Did you miss the Windows 7 New Efficiency launch event in your city? Or did the launch events not visit your city? As I mentioned in an earlier post, our team is brining several events to cities around the central US. We call this TechNet & MSDN Events Present: Highlights from “The New Efficiency” Launch.

The Lineup
Join us as we explore how Windows® 7, Windows Server® 2008 R2 and Exchange Server® 2010 deliver on the new efficiency where cost savings, productivity and innovations come together. At this free event we’ll cover the best of the sessions and deliver highlights from “The New Efficiency” Launch events that have been taking place nationwide over the past several weeks.

Attend one of our best of events and learn more about these new products:

• Windows 7 simplifies everyday tasks, improves productivity and works the way you want.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 delivers new functionality and powerful improvements to the core Windows Server operating system to help organizations increase control, availability, and flexibility for their changing business needs. 
• Exchange Server 2010 achieves new levels of reliability, reduces cost and drives productivity.

The Cities
We're coming to a city near you. More importantly, we're coming to some cities we haven't traditionally been able to visit, like Tulsa, Omaha, Des Moines and Louisville.

• Des Moines, IA on 11/11/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Indianapolis, IN on 11/12/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Louisville, KY on 12/2/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Omaha, NE on 12/3/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Mason, OH on 12/3/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Columbus, OH on 12/8/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Austin, TX on 12/8/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Tulsa, OK on 12/9/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers
• Franklin, TN on 12/10/2009 – for IT professionals and for developers

The Prizes!
To tantalize you some more, we're offering some pretty amazing prizes this tour. Rather that dip into our usual bag of giveaways (books and mice), or should I say in addition to our usual bag, we're bringing some big prizes to the table to celebrate the release of Windows 7!

• Dell Mini 10 netbook (your very own netbook, complete with Windows 7 Ultimate)
• Zune HD 32GB (I have one, and this thing is just gorgeous)
• Halo 3 ODST for Xbox 360
• Windows 7 Inside Out (for the TechNet events)
• Introducing Windows 7 for Developers (for the MSDN events)

Please join us!

Well, I'm a bit behind on writing the post on this, but I did successfully scrub and install Windows 7 Ultimate RTM on my home PC as well.

One More Testimonial
The core OS install took only ~30 minutes, faster than the laptops. That's to be expected, though. My home PC is a Dell XPS 430 (yes, I am a Dell fan). It's a bit more powerful than the laptops, since I use it for more than just email and surfing the internet. So that makes three full Windows 7 installs in perhaps 2 hours over 2 days. Granted that was just the core OS (which is all the kid's laptop needed); installing Office 2007 from disc plus the SP1 and SP2 downloads over Windows Update did take a bit longer. But the core OS on all three machines was up and running and fully functional in short order.

Impressive Moments
Here's what really impressed me about the Windows 7 experience on my home PC. Every device driver with the exception of one worked out of the box from the base install. The one missing device Driver was a newer-model wireless adapter. I popped in the disc, then everything was back on track. Once wireless was configured and running, Windows Update did some amazing things. It recognized that I had more than just a basic mouse and keyboard, for example, and pulled down the latest IntelliPoint and IntelliType drivers. It also updated my ATI graphics card and pulled down some other hardware updates in addition to the usual slate of security updates. It also allowed me to optionally download Silverlight v3.0 as well as Windows Live Essentials. These downloads took about 30 minutes to stream down over my DSL line and install, but I went from bare metal to ready-to-go in about an hour.

The Next Steps Take the Longest
So the next steps were to install that HP printer again (worked just the same as last time), install Office 2007 and updates (that took about 90 minutes total, between the fast base install and downloading perhaps 1GB of updates – which included two service packs), install Nero 9, Norton Internet Security, Quicken 2010, Zune, and a handful of other applications, utilities, and games. All of this took another 3 or so hours total, stuffing discs through the drive and installing downloaded EXE packages. So I went from Windows 7 RC to completely ready to go on Windows 7 RTM in about four hours.

Not Quite Done
To be completely honest, I am not 100% done. I still need to install some utilities, but life got in the way (Halloween vacation trip to Memphis to see family and a Geocaching tour of Tennessee and Arkansas on the drive home). I anticipate getting those knocked out this week and I speculate they will take less than an hour to polish off. Unless life gets in the way again (meaning Dragon Age: Origins, which released yesterday).

