Windows7 Evangelist

Real-world usage data also suggests that the popularity of multicore CPUs will soon hit critical mass for developers

Windows 7 will drive the average PC RAM capacity to 4GB in the next 18 months. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the exo.performance.network who are monitoring the ramp-up to Windows 7’s launch on October 22. After evaluating data collected from early adopters of the Windows 7 RTM code spread across several hundred IT sites, the xpnet.com team observed that nearly 50 percent sported memory capacities of 4GB or higher, with some reaching as high as 12GB.

The average of all Windows 7 PCs was 3.7GB, which is in stark contrast to Windows XP PCs, where the average RAM capacity (for all versions) hovers at just under 1.7GB. Windows 7 RAM installations also best Vista’s average of 2.7GB. In fact, the move from a Vista-centric world to one defined by Windows 7 will likely drive a jump in RAM capacity (by 33 percent) comparable to the one experienced during the transition from Windows XP to Vista (a jump of 37 percent in installed RAM).

[ Is your PC ready to run Windows 7? Find out by using InfoWorld's Windows Sentinel tool, which also lets you track performance and other aspects of your Windows PCs and servers. ]

Note: You can check out the latest data from the exo.repository by visiting InfoWorld’s Windows Pulse page. There you’ll find a collection of dynamic chart objects that provide a real-time view into data gathered from xpnet.com’s nearly 20,000 contributing members.

The bottom line: While much has been made about Windows 7’s supposedly reduced memory footprint, the reality is that a combination of Moore’s Law (as it applies to RAM density) and the harsh lessons of the Vista debacle are prompting customers to err on the side of caution and equip Windows 7 PCs with ample RAM out of the gate.

[ If the charts in this story are not visible, you can see them in the original story at InfoWorld.com. ]

Vista SP2 adoption risingThe adoption rate for Windows Vista Service Pack 2 ticked up a bit over the past few weeks. After lagging behind Service Pack 1 by a wide margin, SP2 is now gaining momentum, with nearly 20 percent of PCs reporting the newer service pack level. Meanwhile, the number of systems reporting SP1 installed dropped 2 percentage points (now 72 percent), as did the few laggards still running the Vista RTM release (now at just under 8 percent).

Given the breadth of bug fixes and performance enhancements provide by Vista SP2, including improvements to Bluetooth support and an improved wireless networking stack, xpnet.com researchers expect the adoption rate to climb steadily as IT shops finish internal testing and deploy it more widely. However, they also note that this trend may be tempered somewhat by the conversion of many long-term Vista deployment projects to Windows 7 when it becomes available.

Multicore pushes single-core into the minorityOne development the xpnet.com team has been watching closely is the transition from single- to multicore CPUs. Data from the exo.respository indicates that multicore is now the dominant CPU architecture, with fully 57 percent of the installed base sporting CPUs with two or more cores. This should signal the tipping point for application developers who have been waiting for the technology to reach critical mass before investing in additional multithreading development/multicore tuning for the core product lines. As InfoWorld’s tests show, Windows 7 is strongly poised to take advantage of multicore PCs, more so than XP and Vista.

Or how to make sure no one ever comes to a party you throw again. To promote Microsoft new operating system, Windows 7, the company is encouraging people to throw house parties for Windows 7.

It’s like Tupperware or Mary Kay, except you don’t earn a sales commission. You get afree “Party Pack,” with free party favors. And a chance to win a free PC.

Check out this groaner of a video below, first spotted by Neowin. It’s a how-to video on how to throw a Windows 7 party. This one features four people hanging around in a kitchen that appears to be in a giant suburban home on the Sammamish plateau.

“In a lot of ways, you’re just throwing a party with Windows 7 as an honored guest. Sounds easy. And it is,” one party organizer says. Tips include organizing demos of Windows 7 features and asking your guests to try out the features.

Hosts can apply to throw parties at http://houseparty.com/windows7usa.

