Silverlight 5 Beta version is finally released and the same is now available for download with all its tools, documentations, SDKs, Developer Runtime and many other support components. Earlier we have reported that the Beta version of Silverlight would be released towards the Q1 2011 and the day has finally arrived as it is now made available for public use. The said beta version was first announced in the MIX 11 and has been then listed in the Microsoft Download Center few days back which comes along with many new features and API that makes developing Premium Media Applications and Business Applications easy and quite productive.

As already mentioned above, Silverlight 5 features new support and extended capabilities so as to enhance the productivity standards of the developer and help them create rich business apps effectively. It now makes it possible to make use of the GPU acceleration which is at the same time XNA compatible and also utilize the intermediate mode 2D API which is supported. It provides support for WAV audio formats and facilitates sound effects having low latency. There are also many features which provides a lot of conveniences such as data templates which can be reused on the UI and also multi-click support that was earlier missing. There is also a multi-display support included together with the Real operating system windows which are some of the few key features of this beta edition that is currently available to download and make use of, and not to mention other productive and technical enhancement along with the improvement in the overall performance.

You can download the Silverlight 5 Beta from its official site or directly from the Microsoft Download Center which is of 27.1MB in size. The download file consists of the Silverlight 5 Beta (Developer Runtime, Software Development Kit), WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP2 Preview and the latest updates for VS2010 SP1 and VWD Express 2010 SP1. The general system requirements to use it on your computer is Windows 7 or Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or else Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. You can also download the offline MSDN Developer Documentation of Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta from the download center and the same would be around 75MB in size.

This latest beta edition contains lots of updates and added functionalities which are also improved in quality and standards. There are many such changes being registered in Controls, User Interface, Out-of-Browser, Data, XAML, 3D Graphics, Media, Application Model, Text and so on. You can therefore follow the links as mentioned above and get it installed in to your computer to try out the latest features and also to be able to build some advanced and meaningful apps using it. You may also make use of many video tutorials available on the web which will let you understand properly the new methods and accordingly help you get started with Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta.

Windows 8 operating system which is said to be the successor of the current Windows 7 is said to be featuring many good and advanced features within itself. It is projected to include a lot of innovative features which is expected to enhance the overall user experience and also provide the support for all the latest technical standards which is now available for use. Recently, a leaked version of the said Windows 8 Build 7850 M1 was spotted and many people have actually gone ahead and downloaded the same. It was particularly the geeky section of the Windows users as well as app developers who had shown interest in the leaked version and tried to explored all the built-in features which it is designed to provide. In this process, some developers in Windows8Beta has prepared a useful utility tool or software which can activate or more precisely enable all the hidden features in Windows 8 operating system.



If you want to have a better user experience while using Windows 8 operating system, then you need to have all the features enabled such that you can make good use of them. It also makes sense as it is not something to be kept hidden or deactivated if the same can be useful when kept enabled. So its a user choice to make and determine whether or not they need it to be running in their system so as it avail the service it provides. To help you discover and enable all those hidden features, the folks at Windows8Beta has prepared a useful tool to unlock all those useful stuff and make it available for use with the effort of a single click only. The name of this tool is 'Windows 8 Tweaker v1.1' and is now available for download.


This tool can unlock most of the useful features which otherwise remains hidden and some of these can be mentioned as Windows Explorer Ribbon UI, Webcam App, Windows 8 PDF Reader, Advanced Task Manager and accordingly provides one-click convenience to enable and run those features. You can even opt to use the 'Enable All Hidden Features' if you don't want to enable them one by one and using the option will guarantee access to all the utilities with a single click only. This tool is prepared and tested on Windows 8 Build 7850 Milestone 1 Leaked version as the official version is still a long way to come and may be available towards the year 2012 approximately.

It is said to be coded by Rohit Garg as mentioned in the download site and has been found to be very effective solution which definitely carries the potential to save a lot of user's time and effort to discover and accomplish it manually. Those people who have downloaded the said Windows 8 OS and also the tweaker tool has reviewed it positively and found it quite an useful app. So, it is most likely to be useful for you too if you are currently using or planning to use the Windows 8 operating system and hence you can download the same from this download link which is uploaded by the original author of the same.

The much anticipated Windows 8 Operating system which was seen discussed and highlighted in most of the tech sites even before its release was recently being leaked on the internet and is available for download through some torrent sites or file hosting portals. The said leaked download files represented the Windows 8 Build 7850 Milestone 1 which is the official version but is now distributed illegally through torrent trackers which seems to be seeding it since a few weeks back as of now. As it is now publicly available through the medium of internet, it has indeed made way to understand lot of its features and other technical aspects but being a M1 release only, this build is not the final one to come out officially and there may be many changes being incorporated in the time being.

Here, we do not encourage people to download it via torrents or any other sources as it is not worth to so considering the fact that it is not a final and stable version and also not legal to do so. However, the reason to bring up this post was to let our readers know that Windows 8 can be installed from a USB Drive when the same is officially released by Microsoft. So, here are some easy steps that you can follow to learn in advance of how it can be done so that you need not waste more time when you get the official version and can readily proceed with getting started and exploring all the new features included therein.



In order to be able to install the Windows 8 operating system using the method described below, you will need to satisfy few standard requirements. Firstly, you will need to have the Setup DVD Disc or ISO file of Windows 8 ready for use. As this is a tutorial to help you install the said OS in a USB Drive, hence you will need a removable USB Drive such as flash drives having storage capacity not less than 4GB in order to be compatible with the process and hold the data contained in the setup file. In case of ISO file, you must have a good disc mounting program like Daemon Tools to mount the ISO image available. You must also ensure that you are using either a Vista or Windows 7 compatible computer configuration with either of the two already installed on the computer.

