The Download Blog

Far more robust than Microsoft Paint, but nowhere near as loaded with features as Photoshop, Paint.NET occupies a niche perfect for users who want a free image editor that has more than resizing and inverting. Version 3.5 includes an enormous number of stability tweaks and menu adjustments, as well as a couple of new minor features and some Windows 7 love, too.

Paint.NET 3.5 includes better Aero-theme integration and a new Utilities menu.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

One of the biggest changes makes the program's installation far less obvious. The new version automatically downloads and installs the program's prerequisites, including the latest Microsoft .Net version and Windows Installer. It will update in the background now, too, so that you can continue to use the program until it's ready to restart. Longtime users should notice that the program starts up about 20 percent faster, according to the publisher.

The program has been visually tweaked to look better on Aero for both Vista and Windows 7. Mostly, this means that the menu bar appears offset from the Aero pane border, and it looks good. The Selection tool will no longer use the "dancing ants" that most other image editors use. Instead, a context-sensitive gray overlay appears as you make your selection. This works fine when using the lasso tool, but was hard to discern when used with the magic wand. According to the publisher, this change was made to reduce CPU consumption. There are three new effects, as well, for Surface blurs, Dents, and Crystalize.

The new Utilities option on the menu bar now hosts the Language submenu, Manage Fonts, which loads the Windows font control panel, and the manual Check for Updates tool. The full list of program changes can be found here.

The consensus of experts is that Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has ever released. I managed to perform a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate on an XP PC with no problems whatsoever, but not all Windows 7 upgrades go so smoothly.

In fact, I was getting ready to install Windows 7 Home Premium on a blank partition of my Sony Vaio laptop so I could dual-boot Vista and Win7 but was scared off by a handful of reports of serious upgrade problems. Call me chicken, but I count on my notebook PC and don't want to risk breaking it. (And besides, I don't dislike Vista near as much as many other people do.)

Some veteran PC users postpone upgrading to a new Windows version until the first service pack is released. Unfortunately, service packs often cause problems of their own. Back in 2008, glitches with Vista SP1 caused Microsoft to offer free support, as Suzanne Tindal reported. Microsoft provides the System Update Readiness Tool designed to resolve update problems for Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7.

You can minimize the chances that you'll encounter upgrade woes by doing two things beforehand: back up your data and save the Windows 7 drivers for your hardware to a removable medium. This applies whether you're doing an in-place upgrade (which preserves your data and settings) or a clean install (which wipes out the current Windows installation).

That's the theory, anyway. There's no guarantee that the official Windows 7 drivers will work without a hitch on your system. Paul Mah of the IT Business Edge reports success rolling back to the Vista driver for a device that balked under Windows 7.

Some Vista users fall into an infinite loop when attempting to install the Windows 7 upgrade. Microsoft provides a Fix-it for the problem on its Support site. Seth Rosenblatt describes in the CNET Download Blog two Win7 upgrade gotchas to avoid.

Microsoft's guide to upgrading to Windows 7 relies on the Easy Transfer wizard, but ZDNet UK's Adrian Bridgwater points out the risks of trusting your data and software settings to an automated process that can be "easy" to derail. (The wizard doesn't bring over the applications themselves, which have to be reinstalled separately.)

I may eventually upgrade my Vista notebook to Windows 7—probably long before Win7 SP1—but only after the early adopters have cleared a path.

Parallels on Wednesday released Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac, a new version of its virtualization software that allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows and Linux alongside Mac OS X.

According to Parallels, the new version of its software is up to 300 percent faster than the previous version, Parallels Desktop 4. The company also hired Crimson Consulting Group to do performance testing on Parallels 5 and said it was 22 percent faster than its nearest virtualization competitor when running Windows 7 64-bit on a MacBook Pro.

While the competitor wasn't named by Parallels, it is widely thought the virtualization market is ruled by Parallels and VMWare's Fusion for Mac.

Speaking with CNET, Parallels CEO Serguei Beloussov said company had three main goals when making Parallels 5 for Mac: make it faster; make it smarter and easier; and make it more powerful.