It has to be seen to be believed.

Urges users to run single-click tool before hackers exploit ‘decently wormable’ flaw

With attack code that exploits a critical unpatched bug in Windows likely to go public soon, Microsoft wants users to run an automated tool that disables the vulnerable component.

The bug in SMB (Server Message Block) 2, a Microsoft-made network file- and print-sharing protocol that ships with Windows, affects Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and preview releases of Windows 7.

When the flaw was first disclosed Sept. 7, it was thought that attacks would only crash PCs, causing the notorious Blue Screen of Death. Since then, however, researchers have figured out how to create exploits that can be used to hijack a vulnerable computer.

Last Wednesday, Miami Beach-based Immunity, which is best known for its CANVAS penetration testing framework, built a working remote code exploit, and released it to paying subscribers of its Early Updates program.

On Friday, Microsoft confirmed that Immunity’s exploit worked as advertised. “We have analyzed the code ourselves and can confirm that it works reliably against 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 systems,” said Mark Wodrich and Jonathan Ness, both members of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) engineering team, on a company blog. “The exploit gains complete control of the targeted system and can be launched by an unauthenticated user.”

More worrisome, however, was news that the open-source Metasploit pen-testing software will add attack code this week, according to HD Moore, a noted security researcher and one of Metasploit’s makers. Metasploit’s exploit code is often used by hackers to build malicious attacks.

According to Kostya Kortchinsky, an Immunity researcher who worked on the CANVAS attack module, the SMB 2 vulnerability is “decently wormable.”

That prompted Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer for security company Qualys, to implore Windows users to immediately deploy Microsoft’s defensive measure. “The implementation of this workaround is now becoming critical as attackers will have access to the code soon, in the most optimistic case next week,” said Kandek on Wednesday.

Microsoft has not yet set a timetable for a patch, but said it is working on a fix. “We’re not slowing down our investigation, and are working on an update that can be delivered for all customers,” said Wodrich and Ness. “The product team has built packages and [is] hard-at-work testing now to ensure quality.”

Until a patch is ready, Microsoft recommended that users run the automated “Fix it” tool posted Friday on its support site. The tool automatically disables the SMB 2 service, rendering any attack moot. That, however, also makes it impossible for PCs to communicate to file servers and network printers using the protocol.

Microsoft has used “Fix it” tools several times this summer to help customers protect their machines until it can create and thoroughly test patches. The last time it delivered such a tool was in early July, when it issued a “Fix it” to stymie attacks against Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and IE7.

The company’s next scheduled patch day is Oct. 13, more than three weeks away, but in rare cases, Microsoft releases “out-of-band” updates, usually when it sees attacks actually under way.

So far, it hasn’t found any. “We are not aware of any in-the-wild exploits or any real-world attacks,” said Wodrich and Ness.

Windows Vista, Windows 2008 and Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC), the preliminary build that was handed out to millions from early May to late August, contain the SMB 2 flaw and are vulnerable to attack. Older editions, such as Windows XP, and the final version of Windows 7, dubbed RTM for “release to manufacturing,” are not at risk.

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) took on rival Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) head on this week in the education market with a special offer for students to purchase Windows 7 for $30, about the same price as Apple’s competing Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Microsoft is promoting the offer, which runs through January 3, 2010, on a special Win741.com Web site, where students can buy the upcoming operating system as long as they provide a valid student e-mail address. The offer applies to Home Premium and Professional versions of Windows 7.

The Windows 7 special offer comes as Apple makes a push to grab share from Microsoft with Snow Leopard pricing aimed at undercutting Microsoft for the first time ever. Indeed, Apple, which released Snow Leopard on August 28, has gone to great lengths to price its products at a premium compared to Microsoft. Nevertheless, here are five reasons why Windows 7 is a better deal for students than Snow Leopard.