Our new advertising campaign rolled out last week. And I'm not just saying this as an employee or a fan boy, but I really like the extension of the "I'm a PC" campaign. You see, with Windows 7 we worked with customers, partners, and software vendors through the development, Beta, and RC phases of development, incorporating feedback and fine-tuning the OS. This is an OS built for you. It's fast and responsive, it has sleek lines, and it's ergonomic and easy to use. It's kind of like a sports car.

This ad captures the spirit of what I'm saying better than I could ever do:

This ad highlights feedback from customers and consumers from several walks of life – and some Microsoft engineers committing to implement the requests. And implement them they did. It's a great OS, better than Vista _and_ XP. Windows 7 is faster than both, most applications just work, and it's more secure. There are something like one billion PC users out there, and, as the ad says, 1 billion = 7. Your feedback crafted this finely tuned performance vehicle.

You don't believe me? Well...

On A More Personal Note... Three Windows 7 Testimonials
Story #1 – I recently got a new printer. It's a fancy Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet CM2320fxi MFP. When I set it up I had my primary system running Windows 7 RC and another system running Windows Vista. The HP software required administrator rights. Easy with Windows 7: right-click the install executable and select run as Administrator. The install ran through perfectly and the printer just worked – duplex printing, remote scan over a wireless network, and remote fax. All-in-all a great experience. Although I got most of it (but not remote scan) working on the Vista system (now replaced by Windows 7; see story #3 below), it took a few more hoops: compatibility mode, administrator mode, and a few other tweaks. It worked, but it was more of a hassle. Windows 7? Just worked.

Story #2 – At work, I upgraded to the RTM bits only a few weeks ago, in September after finishing up our internal employee review cycle. I didn't want to disrupt my productivity so I held off. As it turns out, I didn't need to wait. I used Remote Installation Services (RIS; a component of Windows Server 2003+ that allows IT administrators to create install images). Our IT Windows 7 64bit image laid down Windows 7, Windows Live, Office 2007, and several corporate tools in about an hour. In another hour I had all my utilities installed *and* configured. Another hour after that I downloaded and installed a couple of other, not as essential applications. In literally three hours – though I was actually done in two – installation via RIS (with the help of Live Mesh) I was up and running again. Not to dog on Vista (which it kind of sounds like I'm doing), but the last time I did that with Vista it took the better part of a full day.

Story #3 – Back at home – just last night, in fact – I upgraded my wife's and kid's computers to the final bits, Windows 7 Ultimate purchased from the company store and delivered via UPS yesterday. Using the 64bit disc, I went from FDISK on the primary partition to running on both systems (both flavors of the Dell Inspiron laptop) in less than a half an hour. Every single hardware device was found and configured during install. Both came in with a 3.4 Windows Experience Rating, a slight increase over the RC (up from 3.2 and 3.3 between the pair) and a nice increase from Windows Vista (both around 3.0 out-of-the-box). In all transparency I did the installs in parallel, but still – two systems up and running in ~30 minutes is impressive. My third copy of Windows 7 Ultimate arrived today, and I'll be upgrading my XPS desktop. I expect another speedy install.

What Are You Waiting For?
If you haven't taken a look at Windows 7, you should. I'm a PC. You should be one, too. After all... It was built for you.

The fine folks at php|Architect are hosting a contest. A contest with a great prize. All you need to do is build a PHP application on the Windows platform, submit your application, and you will have a chance to win a complete 52" HDTV home entertainment system and have the opportunity to present your creation to the crowd at php|tek 2010 in Chicago with an all-expenses paid trip.

What? A free HDTV rig? What do I need to do?
It's pretty simple. All you need to do is create a PHP application optimized to run on Windows and the IIS platform from scratch – or leverage existing open-source libraries and applications – to create something new, unique, and useful. It can be anything from a new or enhanced blogs engine, forum, or photo gallery application to other platforms or componentizable parts. All you need to do is register for the contest and submit your application between by February 28th, 2010.

The best application, as selected jointly by a panel of experts and by the readers of php|Architect, will win a grand prize: a 52" Digital HD home entertainment system, as well as that all-expenses paid trip to php|tek 2010 next Spring. Runner-up prizes include Xbox 360s and subscriptions to php|architect.

What's the catch?
Good question, and there is a key catch. This contest is open to residents of the United States only. Read the full rules for the full spectrum of guidelines and legalese. The key one is this is only open to US residents.

So, that should help you steer your efforts. Maximize the points in each of the criterium – and snag some bonus points for clever use of storage or client technologies – and you will set yourself up to win. The contest offers free hosting (thank you, Applied Innovations).

What are you waiting for? Go give it a try.