Beloussov said the company achieved those goals by adding support for gestures, supporting a broader range of 3D features, and optimizing Parallels to handle virtual hardware and drivers more efficiently.

Parallels 5 also adds a new viewing mode called Crystal, which is similar to Coherence, where Windows completely disappears from your desktop. However, Crystal adds the Windows taskbar items on the top of the Mac OS X menu, allowing easy access.

Apple also offers a way to run Windows on an Intel-based Mac. It's called Boot Camp, but it requires the user restart the computer and run Windows separately from the Mac OS. While that may be inconvenient for many users, the native speed of running on the hardware was always seen as a major advantage. Parallels says they can now beat that.

"Parallels is faster than Boot Camp," Beloussov said. "Most slow downs with Windows is not because of computational problems, it's handling drivers. We offer optimized virtualized hardware and drivers, making it faster."

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is available for $79.99 or $49.99 for an upgrade.

Three new features are now available to Windows 7 users of the new beta release of Firefox. Firefox 3.6 beta 1 introduces enhanced previews for both the new Windows 7 taskbar and the tabs.

The taskbar previews for tabs brings Firefox into parity with Internet Explorer 8, allowing users to see and select their open tabs via Aero Peek. The obvious limitation with this feature is how it impacts the display when you've got a high number of tabs open. As you open more tabs, their preview panes will shrink.

Firefox 3.6 beta 1 will show individual preview windows for each tab on the Windows 7 taskbar.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

While the taskbar preview will work without manually changing settings in about:config, the others will require a bit of fiddling. As such, they're not recommended for new users, or for those who just aren't comfortable tweaking the about:config.

The enhanced Control + Tab will now show you a preview window of your tabs, as long as you have three or more tabs open. To activate it, go to about:config, search for browser.ctrlTab.previews, and double-click on it to change it from False to True. Then restart Firefox, and the CTRL+Tab hot key will give you Aero-style preview pane of your tabs.

A revision to the List All Tabs feature gives it a visual component mimicking CTRL+Tab. Using Control + Shift + Tab combo, you can pull up a CTRL+Tab tab preview window that includes a search box. As you type in the name of the tab you want to call up, it will filter the tabs. Enter or the left mouse button will take you directly to the tab. To activate this one, go to about:config, search for browser.allTab.previews, and double-click on it to change it from False to True. Then restart Firefox.

The new Firefox beta can search your tabs on the fly.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

You can disable the Windows 7 taskbar preview by going to about:config, search for browser.taskbar.previews.enable, and double-click on it to change it from True to False.

As this is a beta, be prepared for Firefox to break compatibility with many add-ons. In my test, All-in-One Sidebar wasn't compatible, even after doing the stability-reducing version compatibility override. Also notice that the visual component to the tabs previews within Firefox don't appear to be fully baked.

[h/t Lifehacker]

There's a bit of a tempest in a teapot brewing over what one can and can't do with a Windows 7 upgrade disk.

My hope with this post is to help things simmer down as opposed to boiling over, but we'll see. So here goes.

The upgrade version of Windows 7 (as opposed to the higher-price full version) lets one move from any properly licensed version of Windows XP or Windows Vista to Windows 7 on that same computer. Only certain of these upgrades, however, can be done as a simple update--what Microsoft calls an "in-place upgrade." Users moving from Windows XP, switching from 32-bit to 64-bit versions, or moving from a higher-end version of Vista to a lower-end version of Windows 7 can use an upgrade disc but will have to do a more cumbersome upgrade, known as a custom, or "clean," installation.

The difference between an in-place upgrade and a "clean" installation, in this instance, means backing up one's data, installing Windows 7, restoring the data, and reinstalling all Windows programs. Windows 7 upgrade disks can be used to do this clean installation and will recognize the previously installed version of Windows. So if you don't have any previously installed Windows on the machine, you will want to get yourself a full copy of Windows 7.

While it might be technically possible to use the upgrade disks to do an installation of Windows 7 without a previous version, doing so, as Microsoft points out, is not properly licensed.

Some of the confusion has come after enthusiasts noted a way to get an upgrade disc to install on a fully erased hard drive.

