Finally the cat's out of the bag: Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista has been released. MSDN subscribers could already download and install it. I tried a couple of weeks ago on my Macbook Pro (on which I run Windows Vista Ultimate thanks to bootcamp) and it worked out nicely for me.

Grz, Kris.

I just installed succesfully Vista Ultimate on my MacBook Pro with the bootcamp utility. Quite easy to setup actually. You just need to keep in handy your Vista install DVD and the Leopard installation DVD for the necessary extra driver installations to get the hardware to work. Aero works like a charm and the speed is also very nice. I still need to figure out where all the keys are located and which works and which doesn't but up untill now it looks promising.

Grz, Kris.

I just installed the latest tool from the Live division on my laptop: Windows Live Mail Desktop. I got 10 invitations at the moment so anyone interested of getting one, just leave a comment to this post.

At first glance I can quickly connect to my live mail/hotmail account and see the subscribed RSS feeds of my IE7 RSS platform being integrated. The look and feel, even on Windows XP, is that of Windows Vista. Nice to see that because my laptop won't be capable of displaying the Aero or Glass look in Windows Vista.

One thing I noticed is that i doesn't nicely integrate with my gmail account. Apparently it can't connect to the pop server of gmail. I hope to see this one fixed in the update of this version.

Grz, Kris.

I've been using IE7 since the betas and really liked the new version. Especially the tabbed pages and the overview that you can take of all open windows on 1 page is a great experience. I don't really use the built in RSS capabilities at the moment as I use GreatNews to read my subscribed feeds. The integrated search and the possibility to select a different search engine is something I was fond of when using FireFox. Now it's also integrated in IE.

You can download IE7 or take a tour of the features here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx.

Grz, Kris.

Just installed the Beta version of Windows Media Player 11. The new and upcoming version. I like it a lot until now, especially the new button style of Vista. I could only wish that Microsoft decided to have the same kind of buttons in the default, so no Glass or Aero, mode of Windows Vista as well.

Grz, Kris.

IIS7 hasn't shipped yet but will be available in Vista and Longhorn server. It provides better ways to extend it and configure it. There's also already some nice video content about the subject:

• How developers can extend IIS7
• Installing IIS7 on Windows Vista
• The .NET show: IIS7

Microsoft also provides the possibility to test drive it on one of their Virtual Labs.

Grz, Kris.

I finally gave Windows Desktop Search a try. It still needs to index quite some files but I already like it a lot. Since I have a lot of documents containing code on my development PC I can use the tool to quickly search in all files at once.

If you're interested you can go the files here: Windows Desktop Search, or take the tour.

I also found an interesting article related to this: Bring Windows Desktop Search Into Visual Studio With Our Cool Add-In. I didn't try that one out yet.

Grz, Kris.