Next Monday, October 26th, my colleagues on the West Coast will be hosting the San Diego New Efficiency Launch. We know that not everyone has been able to attend the launch events in person – either they weren't held in your city (which we're working on here in good old Central US) or you weren't available on the day they were held. Fortunately the fine folks out West are also hosting their San Diego event online!

So, if you missed the launch, you can view and download 18 IT Professional and Developer focused sessions live from the San Diego launch event starting at 9am PDT October 26th. Focusing on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Exchange Server 2010, you can listen to Microsoft experts, download valuable resources and explore the live launch event "virtually".

Mark your calendars now, and enjoy what my West Coast friends have to say.

Following the release of the .NET Framework v4 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 earlier this week, the latest CTP (community technology preview) of both IronPython and IronRuby are available on CodePlex. This is the third build of IronRuby and IronPython running on the Dynamic Language Runtime that is built directly into .NET 4.0; these releases are built to run on the .NET Framework v4 Beta 2.

As before, this release allows you to use IronPython and IronRuby objects and types as .NET 4.0 dynamic objects from within C# and Visual Basic code.

These releases are roughly equivalent to the functionality found in IronRuby 0.9 and IronPython 2.6.

One more nugget of training goodness I forgot to mention in my last post: the Channel 9 Learning Center. This is a resource on Channel 9 that plays host to free technical training materials, content, videos, hands-on labs, and code samples. It will focus on new and emerging technologies with an eye towards helping you quickly ramp your skills with those new products and technologies.

Visual Studio 2010
Germaine to my previous post is the .NET Framework v4 and Visual Studio 2010 Training Course. This course includes videos and hands-on-labs designed to help you learn about some of the new features in Visual Studio 2010 as well as several .NET Framework v4 technologies, such as C# 4.0, Visual Basic 10, F#, Parallel Computing, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, ASP.NET MVC Dynamic Data, Team System and more. Wow, that was an alphabet soup of technologies!

By my count there are eight units in the course, covering all of the above alphabet soup of tech. And, in the interest of full disclosure, those training resources are related to .NET Framework v4 and Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. Consider the prerequisite disclaimer appropriately included.

Windows 7
As a special bonus added to this post (specifically about Visual Studio 2010, but I had to throw in a little something extra), there’s also a Windows 7 Training Course. Just like the Visual Studio 2010 course, this course will help you learn how to leverage the new features of Windows 7 as you develop client-based applications. You’ll learn how to take advantage of multi-touch, the new taskbar, sensor and location APIs, the new Windows 7 Ribbon control, enhancements to the shell libraries, instrumentation and performance capabilities, and a boatload more.

Again, seeing as how I learned to count two paragraphs ago, by that counting I see there are thirteen units in the course. Likewise, in the interest of sharing the disclaimer so no one is surprised, this course requires a few more prerequisites: Windows 7, Visual Studio 2008 SP1, Windows 7 SDK, Windows API Code Pack for the .NET Framework, Windows 7 Multitouch .NET Interop Sample Library, and (optionally) Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (or higher).

The two coolest requirements of that bunch are the Windows API Code Pack for the .NET Framework and the Windows 7 Multitouch .NET Interop Sample Library (and especially the API Code Pack). If you had a chance to attend any of our New Efficiency Launch events, you saw some of those capabilities in action. Very easy to build in touch and other Windows 7 features into your .NET application.

Free! It’s all Free!
Did I mention all of this is free? Yes, yes I did. (Thank you Phineas and Ferb…)

In case you hadn't heard, earlier this week (October 19th at the SharePoint Conference) we announced several things related to Visual Studio. Among them we announced Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 (download it here), Beta 2 "go live" guidance, changes to the product lineup – including the "Ultimate Offer" – and even a screencast to help you download and install Visual Studio 2010. We also unveiled a new look:

+

Okay, so it's all new… How do I learn about it?
To make your ramp on Visual Studio 2010 as easy as possible, we've also made a training kit available for the .NET Framework v4 and Visual Studio 2010. The kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. The resources in the kit are designed to help you learn how to utilize Visual Studio 2010 as well as show you a variety of framework technologies including:

• C# 4.0
• Visual Basic 10
• F#
• Parallel Extensions
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Workflow
• Windows Presentation Foundation
• ASP.NET 4
• Windows 7
• Entity Framework
• ADO.NET Data Services
• Managed Extensibility Framework
• Visual Studio Team System

One important thing: this training kit *only* works with Beta 2 of the .NET Framework v4 and Visual Studio 2010. If you have Beta 1 or another interim build, you will need to move to Beta 2 to take advantage of the labs and demos in this kit.