Again, the main issue here is whether one is properly licensed to do so. If you have a licensed copy of Windows XP or Vista for that computer, you are good to go, and Microsoft technical support should be able to help you activate that machine. If not, you may be able to get it to install, but you could well run into technical or legal hurdles.

I think that ZDNet blogger Ed Bott put it well in his post on this topic:

The answer is really simple. If you qualify for an upgrade license, then yes, you can use any number of work-arounds to install the operating system legally. If you don't qualify for an upgrade license, then those same workarounds might technically succeed, but your license is not valid.

Will you get away with it? Probably. But if you're running a business, you run the risk that an employee will turn you in to the Business Software Alliance, which could lead to an audit, civil charges, and eventually some stiff penalties.

It should also be pointed out that beta test and pre-release versions of Windows don't count as a previously licensed version of Windows, but if you have the RC installed over a previous version, for example, you can do a custom upgrade rather than having to reinstall XP or Vista before installing 7. (The upgrade version can detect the previous versions used before Windows 7.)

Nor is it allowed to count the version of Windows that came installed on a previously bought PC, if that's not the machine you're upgrading. (Retail boxed copies can be transferred from one machine to another; ones that came pre-installed on the PC are licensed only for that machine.)

This is also relevant to Mac users who want to run Windows 7 on their machines. Such users also need to have a previously licensed full copy of Windows to properly qualify for upgrade pricing, whether they are using Windows in Boot Camp or using a virtualization product like Parallels or VMWare's Fusion.

I hope that this overview helps more than it adds to the confusion. Either way, please let me know.

IOBit 360 is a relative newcomer on the antimalware scene, although the Chinese publisher is known for making solid utility software such as Smart Defrag. It's a fast and welterweight freeware utility for detecting and removing malware, and plugging your system's security holes before they can been exploited. The new improvements in version 1.10 include integration with the Windows 7 security center, a new feature that creates a USB key-portable version, a toolbar, and scan engine tweaks.

IOBit 360

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

If you're unfamiliar with the program, it's fairly simple to figure out and use. The interface has large left navigation icons with simple labels that won't confuse novices, while the tools menu offers some useful features that more advanced users are sure to appreciate.

The Overview tab is the main window and it contains links for immediate Smart scans, definition file updates, a "security analysis"--which evaluates potential exploits in your system and includes Windows security patches--and a status update window. This tells you whether your real-time protection, automatic scans and updates, and heuristic-based scans are on or off. Automatic scans and updates, and scheduled scans, are restricted to the paid upgrade, which is currently being offered on sale for $19.95. It's usually $29.95.

The Scan tab lets you initiate a Smart scan, a Full scan, or a Custom scan, and the Protection tab lets you toggle your real-time protection status. It seems a bit odd that a user would want the separate controls that the program offers for "known malware" and "unknown threats," but you can toggle them independently.

A running scan that wound up taking about six minutes to finish.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

The Tools tab is what makes IOBit 360 comparable to others in its class, giving you seven useful system security tools. There's a Hijack scan for power users, a Security Holes scan, a Passive Defense that disables cookies in Firefox and Internet Explorer, and ActiveX in IE, and an Unlock and Delete tool for getting rid of files your system thinks are in use. This feature is slightly less important in Windows 7, which will tell you when you encounter a locked file where it lives, but the unlocking and deletion features are definitely useful.

There's a Privacy Sweeper that will clean not just cookies and cache but saved forms, download history, and other Internet traces in all the major browsers it detected on my system, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari, but the sweeper will also check utilities such as archival tools, multimedia players, and other applications that regularly ping the Internet. These days, that's nearly everything.

Annoyingly, the PC Tuneup option takes you to the download page for another IOBit program, but users on the go will like that you can create a custom portable version, launchable from a USB key. IOBit 360 eats about 50MB of RAM when idle, with a Smart scan taking about 6 minutes and a full scan finishing in 45 minutes, making this one of the fastest in its class. I didn't notice any system lags while running it, and it didn't detect any malware on my system, although it did point out tracking cookies from multiple browsers. Third-party efficacy tests haven't yet been performed against high-performing competitors such as Ad-Aware or Malwarebytes, but IOBit is proving that the antimalware tool without antivirus isn't dead--yet.

