposed sensitive information through a peer-to-peer application while working from home. Gormley said agencies should have security policies that make users aware of the risks of using file-sharing programs on computers they use for telework.

The trend to outsource more government work also has led to more security breaches. “More outsourcing means trusting a third party with the data," Gormley said. "Forty to 60 percent of breaches are from a third party. Smaller organizations don’t have the kind of IT oversight that bigger companies have. For most companies, these organizations are the weak links in the chain."

Phil Neray, vice president of marketing at database security company Guardium, said the best practice agencies can take is to establish policies regarding the use of file-sharing clients, instant messaging programs and other peer-to-peer technologies. "The vast majority of cases are not people with malicious intent. People are not being very careful and are not being told what the policy is,” Neray said.

He said programs such as LimeWire rarely have any use for the office, and workers should be informed about what is and isn’t permissible to download onto their office computer. He also said an agency's technology office should monitor content to watch out for peer-to-peer traffic and unusually high traffic to sensitive data.

"You need three things: people, process and technology," Neray said. "Educate the people about what’s not acceptable, have a process and policies in place to deal with it, and technology to enforce the policies. If you only implement one of the three, you’re not going to be effective in preventing unauthorized behavior."