Running a virtual Windows

Running a virtual Windows Embedded Compact 7 image into a Virtual machine

While working on some Windows Embedded Compact 7 labs setup, I tried to do something that can be really useful for trainers and eventually for developers.
As you might be aware, the ARM emulator has been replaced by a Virtual PC BSP in Compact 7, which means you can test Compact 7 in a virtual environment. In order to have a single virtual machine containing both the dev environment and a virtual platform, I have successfully tested the following configuration:

• I set up a Windows 7 Virtual Machine running on an Hyper-V server.
• On the virtual machine, I installed the following:
• VS 2008 and all Compact 7 tools (with x86 CPU support)
• Virtual PC 2007 (do not try with Windows VPC as this new version of VPC requires virtualization hardware that the virtual platform doesn’t support… basically you cannot run Windows VPC in a Virtual Machine, but you can run Virtual PC 2007 in a virtual machine… and there is no trick for this… it just works!
• In VPC 2007 I set up a new VM using the VHD located in C:\WINCE700\platform\VirtualPC\VM\hd0_sample.vhd

download Windows 8 full version.

Windows 8 has been out for download for developer preview. This version of Windows 8 is currently released as a beta version by Microsoft. Check the rest of the post to know how to download Windows 8 full version.

If you have downloaded Windows 8 from any p2p sites or illegal torrent sites, be careful as these may be buggy and might contain malwares or viruses. So it’s always advisable to download the OS directly from Microsoft.

Microsoft has already released the Windows 8 download in their official sites for developer preview. The download is available as an Windows 8 ISO image, which needs to be mounted into an installation media on DVD or USB flash drive.

Windows 8 is very much conceptually different from it’s predecessors and it takes time to actually get used to this new interface. This OS is developed not just to work on desktops and laptops but also on Windows based tablets and mobile phones, making it a flexible multi-platform OS.
New Features of Windows 8
Metro Style- Tile based User Interface : Designed for touch enabled devices like tablets and computers.

Download Microsoft Office 2010 SP1 Full

                                         Download Microsoft Office 2010 SP1 Full

Microsoft has released the service pack one update to MS Office 2010 editions. Microsoft Office 2010 SP1 includes all the previously released updates and also offers additional new updates which improve performance, stability and security.

The SP1 update for Microsoft Office 2010 is pushed through the windows update, so if you’ve already installed Office 2010 and have Automatic updates turned on, then you will have the SP1 update installed in your system by now.

Intel releases SSD Toolbox 3.0 to optimize drive performance

Toolbox 3.0 provides offers secure erase to ensure data is permanently deleted

Computerworld - Intel on Thursday released the third generation of its solid-state drive monitoring and management firmware SSD Toolbox 3.0, which offers many of the same tools as previous versions but with a simpler interface.

The SSD Toolbox, which is available on Intel's website, has a simpler graphical user interface (GUI) for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) technology. SMART can perform diagnostic scans of SSDs, providing drive information such as the amount of free capacity and the estimated life remaining. It also has a health scale, illustrating whether the drive is functioning optimally.

In 2009, Intel's first SSD Toolbox release was focused on optimizing the performance of its X25-M consumer-class solid state disk (SSD) drive with theWindows 7 operating system.

Blackberry Curve 9360 9360 smartphone launched in India

Blackberry Curve 9360 smartphone 
launched in India

Research In Motion (RIM) has officially launched the

 Blackberry Curve 9360 smartphone in India in alliance 

with Airtel. Blackberry Curve 9360 is powered by 

BlackBerry 7 OS and 800 Mhz processor.


BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone packed a 2.44 inch

 display, QWERTY keypad along with optical trackpad,

 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4 GB internal memory and up to 32GB of 

expandable memory. Weighing at 99 just grams, it comes with a 5 megapixel

 camera with flash, and supports VGA video recording.


The BlackBerry Curve 9360 is 3G enabled device, and comes with Wi-Fi,

 Bluetooth, GPS, NFC and Wikitude World Browser.


Blackberry Curve 9360 is priced at Rs. 19,990.

More Information

HCL Laptop 39 Series

HCL announced Leaptops Series 39 Notebooks

 in the Indian market

HCL announced Leaptop 39 Series for the Indian market. In principle, it is Leaptop Series 39 was designed taking into account the weather condition in India. This series is designed to achieve a lower temperature difference of less than 6 degrees on the palm rest area. The HCL Leaptop Series 39 is available in both Windows and Linux versions and has a battery back-up of more than four hours. The leaptop series 39 come with a 14.1 inch wide screen and is powered by Intel’s Centrino and Centrino2 processor technology.
Starting price range for Leaptop 39 Series with the Centrino processor Rs. 39,900 and Rs. 42,990 for the Centrino2 processor technology

Sony to pull out of LCD JV with Samsung

TOKYO: Sony Corp , struggling with a loss-making television business, is in negotiations to pull out of its LCD joint venture with South Korea's Samsung Electronics in a bid to cut costs, the Nikkei business daily reported on Sunday. 