1. Windows-based Systems Provide A Better Value: Even if Apple gives Snow Leopard away for free, it can’t even come close to the value of systems that will be outfitted with Windows 7. Do the head-to-head price comparison and you’ll regularly find Apple systems priced at more than double a comparable Windows based system.

An Apple 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook with a 13.3 inch display running Snow Leopard is priced by discounters at about $1,179. A Toshiba Satellite Core 2 Duo system is priced at $549. Do you really think in the midst of the current economic squeeze most working Americans are experiencing that Apple is worth a 100 percent premium? Not in my check book.

2. Windows 7 Will Be Used By Businesses. Snow Leopard Is A Sideshow: Like it or not, Windows has a 90 percent share of the market. It is absolutely the operating system of choice for businesses. Windows 7 does business. Apple Snow Leopard does artists and kids. Apple is a blip on the screen in the global market. Schools that are embracing Apple are doing kids a disservice, as they are likely to be working on a Windows machine when they graduate to the real world.

3. Windows 7 Is Playing Nice With Open Source. Snow Leopard Is Not: Microsoft has changed its tune on open source, and that’s an advantage for students compared with Apple’s proprietary stand.

Australia, for example, is rolling out 70,000 Windows 7-enabled Lenovo IdeaPad S10e for high school students. And believe it or not Australia’s Department of Education has confirmed that the devices will be pre-installed with a variety of open-source software including GeoGebra, Dia, Audacity, Freemind and MuseScore.

Microsoft has changed its stance on open-source software, and that’s an advantage for students. Apple is all about a closed proprietary environment and will never open up Snow Leopard to support open source.

4. Windows 7 Has More And Better Application Support Than Snow Leopard: It’s about the applications, stupid. There are tens of thousands of education solutions built on top of Windows compared with hundreds for Apple. And the fact is the applications of the future are going to be designed for Windows — NOT Snow Leopard.

Developers build products first and foremost for the biggest markets. That’s how they make their money. Microsoft has built a huge infrastructure up to nurture and support these education developers. Apple simply can’t compete when it comes to providing developers the support they need to deliver the education solutions of the future.

A computer is a computer. Applications are what computing is all about. And Microsoft is an applications company. Apple, by the way, is an entertainment company. As a parent, which would you choose as the platform of choice for your child?

5. Windows 7 Has Stronger Education Solution Provider Support Than Snow Leopard: Apple blew its chance to take a bigger share of the education market 20 years ago with its shabby treatment of a once-loyal solution provider channel. Today, Microsoft has tens of thousands of solution providers delivering real-world solutions to the thousands of school districts in this country.

Remember, a computer is a computer. It’s all about building solution and services that make those students smarter and more productive. That’s what solution providers do. Do you really think the Apple Store cares whether your child gets a good education? And, yes, solution providers that have got to deliver educational value to stay in business do care.

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) continues to set the stage for next month’s general availability of Windows 7, accelerating the availability of toolkits to spur adoption of the next-generation desktop operating system and hyping the success of early deployments.

Monday Microsoft said it would release its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2009 R2 late next month to help organizations migrate to the upcoming Windows 7 — right around the Oct. 22 scheduled availability of Windows 7 and much earlier than the original release date of early 2010.

The company also released information about several early Windows 7 deployments the company said demonstrated the total cost of ownership (TCO) advantages of implementing Windows 7.

Last week Microsoft released the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, a “solution accelerator” that IT managers will use to deploy Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. A release candidate of the toolkit debuted in August, but the final version was not expected until after the Oct. 22 rollout of Windows 7.

Microsoft’s overall message: We’re not waiting and neither should you.

MDOP 2009 R2 will help IT managers migrate desktops from older versions of Windows such as XP and Vista to Windows 7 and deploy applications on the new desktop OS. It will include tools for application virtualization, advanced group policy management and governance, diagnostics and recovery, and desktop error monitoring, said Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft senior director of Windows product management, in an interview.