1. First of all, you will need to attach your intended USB Flash Drive or Pendrive to the computer concerned. If it contains any data, you may consider to store it somewhere else as a backup so as not to lose them during the process.

2. Now, open the Command Prompt in Admin mode by clicking on Start Button --> Type CMD on the search box in the menu --> right-click on the CMD.exe entry and select the Run as Administrator option available therein.

3. Now as the Command Prompt window appears, type the command 'DISKPART' without the quotes and hit the [Enter Key]. The resulting screen will look like the following:-

   

4. Your next task will be to identify the Disk Number of the USB Drive that you have attached into the computer and this can be done by feeding the command 'LIST DISK' and hitting the return key to commit it. You can see the results which would be something similar to the screenshot given below. In case of this example, the pendrive used is of 16GB in capacity and is shown as Disk 2 in the image below.

   

5. Now, you will need to execute a number of commands such as :-

   SELECT DISK 2
   CLEAN
   CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
   SELECT PARTITION 1
   ACTIVE
   FORMAT FS=NTFS
   ASSIGN
   EXIT

   The output after using the aforementioned list of commands can be seen in the figure given below and can be proceeded in the similar manner.

   

6. You can now minimize the Command Prompt window to the taskbar for the timebeing. We are now left with the task of loading the bootmgr into the said USB Drive which can be done from the setup file from either a DVD disc or ISO Image, whichever is available. Now whether you are using the DVD or ISO Image (Mounted with Daemon Tools or similar Tools), you will need to identify the disk letter of the setup media. If the same is in I: drive for example, then again restore the Command window and type 'I:>CD BOOT' without the quotes and execute it.

7. After executing the above command, you can proceed by typing 'I:boot>BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 K:' and executing the command by hitting [Enter Key]. The sequence of using the commands can be found on the following image which will give you some idea of how it is done.

   

8. Now, after accomplishing the above steps you can proceed with copying the rest of the contents from the Windows 8 setup media to the USB flash drive. After doing so, it will be ready to be booted and you can restart your computer to boot it and perform the installation of Windows 8 from the USB Drive. But on general note, you will need your BIOS to be configured to allow the flash drive to be the first boot option which will then let you in to the installation wizard and you can continue therefrom to have the latest Windows 8 onto your computer.

So, these are the simple steps that you can follow to install the Windows 8 operating system from a removable media like pendrives and hence is an easy and faster method to accomplish the task. It is also helpful for installing the said OS in devices like Netbooks which do not accompany a DVD Drive and hence USB Drives remains the best options other than trying out external DVD Drive for the same.

Microsoft has recently made available the download option for its latest web browser called Internet Explorer 9 which appears to be the final release of it. Earlier, the beta version went live few months back and till date there are many downloads being registered which can be counted up to around 40 million times. With this latest stable release of IE9, Microsoft looks forward to provide a better and convincing way to browse the world wide web and is determined to erase the bad impression that is left behind in the minds of web developers and regular internet surfers.


It is a known fact that the Internet Explorer has been quite annoying at times specially for the web designers who failed to align things correctly for this browser. For instance, IE6 was a complete disaster and had been a turning point for many developers and users to migrate and look for some other alternatives. It was also considered to be on the slower side as compared to most other browsers in its row.

However, with this new release Microsoft claims to recover their lost glory and also to be back in the race where web browsers like Chrome and Firefox had already anchored a firm grip. So, to try this new version you can proceed to the official page (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/products/ie-9/home) for IE9 and download the same therefrom. Alternatively, if you want the direct download links of Internet Explorer 9 in case if the above approach is not convenient for you then you can avail it from the links as mentioned below.

• Windows 7 (32-bit)
• Windows 7 (64-bit)
• Windows Vista (32-bit)
• Windows Vista (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)

The IE9 definitely has some good points to be considered and is therefore recommended that you try it atleast once before coming to any conclusion regarding it. However, not everybody thinks alike and there may be difference in views and opinions which is also very much true in terms of Internet Explorer as many users still had shown their faith in this browser as a primary one. Though, it is not one of my primary web browser but still I do use the IE8 frequently to satisfy various purpose at work.

If you are an Windows user and have installed the Windows 7 operating system into your computer, then here is something interesting for you to get informed. It is said through an official Windows blog that the final release which denotes the RTM version of the much anticipated Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is finally being officially unveiled and the same is expected to be made available on February 16, 2011. This RTM version can be availed by all the subscribers of MSDN as well as TechNet subscribers along with the Volume License owners. As usual, it will be available for download via the official download center and can even be done from within the system through the built-in Windows Update tool.


The various changes under this stable and final release of the Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 includes all the hotfix and security updates previously released as well as other updates being available through the regular Windows Update features. In addition to it, the server addition also features many new and extended capabilities some of which includes RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory which is intended to act as a desktop virtualization feature being made available.

As has been witnessed by many Windows users that the first service pack for the latest operating system was under development since quite a long time and finally the wait is over as the same is being scheduled for release to the OEM partners on the 16th day of February while the existing users as well as other people may find the same available for download through the Microsoft Download Center on 22n day of February 2011.

Hence, those who want to download the Windows 7 RTM (Build 7601.17514.101119-1850) or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 can simply navigate to the said Microsoft repository or else upgrade it through the Windows Update when it is made available on the scheduled date.