Being a popular new operating system means that there are those that would circumvent protections in the OS so as to make it seem legitimate. There are those that willingly take that risk in order to save themselves some cash, then there are those that are suckered into a new system preloaded with a counterfeit install.

Whatever the case may be Microsoft is ramping up their anti-piracy efforts with Windows 7 with their upcoming Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7…update which will try to patch 70 or so activation loopholes and, seemingly, make the installations seem not so genuine.

The update is set to be released in a few days but it’s unknown as to when they’ll require it to be a mandatory install.

Source: The Windows Blog

Atheros’ many wireless chipsets, which happen to be found in numerous wireless adapters and provide WiFi connectivity for varied notebook designs, are well supported by the company.

Their version 7.7.0.331 driver supports Windows 7 and Windows Vista 32bit and 64bit versions.

You can download the driver here.

Realtek maintains up to date drivers for their various Ethernet LAN interface chips commonly found integrated on many computer motherboards. Version 7.009 of their driver supports the following PCI Express chips:

RTL8111B, RTL8168B, RTL8111, RTL8168, RTL8111C, RTL8111CP, RTL8111D(L), RTL8168C, RTL8111DP, RTL8111E, RTL8105E

The driver supports Windows 7 32bit and 64bit versions.

You can download the driver here.

Realtek maintains up to date drivers for their various Ethernet LAN interface chips commonly found integrated on many computer motherboards. Version 6.111 of their driver supports the following chips:

RTL8100B(L), RTL8100C(L), RTL8101L, RTL8139C(L), RTL8139C(L)+, RTL8139D(L), RTL8100(L) RTL8130, RTL8139B(L)

The driver supports Windows 7 32bit and 64bit versions

You can download the driver here.

Ah the holidays. Getting the right gift for that special someone is tricky, getting one for your computer/gadget fiend family member is a maddening experience. Sure you could go the gift card route but that doesn’t exactly give you that certain sense of satisfaction when you see their face light up once they open a finely wrapped gift.

We’ve created a bit of a shopping list containing some of this year’s hottest computer gear and gadgets you may just want to keep in mind should you be buying for the technology purist.

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Its been a long time coming. As of October 22nd you could pick up your very own copy of the polished good stuff. Microsoft’s Windows 7 has promised to make your computing usage a kinder, gentler experience and it has the shiny icons to prove it. But with the “dark cloud” Vista hung over the Windows brand can they get their house back in order?

We’ll be taking a look at Windows 7 and how it handles the day to day rigors of PC usage. Its changes are many but no matter how you use your computer there are improvements to be found for all users.
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Microsoft had a lot riding on their Windows 7 operating system, after all people weren’t exactly flocking to Windows Vista and XP has been getting long in the tooth as far as features were concerned. Their efforts seem to have done good but does all of the added newfangled-ness cause performance issues to pop up?

AnandTech does their usual thorough testing and pits Windows 7 against XP and Vista in a veritable feast of software performance evaluations and benchmarks showing you how 7 handles the most common application tasks undertaken by PC users. There’s a lot of info to digest here:

For Windows 7, Windows has been put on a diet in order to perform better on those machines. The most noticeable changes here are that Windows 7 eats less RAM and hard drive space out of the box than a comparable version of Vista did. There have also been some underlying tweaks to SuperFetch (it’s less aggressive on startup) and the kernel to improve responsiveness.

The tweaks are certainly there as can bee seen by the OS’ ability to eek out more performance from the same hardware.

If you were wondering when the latest, monthly, ATI Catalyst drivers would be released well you had a bit of a wait this month as AMD chose to push them out on Microsoft’s Windows 7 launch date. In the latest 9.10 driver set you can expect quite a few performance improvements and bug fixes as well as support for the newest ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850 graphics cards. Unfortunately Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 support didn’t make it in but those cards should see support shortly in the form of a hotfixed driver.

If you’re running a Radeon graphics card earlier than the Radeon HD 2400 series you’ll have to grab the company’s legacy drivers as earlier generations of their graphics chips have been moved to legacy support status.

Here are some quick links to AMD’s download pages:

ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows 7
ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows 7 64-bit
ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows Vista
ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows Vista 64-bit
ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows XP
ATI Catalyst 9.10 Video Drivers for Windows XP 64-bit

With Windows 7 just around the corner you’re bound to be hit with the deluge of new computing hardware hitting the market that makes use of many of the operating system’s features.

The Dell Studio One goes for the all-in-one approach and tosses in a touchscreen so you can smudge your screen and not get so worked up about it. It even packs an Intel Pentium E5200 processor paired along side Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M so you can expect decent performance…just not anything ground breaking.

A nifty machine that mixes decent hardware which makes it a nice office/productivity/stick in the kitchen PC.

Source: PC Perspective

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 7 operating system is the most polished OS to come from the company, of course it’s going to have to be compared to Apple’s highly polished Snow Leopard operating system which means plenty of fodder for both sides to sling at each other.

CNET has tested out both operating systems on a model year 2008 MacBook Pro with some interesting results on both ends. Here’s a peek:

First off, the test machine is a 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro with a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, and a 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT video card. This is the 2008 model of the computer that comes with a removable battery and doesn’t have the SD card slot. (This is not the latest 2009 model that comes with a nonremovable battery, which packs a lot more juice.)

A test on the same hard drive would be much preferred given that they do go for the time based benchmarks and drive performance can differ especially when using drives from different manufacturers.