Schuster also posted a blog Monday about the MDOP toolkit plans in which she called MDOP “an essential part of your Windows 7 planning and deployment strategy.”

The one item MDOP 2009 R2 will not immediately offer for Windows 7 is Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) which is slated for the first calendar quarter of 2010.

Microsoft made Windows 7 available on Aug. 7 to its volume license customers who subscribe to Software Assurance and the vendor is starting to promote the results of those early customer deployments.

Early adopters include Baker Tilly, a professional services company in the U.K.; Getronics, an IT services company in the Netherlands; and the City of Miami in the U.S.

Based on the experience of those and other companies, Microsoft said adoption of Windows 7 could reduce IT labor costs between 10 and 20 percent or between $70 and $160 per PC annually. Baker Tilly is already realizing PC management cost savings of 18 percent, said Ward Ralston, group product manager for the Windows Server Division, in an interview.

Ralston also said that Miami is realizing the power savings equivalent of $54 per PC per year using Windows 7.

MIcrosoft says some “in-place” upgrades from Windows Vista to the new Windows 7 may take some users more than 20 hours to complete. Yes, 20 hours.

Microsoft said Friday that some “in-place” upgrades from Windows Vista to the new Windows 7 may take some users over 20 hours to complete.

The best that users can hope for is a 1 hour and 24 minute process, said Chris Hernandez, who works in the Windows deployment team, in a company blog published Friday.

So-called “clean” installs, where the user overwrites an existing edition of Windows to end up with the OS, but no former data or applications, take less time: from 27 to 46 minutes.

Hernandez said the in-place upgrade times were obtained from lab machines in three different configurations — labeled low, mid-range and high-end — with three simulated users: a medium user, a heavy user and a super user. The profiles differed in the amount of data and the number of applications that were on the PC before the upgrade to Windows 7.

The medium user profile, for example, assumed 70GB of data and 20 applications; the super user profile, on the other hand, contained 650GB of data and 40 applications.

“One of the main goals with Windows 7 in general has been to be better than Vista,” explained Hernandez on the blog. “As part of the Windows Upgrade team we have tracked Windows 7 upgrade performance using Vista as our baseline comparison.”

Microsoft’s goal, he added, was to make an in-place upgrade from Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to Windows 7 at least 5% faster than an in-place upgrade from Vista SP1 to a new copy of Vista SP1.

Hernandez claimed Microsoft’s testing showed, “that Windows 7 upgrade time is faster or equal within a 5% threshold to the Vista SP1 upgrade time.” A table published in his blog post showed that in every situation, a Windows 7 upgrade was more than 5% faster than one using Vista.

But the data also illustrated that many of the in-place upgrade scenarios took an extremely long time. Of the 16 scenarios — three each for medium and heavy profiles, two for the super profile, with the tests run for both the 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 — only four clocked in at less than two hours, and only eight in under three hours.

The speed record, according to Microsoft’s testing, was the medium user profile upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit on a high-end PC, at just under 84 minutes.

But most of the in-place upgrades couldn’t come close to that mark. The slowest 32-bit upgrade, for instance, was a super user on a medium machine — Microsoft didn’t bother testing that profile on a low-end system — that crossed the tape at an amazing 20 hours and 15 minutes. The longest 64-bit upgrade was 10 hours, 8 minutes.

Those times sparked Hernandez to defend the time trials, which some reports had categorized as taking almost a full day. “The ’super user’ profile is not a normal user; rather, it’s the user profile that represents the extreme power-user who’s working with an enormous data set and a large number of installed applications,” said Hernandez. “This user profile is not representative of what most ‘regular’ users, who typically have a much smaller data set and would therefore experience a much, much shorter upgrade time.”

Even so, Microsoft’s data showed that so-called “medium” users, those with 70GB of data and 20 applications — would spend between 1 hour and 40 minutes and 2 hours 50 minutes doing a 32-bit upgrade. (The more powerful the PC, the faster the upgrade, according to Microsoft.) Heavy users, which Microsoft posed as people with 125GB of data and 40 applications, would need between 2 hours and 40 minutes and 5 hours and 43 minutes to do the same upgrade.