These 10 videos from CNET TV cover a range of useful tips for Windows 7 users, including how to make a system repair disc, how to customize the Start menu, what some of the best hot keys for the operating system are, and more.

There's also advice on how to upgrade from either Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7, how to fix Ethernet driver problems in VMWare, how to burn an ISO directly from the newly enhanced Windows Explorer, and how to get to the jump list from your left mouse button.

Windows 7's calculator is packed with features. Who knew?

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

Some of my personal faves we haven't yet turned into videos. Desktop junkies will love that you can now set up a desktop wallpaper slideshow. From the desktop, right-click and choose Personalize, or go to Appearance and Personalization in the Control Panel. Click Desktop Background at the bottom, and change the picture location to the folder you want. Alternatively, you can choose images from across multiple photos. Unfortunately, the Aero Glass taskbar color won't change to complement each new slide, but you can set it to rotate images as often as every 10 seconds.

I can't vouch for its efficacy, but another trick is that Windows 7 includes a monitor color management tool which photographers and graphic designers are sure to appreciate. You can get to it either through the Screen Resolution window's Advanced options, then clicking Color Management, or going to Run and typing DCCW.

If you right-click on a program or a shortcut launcher, you can now pin it to either the Start menu or the Taskbar, which should save you from having to run the program to get it onto the taskbar. Another functional redo has been visited upon the Calculator. There are new views for Programmers and Statistics, and there are new features for quickly doing unit conversion, date differentials, and using templates to create customized finance calculations.

There are far more Windows 7 tips and tricks than these, of course. If you have a favorite, tell us in the comments below.

"Good" is always what you want to see when it comes to the state of your system, isn't it?

(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)

You get a new computer and it runs great. However, after a while, things start to get more and more sluggish. This is true for all operating systems, including those running the all new and shiny Windows 7.

That is because, other than user errors (such as misuse, viruses, spyware, accidental file deletion, harmful changes to the Registry and system settings, and so on), the OS doesn't take good care of itself. It collects and store junks from the Internet. It doesn't completely remove remnants of unwanted applications. Its Registry keeps getting more and more bloated with residual settings, and so on and so forth. All of these result in system clutter that over time slows down the machine.

This is when a cleanup software, like System Mechanic from Iolo, comes in handy.

I tried version 9.0.3 of the software recently, as it's the first I found that works with Windows 7 64-bit (the software itself is 32-bit, however) and it seemed to work well, though not perfectly.

Want to run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X on your Intel Mac? VMware Fusion just released a major update putting the software at version 3.0 and there's a lot of fixes and changes that make it worthy of checking out.

Those who have used VMware Fusion in the past know that it has had its share of hiccups with earlier versions, but most seem to have been ironed out in the latest release. Along with fixes, version 3.0 includes a performance boost making the overall experience more snappy and up to twice as fast when resuming from a suspended virtual machine. They also optimized it for Snow Leopard, utilizing the new operating system's advanced architecture with a 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel. The latest version also supports high-end 3D graphics using OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3, enabling gamers to play the latest Windows games on their Mac.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Probably the best thing about the latest VMware Fusion is the ability to share content in your Windows environment with what you already have on your Mac. This means that you can pull in images, music, and documents from folders in the Mac Finder into your Windows environment. Even better, you can open Windows files from the Mac Finder and have them boot up in Windows on VMware Fusion automatically. Another avenue of access is the always-on Applications menu found in the Mac Menubar that lets you start up Windows apps in VMware Fusion even when the program isn't running.

Launch Windows apps directly from the Mac Menubar

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

In our testing we loaded up Windows 7 on VMware Fusion and most everything worked as advertised. We found some graphics issues like strange graphical artifacts showing up onscreen in certain cases. But overall, we were able to run Windows 7 fairly smoothly and use many of the new features without incident. Overall, with the addition of more features to make switching between the two operating systems less of a hassle and the affordable price tag of $79.99, Mac users who need a Windows environment will appreciate everything VMware fusion has to offer.