So, what are you waiting for? Download Beta 2, kick the tires, and see what all the hubbub is about.

In follow-up to my post from yesterday, one of my colleagues, Keith Combs, encoded the TechNet portion of the Nashville event with Silverlight streaming. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

We've largely completed our Real World Azure events, delivering 32 events, 64 sessions and sharing information and insights with 868 architects, developers and IT professionals across the central US. We have two outstanding events, our Minneapolis TechNet and MSDN events on October 27, 2009.

If you don't live in Minneapolis and you weren't able to attend one of your local events, not to worry! We recorded our Nashville events and made them available for you on-demand:

• TechNet Events Presents: Real World Azure On-demand
• MSDN Events Presents: Real World Azure On-demand

Listen to our on-demand events and let me know what you think. Drop me an email at brimoore at microsoft dot com and share your feedback.

And… as a little teaser… with the wrap-up of our Real World Azure event series, we're looking at our next event series: the Highlights of The New Efficiency Launch, visiting 11 cities across the central US, and – changing it up a bit – those cities will be ones we don't often have a chance to cover (hello, Tulsa and Omaha!). We're also looking into getting swank prizes, so stay tuned to my blog for updates in the next several days.

PDC 2009 is just a bit shy of two months from now and plans are hopping. In the next few days we'll be making several additional session announcements, adding even more variety to the wide range of topics currently listed on the PDC 2009 site. Topics span all the major product and development areas, from Azure, ASP.NET, Visual Studio, Velocity, and Silverlight to the Managed Extensibility Framework, Unified Communications, Identity, Powershell, BizTalk, and Dublin. With workshops on November 16 (the day before the big event kicks off), keynotes kicking off the event, and numerous sessions running from November 17 through November 19, the Los Angeles Convention Center will be the center of news, information, and technical goodness later this fall.

But the important thing to note from this blog post is that the discount – $300 off the regular conference fee – only lasts another thirteen days from today, expiring October 13, 2009. If you can't swing the full event, there are one-day passes available and even passes for the big room. Check out the registration page for more information.

So you tried to register for your local launch only to find out you've been waitlisted. Or you live in a city that doesn't have a launch. Although my team and I are working on a plan to visit a few more cities with a "best of" series of events, you still want to see the full blown launch and you can't get in. Then I have some good news to share: we're hosting a virtual launch event! And this post is going live just in time, the virtual launch is tomorrow, September 29, 2009!

This national virtual launch will feature the same content as the local launch events, showcasing Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Forefront. There will be topics for developer, IT professionals and insightful information for the broad consumer as well. Join us for the virtual launch event, and you will also be able to join a televised panel discussion live from the San Francisco launch event, which will feature our CEO, Steve Ballmer, as he and other top technology leaders debate the role of IT during this economic reset.

Visit the The New Efficiency event site and register to attend this streamed launch event. And stay tuned to my event site for upcoming news about our regional "best of" events.

PDC 2009 is coming – in case you weren't aware (unlikely, right?) – to Los Angeles November 17-19, with workshops on November 16. Be there for the latest and greatest news from the Microsoft product groups as well as external experts. There will be hundreds of sessions and dozens of great speakers, like Scott Hanselman, Cameron Skinner, Juval Lowy, Don Box, as well as keynotes from Ray Ozzie, Bob Muglia and Scott Guthrie, to name a few.

I won't be going this year, but I am sending five folks from my team (Brian Prince, Jennifer Marsman, Dave Bost, Mike Benkovich, and Chris Koenig) to mix and mingle with attendees and folks from their local communities, learn what they can, and bring back the highlights to share with said communities. And, yes, I am a touch jealous of my own team – I would really like to be there as well.

Check out the PDC 2009 site and register. It'll be a great event with loads of great information and insights.

Windows Azure is Microsoft's new cloud computing services platform. Hosting in Microsoft data centers around the world, Windows Azure provides hosting capabilities, developer services (for .NET, PHP and other environments), and data storage services that can be scaled dynamically to adapt to changing scalability needs. And that is pretty close to the official definition. But what _is_ Windows Azure…?

My team and I seek to answer that question with our Real World Road Show event series. Our team has already run ten events in August across five cities, one IT professional and one developer event per city. We have 24 more events planned, starting back up the week of September 14, spanning 12 cities. I've listed our schedule on my events page, plus a couple of additional Live Meeting-based Firestarter events hosted by peers across the US. But let me tell you a bit more about our events.

