Microsoft refute claims that Windows 7 damages laptop batteries

Microsoft has issued a detailed denial to accusations that Windows 7 is harming laptop batteries. Several blogs and forums have claimed that Windows 7 is having a detrimental effect on laptop batteries, with the operating system issuing repeated warnings that a previously healthy battery needs replacing.

However, in a detailed blog post on the Engineering Windows 7 site, Microsoft claims that there’s no fault with the OS.

“To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state,” Windows chief Steven Sinofsky states. “In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.”

Microsoft says the confusion has been caused by a new warning system in Windows 7 laptops, that’s designed to warn users when a battery’s nearing the end of its useful life.

“Windows 7 makes use of a feature of modern laptop batteries which have circuitry and firmware that can report to Windows the overall health of the battery,” Sinofsky writes.

“This is reported in absolute terms as Watt-hours (W-hr) power capacity. Windows 7 then does a simple calculation to determine a percentage of degradation from the original design capacity. In Windows 7 we set a threshold of 60% degradation (that is the battery is performing at 40% of its designed capacity) and in reading this Windows 7 reports the status to you.

“At this point, for example, a battery that originally delivered five hours of charge now delivers, on average, approximately two hours of charge. The Windows 7 notification is a battery meter icon and notification with a message ‘Consider replacing your battery’. This notification is new to Windows 7 and not available in Windows Vista or Windows XP.”

Sinofsky claims Microsoft has thoroughly examined telemetry from Windows 7 customers and held lengthy discussions with key PC manufacturers to ensure that Windows 7 isn’t harming batteries. “Our OEM partners have utilised their telemetry (call center, support forums, etc.) and have let us know that they are seeing no activity beyond what they expect,” he claims.

Windows 7 upgrades linked to lower battery life

Laptop owners upgrading their Windows XP and Windows Vista machines to Windows 7 are complaining that Microsoft’s new OS has severely reduced their available battery life.

One complaint of many stated that after upgrading a circa 2007 HP notebook from Vista to Windows 7, the machine’s battery life dropped from two hours to a half hour, and countless others are voicing similar complaints on Microsoft’s TechNet forums.

The problem is caused by a new tool designed to alert users when their battery needs replacing. In some cases, according to TechNet posts, this alert appears time and again – even as a battery continues to run as it always did – falsely warning that the machine may suddenly shutdown. But in other cases, the machine does shutdown prematurely. It would seem this occurs well before the battery has run out of juice.

Microsoft has acknowledged the issue, saying it’s related to the way Windows 7 reads system firmware. “We are investigating this issue in conjunction with our hardware partners,” the statement reads. “The warning received in Windows 7 laptops uses firmware information to determine if battery replacement is needed. We are working with our partners to determine the root cause and will update the [Technet] forum with information and guidance as it becomes available.”

Make your Windows 7 laptops a wireless hub with Virtual Wi-Fi

Sharing your Windows internet connection via software has traditionally been a tricky business. There are programs that can help you do it, but they’re often awkward to set up, and prone to complicated security and reliability issues, so most people don’t even try.

But that could all be about to change, thanks to a new Windows 7 laptops feature called Virtual Wi-Fi.

The idea is a simple one: the operating system can virtualise any compatible wireless adapter, to make it appear as though you’ve as many additional adapters as you need.

The effect is dramatic. Once it’s set up, then any Wi-Fi compatible device that can connect to you – another desktop, laptop, or an iPod Touch, say – will immediately be able to get online, by sharing your internet connection through a duplicate of your wireless adapter.

Getting this working isn’t too difficult, either, as long as you can get over the first hurdle: finding a virtual Wi-Fi-compatible driver for your wireless adapter.

Intel’s latest 32-bit and 64-bit drivers now include support, as do various others for Atheros, Broadcom, Realtek and other big players, but these don’t apply to every chipset. Check the support site for your wireless adapter to see what’s available.

If you’re in luck and manage to find and install an up-to-date Windows 7 driver for your adapter, then the next step is to set it up, and for that you’ll need an elevated command prompt. Click Start, type CMD, right-click the Cmd.exe link and select “Run as Administrator”.

Now type the following command:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=MyNet key=MyPassword

and press [Enter]. Replace “MyNet” with the name you’d like to use for your custom network, and “MyPassword” with a password that’s a little harder to guess.

Still at the command line, type

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

and press [Enter] to fire up the virtual adapter.

Now click Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Centre > Change Adapter Settings, right-click your internet connection and select Properties. Click the Sharing tab, check “Allow other network users to connect…”, choose your virtual Wi-Fi adaptor – and that’s it.

Any nearby Wi-Fi enabled device should see a new network appear with the SSID you defined above. They’ll be able to connect to it using your password, and can then immediately share your internet connection.

While it’s worth knowing how to do this manually, if it’s something you do often then you’ll probably prefer a simpler solution.

You could speed things up a little by creating a batch file to run the netsh commands, perhaps, but for a really easy life we’d recommend you install Virtual Router. It’s compact, free, and will automate the whole process for you with the minimum of hassle.

Thanks to Techradar.

New HP laptops leaked ahead of grand unveiling

A shedload of new HP laptops have been leaked ahead of what we presume will be their formal announcement next week. Including desktop PCs, there are 14 new HP releases in total!