The Japanese electronics and entertainment giant is aiming to reach an agreement by the end of this year to sell its nearly 50 percent stake in liquid-crystal display joint venture S-LCD to Samsung, the paper said. 


Sony intends to rely more on outsourcing to reduce procurement costs to cope with rapidly declining prices of LCD panels due to a global oversupply, the Nikkei said without citing sources. 

Samsung’s new phones will have flexible screens

Samsung‘s new mobile device lineup will feature flexible screens starting in 2012, the company announced today.

In its quarterly earnings call, Samsung’s vice president of investor relations, Robert Yi, told investors, analysts and press, “The flexible display we are looking to introduce sometime in 2012, hopefully the earlier part. The application probably will start from the handset side.”

After flexible-screen mobile phones roll out, the company plans to introduce the same technology for tablets and other devices.

In January 2011, Samsung purchased Liquivista, a strategic acquisition that will allow it to produce the kinds of displays that were announced today. Liquivista made electrowetting display technology, which is used to create mobile and other consumer electronic displays that are bright, low-power, flexible and transparent.

Flexible screen technology was also a focus of Samsung’s in March, when Yongsuk Choi, director of Samsung Mobile Display, gave an overview of the company’s future mobile device plans. At that time, Choi said most of the flexible-display technology Samsung was working on was still in very early stages.

Flexible displays have been on the fringes of up-and-coming mobile technologies for some time. For example, we saw a bendable e-reader from Plastic Logic back in 2008.

More recently, Sony, in particular, has shown some interesting work in the field, demonstrating its first flexible display at CES in early 2009 and showing off advanced, thinner, more flexible displays just last year.

Still, flexible screens aren’t something we’re seeing on the mass market yet; we wonder if consumers will warm to the idea when Samsung takes the wraps off these new devices.

Samsung recently surpassed Apple as the top smartphone manufacturer, shipping 27.8 million smartphones last quarter. Altogether, Samsung’s current share of the smartphone market is 23.8 percent.

Windows 8 smartphone

A Chinese company says it will bring the yet-to-be-released Windows 8 to the small screen.

In Technology Group has seemingly dedicated itself to merging the Windows PC experience with the smartphone--something the company has dubbed the "post-smartphone." They started with phones running Windows XP a few years ago, and by earlier this year, ITG's XPPhone was available with Windows 7. Now it says a far slimmer, lighter, and energy efficient XPPhone 2 that will run both Windows 7 and the PC version of Windows 8 (once it's released) is in the works.

Though it seems doubtful to me that many consumers will find a need for so much Windows in their pocket, ITG has made sure to pack the XPPhone 2 with the meaty hardware to pull it off. This beast will boast a 1.6GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. ITG's Web site also mentions the possibility of an insane 2GHz model. There's also plenty of storage space to house Microsoft's notoriously bulky OSes, with 112GB on board.

ITG is billing the XPPhone 2 not just as a phone but as the "smallest notebook PC in the world," measuring 140mm X 73mm X 17.5mm. The pitch is basically that the phone is easily dockable and can stand in for a laptop, desktop and in-car navigation system.

Windows 8 smartphone

A Chinese company says it will bring the yet-to-be-released Windows 8 to the small screen.

In Technology Group has seemingly dedicated itself to merging the Windows PC experience with the smartphone--something the company has dubbed the "post-smartphone." They started with phones running Windows XP a few years ago, and by earlier this year, ITG's XPPhone was available with Windows 7. Now it says a far slimmer, lighter, and energy efficient XPPhone 2 that will run both Windows 7 and the PC version of Windows 8 (once it's released) is in the works.

Though it seems doubtful to me that many consumers will find a need for so much Windows in their pocket, ITG has made sure to pack the XPPhone 2 with the meaty hardware to pull it off. This beast will boast a 1.6GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. ITG's Web site also mentions the possibility of an insane 2GHz model. There's also plenty of storage space to house Microsoft's notoriously bulky OSes, with 112GB on board.

ITG is billing the XPPhone 2 not just as a phone but as the "smallest notebook PC in the world," measuring 140mm X 73mm X 17.5mm. The pitch is basically that the phone is easily dockable and can stand in for a laptop, desktop and in-car navigation system.

The success of this kind of a device will likely depend on it being at least more usable than the English translation of its press release, which requires several aspirin to navigate, with sentences like: "The Editor considers that, presently it forms three camps of smart phone in the way of tripartite confrontation--The Apple, Google & Moto, and Intel & Microsoft & xpPhone, of which stands for three complete different technical orientations."

Let's hope they took the money they saved on their translator and put it into engineering.Engadget reports that we could see an XPPhone 2 release as soon as January.