Clean installs, on the other hand, were much faster, not surprisingly since no data or applications were retained. A clean 32-bit upgrade took between 27 and 39 minutes, while a clean 64-bit upgrade clocked in at between 30 and 47 minutes.

Those marks, of course, do not account for the time a user would spend restoring previously-backed up data and various settings, and re-installing applications.

Microsoft did not test Windows XP-to-Windows 7 upgrades , even though a clean install is the only upgrade path between those two operating systems. But users who start with XP and migrate to Windows 7 should expect times similar to the “clean” scenario Microsoft benchmarked. Again, those times will not include restore data and settings, or re-installing applications; the latter can be a laborious process, with some major programs, such as Microsoft Office, taking as nearly as long as the operating system to re-install.

For clean upgrades, users — those beginning with either Windows XP or Vista — can use the Windows Easy Transfer utility that comes on the Windows 7 DVD to help them back up and restore settings and data.

How much will netbooks dent Microsoft’s Windows sales?

It’s a question that continues to preoccupy many a Wall Street analyst, especially as Microsoft marches toward the October 22 launch of Windows 7. No matter how many times Microsoft officials claim that they believe the company will be able to charge premium prices for Windows 7, even on netbooks, Microsoft watchers ask again about just how elastic Windows’ pricing really can be, given that netbooks go for a few hundred dollars.

On September 9, the netbook question arose again during a question and answer session with Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell at the Citi Annual Global Technology Conference. Analysts asked Liddell the same-old: When Bing will actually give Google a run for its money; whether Microsoft would be able to continue to control costs; whether and when Microsoft will do stock buybacks (yes and in the coming months, Liddell said).

But analysts seemed most interested in the netbook issue. How can Microsoft predict that the continued popularity of netbooks, which comprise a fifth of the portable PC market (according to a recent market study), isn’t going to force Microsoft to charge less per copy of Windows, rather than more?

As expected, Liddell didn’t share details about how much Microsoft is planning to charge PC makers per copy for Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Premium, the main two SKUs expected to show up on low-end netbooks. (Word is Microsoft charges about $15 per copy for XP on netbooks.) But he did share more about why he said he isn’t worried about potential price erosion with Windows 7.

First, Liddell said that he believes netbooks, as a category, are “maturing.” They aren’t topped out yet and, according to Microsoft’s calculations, represent about 10 percent to 15 percent of the overall PC market. But they are likely to grow a percentage point or two higher, at most, he told Citi conference attendees.

Secondly, Microsoft is planning to continue to offer PC makers the option of licensing Windows XP “for a period of time,” as well, he said. That could appease the makers of some of the lowest price-point netbooks, at least for the time being. (Microsoft has said that OEMs will be able to license XP Home edition through June 2010 or one year after general availability of Win7, which I’m assuming means October 2010.)

Liddell reiterated Microsoft’s claim that 92 percent to 93 percent of netbooks are now going out with Windows XP, not Linux, attached. He said that proves that people are willing to pay at retail a premium of $30 to $40 per copy for “the Windows experience,” even when offered an alternative that is free. He acknowledged Microsoft won’t ever get to the 100 percent preload “attach” with netbooks, but even in the bargain segment, there is a group of people willing to pay for the familiar Windows experience — especially those netbook users who care more about the small form-factor benefits than the cut-rate price tags.

How Microsoft thinks about the actual cost of Windows was the part of Liddell’s remarks I found most interesting.

While Microsoft charges multiple hundreds of dollars for a new copy of Windows, Liddell said the actual cost is $15. Here’s how he calculated that number: The average selling price for Windows (when figured across all versions) is $60 per copy, he said. The average user sticks with a particular version of Windows for four years. So the cost of Windows isn’t really $249 or even $99. It’s $60 divided by four, or $15 for a “one year experience.” And if you compare $15 to the cost of having to learn a new OS or port your apps to a new platform, Windows looks downright cheap, Liddell said.