Real World Azure Road Show
Come spend a day with us to explore Windows Azure™ – Microsoft’s platform for building and deploying cloud based applications – from a real world point of view!

During this event, we’ll review critical lessons Microsoft IT has learned migrating internal line-of-business applications to Windows Azure™.

What is Windows Azure™? When should I use it? How does it apply to my job? Whether you’re an IT Professional, Developer or Architect, we’ll address your top of mind questions about cloud computing.

TechNet Presents Real World Infrastructure
These sessions focus on the architecture decisions and infrastructure impacts Azure represents. They start at 8:30am and run until noon. In this session, we will discuss:

• Azure architecture from the IT professional’s point of view
• Why an IT operations team would want to pursue Azure as an extension to the data center
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• The Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premises applications
• How operations teams can manage and monitor Azure-based applications

MSDN Presents Real World Development
These sessions focus on the architecture tradeoffs and development techniques. They start at 1pm and run until 5pm. In this session, we will discuss:

• Cloud computing architectures in general and the Azure architecture in particular
• Several aspects of Azure from the developer’s and architect’s perspective
• Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• How development teams can optimize their applications for better management and monitoring

Our events also feature a real world case study by Microsoft IT as well as Microsoft customers. These case studies illustrate real world decisions and tradeoffs made by Microsoft IT and our customers, covering several things you should know as you consider cloud computing in general and Windows Azure in specific.

It's been quite a while since I last posted to my blog – July 10th to be exact. I've had a couple of good reasons, such as Microsoft's year-end review period (I have 12 to write), finalizing our FY10 business plans (we have events to plan, including a couple of product launches, community events to support and some online strategies to develop; my blog loosely falls under our online plans… other than the fact I've probably lost all my subscribers in the past nearly two months), and some much-needed vacation (10 days!).

Shortly after getting back from vacation I went to devLink 2009 in Nashville, TN. When I got back home it was time to celebrate my 16th wedding anniversary. (Trust me, I'll tie this back to Bing. Be patient.) As my wife and I were planning our evening (flowers, some shopping, dinner, and a movie), we decided to go to see Julie and Julia. (See: clever cooking reference.) I used Bing to search for movie times, and Bing delivered, making my life easy. Not only did it return the top results (every bit as accurate as other search popular engines), it's "deep search" feature returned movie times for theaters in my area (all I needed to do was configure my location).

Bing was so efficient I didn't even have to follow the results. We saw the times of all the theaters within a roughly 30 minute drive, made our decision, and left for dinner.

Cooking with Bing… Give it a try. Click the image to see the Julie and Julia results in your area – just be sure to configure your location first if needed. Bing does IP reverse-lookup, but that usually maps back to your ISP's home location.

Today (July 10, 2009, for the record) we (or, more accurately, Microsoft, also for the record) announced the general availability of Silverlight 3 and the soon-to-release of the Expression 3 suite of tools. ScottGu offers a lot of details, but I'll summarize some of the more salient points here. (ScottGu, for those who do not know, is Scott Guthrie, a VP in our Developer Division. He's in charge of the teams that built little things like the .NET runtime, ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF and the tools for said runtimes.)

Silverlight 3
You can install the Silverlight 3 runtime from almost anywhere on Microsoft.com and on numerous third-party sites (like my personal favorite, SGU: Stargate Universe, which uses Photosynth to allow you to explore the Ancient ship Destiny; I love those shows). One of the powerful new features of Silverlight 3 is the out-of-the-browser application capabilities. With a deft set of changes to an app's config files, you can have your Silverlight 3-powered application deployed via the browser but run standalone on a desktop that has the Silverlight 3 runtime. It's a similar to click-once deployed Windows Forms applications or XBAP (XAML browser application) deployment.

Expression 3
Expression tools are built for designers through and through, enabling them to quickly design rich, interactive user experiences. But unlike other design tools, Expression uses the same solution and project formats as Visual Studio, enabling much improved workflow between the colorful, hippy, happy designer type and the black-text-on-white-background developer type. Guess which type I am. (Okay, for the smart-alecks out there, management is actually a correct type for me. But I try to hold onto my developer roots. So there!) The main cool thing Expression 3 introduces is SketchFlow, a rapid prototyping tool for user interface and user experience design.

Of course there are loads more, and the Expression site lists all the details on Expression Web (for CSS and HTML), Blend (for XAML design), the aforementioned SketchFlow, Expression Design (for creating graphics content), and Expression Encoder (for video encoding).

Although they aren't quite yet available, they will be available soon and are, in fact, available for pre-order from a number of different online retailers.