No full specs available at present but we do have pricing information, and here are some highlights…

The 14-inch HP Pavilion dv4i, a Windows 7 laptop with a flush display and fingerprint reader that should retail at £499. Up next is the 10-inch Mini 210 HD Edition, which will come in red, black, silver and blue, boast Intel’s brand new Pine Trail platform (a 1.66GHz N450 CPU), plus GMA 3150 graphics. Another goodie here is that this one is expected to ship with Broadcom’s Crystal HD video playback chip. The Mini 210 HD is expected to cost around £249. Logic Buy (the point of origin for all this info) is reporting that these models should ship on or around January 7th, though keep in mind that all of this information is extremely unofficial, so don’t blame us if it all changes!

Windows 7 vs Vista – new features for Windows 7 laptops #8

With USB sticks responsible for many recent security scares, Microsoft has decided to tackle the issue head-on with Windows 7 laptops. BitLocker To Go effortlessly encrypts any external USB drive by right-clicking on the drive’s icon and entering a suitably secure password. You’re given the option to save and print out a recovery key, which can be used to access data on the drive should you forget the password.

The USB drive can also be automatically unlocked on your mainPC, to save entering the password every time, although this obviously makes it less secure. Microsoft promises that BitLocker To Go will offer read-only support on older versions of Windows – for now, encrypted disks appear as full, inaccessible drives on Windows XP and Vista.

IT departments running the forthcoming Windows Server 2008 R2 can set a group policy that forces employees to encrypt the drive before they can copy company data to the disk, which should help prevent data leaks and the need for more drastic security measures, such as locking down USB ports.

Microsoft has boosted BitLocker support for internal drives, too, with PC hard disks also encryptable at the right-click of a mouse (Windows 7 will automatically create the hidden boot partition). Whether BitLocker will be restricted to Enterprise and Ultimate versions of the OS, as it was with Vista, remains to be seen.

Acer TravelMate Timeline laptops get a grand unveiling

Acer’s just announced the release of a new line of business travel Windows 7 laptops. The TravelMate Timeline series includes the 8571, 8471, and 8371. All notebook models in the line have 6 cell batteries that give up to 8 hours of useable battery life (if Acer PowerSmart manager is on). The cost of these new machines runs from £499 to £575.

Customers looking to buy a TravelMate will have their choice of 1.3 or 1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors equipped with GS45 Express chipset and Intel 64 architecture. They each pack either 3 or 4 GB of SDRAM and come with b/g/Draft-N WLAN, Bluetooth, and gigabit LAN. The screen sizes measure from 13.3″ to 14.1″ to 15.6″. An integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD brings DirectX10 to the TravelMates.

Each of these new Acer notebooks features a roomy keyboard and multi-gesture touchpad. They all come with Win 7 32 bit installed, and Acer includes a copy of Windows XP with each in case you want to make the switch.

Windows 7 vs Vista – new features for Windows 7 laptops #7

The Action Center is the new Security Center for Windows 7, along with other notifications such as updates and access to the improved troubleshooting and recovery using restore point facilities.

Basically, it is everything Windows usually annoys you with, rolled into one place with one icon in the notification bar. If you find the alerts irritating, you can check out this tip to make the Windows 7 Action Center less annoying.

Action Center certainly is one of the very useful features added to Windows 7 providing various options to troubleshoot and fix computer problems. It’s not exactly sexy, but it’s a welcome addition for all Windows 7 laptops.

Windows 7 vs Vista – new features for Windows 7 laptops #6

Ignore the snow outside, it’s all about Windows 7 at the moment, and Microsoft seem to be doing all white at the minute.

Another nifty little feature available on Windows 7 laptops is the ‘Problem Steps Recorder’. This lets you record a particular problem you are having with your computer so you can send it to someone who may be able to help.

Click ‘Record’, and a screenshot is taken with every mouse click, allowing comments to be added in between if required. These screenshots (and comments, if any) are placed in a well-formatted HTML document that is placed inside a zipped folder on your desktop – ideal to be attached to an email.

Pretty damn cool!

New slim LG XNote LGX30 with Windows 7

Looks like Dell isn’t the only one who knows how to produce ultrathin Windows 7 laptops, as LG’s latest concoction has just landed at the always-revealed database of the FCC.

The XNote LGX30 (not to be confused with the Ion-based X30) is an 11.6-inch netbook with a 1,366 x 768 resolution panel, solid state drive, integrated webcam, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, a multicard reader, GMA500 graphics set and a 3-cell battery.

The machine weighs just 1.74 pounds and is based on some sort of Atom CPU, and as expected, it’s Windows 7 running the show.

Windows 7 vs Vista – new features for Windows 7 laptops #5

Open the Fonts window in Windows XP and Vista and you’ll see the font names, probably with icons to tell you whether they’re TrueType or OpenType, but that’s about it. Windows 7 laptops see some useful font-related improvements.

Open the new fonts window and you’ll find a little preview for every font, giving you a quick idea of how they’re going to look.

The tedium of scrolling through multiple entries for each family, like Times New Roman, Times New Roman Bold, Times New Roman Bold Italic and so on, has finally ended. There’s now just a single entry for each font (though you can still see all other members of the family).

And there’s a new OpenType font, Gabriola, added to the mix. It’s an attractive script font, well worth a try the next time you need a stylish document that stands out from the crowd.