Hmmm. I’m not really buying Liddell’s new math. It’ll be interesting to see if any company watchers are finally appeased by his netbook assurances. Are you?

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3877

Generally speaking, operating systems all travel down a similar development route. This is determined by the world around us, technology, trends and security. There’s also been the convergence of operating systems. In the last few years Linux has become more like Windows and Windows, in turn, has become more like OS X.

All operating systems these days are extremely similar, not only because their roots can all be traced back to Xerox, but because departing too far from the ‘interface norm’ is commercial suicide.

We’ve not had any operating system that was genuinely different since Windows 95, which is why it received such an unprecedented amount of press at the time. However Windows 7 and OS X Snow Leopard are so incredibly similar now that it can be argued you can no longer compare them to each other. Let me explain why.

Obviously there are differences. Each OS handles things in a different way to its competitors, this is for commercial as much as other reasons, to avoid litigation when the OS is released. The OS writers also want to be able to set their OS apart from their competitors by taking the features the other side use and making them just a little bit better.

But this is where the problem lies. Various features in Windows 7 are ‘just a little bit better’ than the comparable features in OS X Snow Leopard and vice-versa. There’s no real innovation any more, it’s all about taking what we’re comfortable with and tweaking it.

Obviously there are attempts at innovation, multi-touch technology in Windows 7 for instance is in all probability doomed to fail. There are also implementations of new technologies wrapped up as innovation when in fact they’re nothing of the sort. All they are is fancy ways of utilising improvements in technologies we didn’t have a couple of years ago to help us do things we’re already doing, just a little bit better. Homegroup and Time Machine are examples of this.

If you now look at the tweaks that Microsoft and Apple are making to their operating systems it’s clear that what they’re trying to do now is make their operating systems better for the people who are already using them, to try and convince them to upgrade and keep their revenue streams up. Operating systems are now, clearly, written to keep existing users on board above anything else. They’re written for their own little eco-system.

The fact that the operating systems are all so similar gives them an added opportunity to try and steal customers from the other side, but all they’re really able to say is “our operating system is just a little bit better in some areas than theirs is”. People won’t switch though because they like comfortable, and switching isn’t comfortable.

I’m a PC (if the marketing hype is to be believed) but I fancy the Mac. The problem is that I’m locked into an eco-system now and the reasons to move to Apple hardware just aren’t compelling enough because, firstly, the differences just aren’t that great any more but also and most importantly, because I don’t believe I’m the type of person Apple are marketing their operating system to any more.

Microsoft has launched a Windows 7 sweepstakes on Twitter. Throughout the next seven weeks, @mswindows will be giving away various types of prizes somehow based on the number seven (seven pizzas, seven pounds of candy, and so on). The whole thing ends on October 22, 2009, when Windows 7 becomes generally available.

The sweepstakes is, however, US-only: you must be a legal resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia, and be 18 years of age or older. It is void outside the US and wherever else prohibited by law. To participate, all you have to do is follow @mswindows on Twitter and respond to the challenges presented to you with the #WinWin7 hash tag. If you are confirmed as a winner of one of the prizes (you will be notified via a direct message), there are five points from the official rules you have to keep in mind:

* You may not exchange your prize for cash or any other merchandise or services. However, if for any reason an advertised prize is unavailable, Microsoft reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value; and
* You may not designate someone else as the winner. If you are unable or unwilling to accept your prize, Microsoft may award it to a runner up; and
* If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize; and
* If you are otherwise eligible for this sweepstakes, but are considered a minor in your place of residence, Microsoft may award the prize to your parent/legal guardian on your behalf; and
* Unless otherwise noted, all prizes are subject to their manufacturer’s warranty and / or terms and conditions.

The obvious goal here is to promote and build hype around Windows 7, because after all, who doesn’t like free stuff? Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that it would be picking official hosts for local Windows 7 launch parties between October 22 and October 29. In return, hosts would receive a special Signature Edition of Windows 7 Ultimate and a Windows 7 Party Pack. There will likely be many more Windows 7 promotions like these two, and we’ll post about them once we see them.

Microsoft is finally going to take advantage of the best form of advertising for the next release of Windows: word of mouth. The world’s largest software maker has partnered with House Party, apparently the world’s leading party organizer, to encourage technology enthusiasts to throw Windows 7 launch parties in their communities between October 22 and October 29.

Microsoft won’t let just anyone host such a party though; the company is being very selective. If you’re interested in becoming an official host, there’s an application process you’ll have to go through over at houseparty.com/windows7. Furthermore, the offer is only open to residents of 12 countries: Australia, Italy, Canada, Japan, Mexico, France, Spain, Germany, the US, Hong Kong, the UK, and India.

Chosen hosts around the world will be among the first to see, use, and share Windows 7 with their friends, says Microsoft. If you’re selected as a host, you’ll receive a special Signature Edition of Windows 7 Ultimate. You’ll also get a Windows 7 Party Pack to share with your guests, based on one out of four themes that you choose from: PhotoPalooza, Media Mania, Setting up with Ease, or Family Friendly Fun. Party packs will be delivered by October 10, 2009.

• All hosts will receive:
  • One limited Signature Edition Windows 7 Ultimate
  • One Deck of Playing Cards with Windows 7 Desktop Design
  • One Puzzle with Windows 7 Desktop Design
  • One Poster with Windows 7 Desktop Design
  • Ten Tote Bags with Windows 7 Desktop Design for hosts and guests
• Also included in USA party packs:
  • One package of streamers for decoration
  • One package of balloons for decoration
  • One table top centerpiece for decoration
  • One package of Windows 7 napkins

US residents will also be entered for a chance to win a $750 mini-notebook computer. A total of 64 winners will be notified once all the parties are over (after October 30, 2009).

The first step of the application process is simple: you have to tell Microsoft about yourself, how the company can contact you, where to send the Party Pack, and finally pick a screen name and password (for checking the status of your application). After that, you have to confirm that “by applying for a host spot, you are agreeing to conduct yourself in the spirit of House Party—sharing a product you love with the people you love, through an experience that is fun, free, and exclusive” and that you will abide to five rules:

1. Submit only one application per household (per party)
2. Answer all questions accurately
3. Plan and host the best party you can
4. Share your party package with your guests, as intended
5. Not attempt to obtain extra party packages

Once you’ve agreed to all that, you have to answer six more questions (are you really surprised there are seven in total?). One of the questions of the survey is worth noting as it asks the participant what they are willing to do for the party. As such, it’s clear what Microsoft will ask from party hosts:

• Host a party on any day between October 22 through October 29th, featuring Windows 7 Ultimate Operating System
• Invite at least 10 guests to join you
• Use a free party website to plan your party, invite guests, upload photos, read and post to a party blog, etc.
• Fill out an online survey after the party has happened

The second last step is to confirm a legal agreement, and then bam, you’ll get a confirmation e-mail. You must then finalize the application by clicking a link. Now the rest is up to Microsoft and all you have left to do is frequently check the status of your application.

Microsoft has not disclosed how many hosts it plans to pick, but the website does insist that “host spaces are very limited.” If this is the type of party you want to host, then by all means, hurry up and apply!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be kicking off the official Windows 7 launch at an event in New York City on October 22, 2009, the day of Windows 7’s general availability. It looks like Microsoft wants to turn what is normally a single launch day, into a launch week. Since the beginning of 2009, the media has been praising Windows 7, and Redmond obviously wants to keep that momentum going strong.