Top Story Watch PDC10 Live October 28-29 and On-Demand Anytime
If you are not attending this year's sold-out Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) event in Redmond, WA, you can still benefit from the keynotes and sessions. This year's PDC will include live streaming of the keynotes and concurrent live streaming of sessions. If you can't join the live stream, you can watch videos on-demand, or download all of the conference sessions within 24 hours of their live recording. The online event is free and no registration is required to join the live or on-demand streaming.
Local events are also planned around the world for you to experience PDC10 closer to your home. It's not too late to register and attend a PDC10 event near you.
The PDC10 Session Guide is available, so you can add sessions to your calendar and plan your PDC10 schedule. For example, you might be interested in Mark Russinovich's two-part series, "Mysteries of Windows Memory Management Revealed," starting Thursday, October 28, at 2:00 PM PDT (GMT-7).
PDC10 event site: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ PDC10 local events: http://www.microsoftpdc.com/Local PDC10 session guide: http://player.microsoftpdc.com/
News for Hardware and Driver Developers Announcing Windows Product Scout The Windows Product Scout website showcases a select group of software and hardware products that are available for Microsoft Windows and that help extend and enhance the Windows 7 experience for customers. Similar to Windows PC Scout, this website helps customers discover great products from Windows partners, like you. Partner participation: To showcase your devices on the Windows Product Scout website, the devices must meet the following criteria: - Have earned the "Compatible with Windows 7" logo.
- Be available for purchase from a major retail or e-tail outlet in the United States.
- Be a best-in-class example that uses a Windows 7 technology, such as the following examples:
- Custom Device Stage: Digital still camera, printers, webcams, and input devices
- Play To: Televisions, AV receivers and digital media adaptors
- Windows Connect Now: Routers and printers
- Windows Media Center: TV tuners
- Windows Touch: Monitors
The Windows Product Scout team evaluates products that are nominated, so not all nominations are accepted for the site. If your product meets the preceding criteria, Windows Product Scout can help promote your product to customers. Visit the Windows Product Scout website: http://www.windowsproductscout.com Nominate products or learn more: Send an e-mail message to wpscout@microsoft.com.
Recently Published on WHDC Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2 This white paper describes important tuning parameters and settings that you can adjust to improve the performance and energy efficiency of the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. This white paper describes each setting and its potential effect to help you make an informed decision about its relevance to your system, workload, and performance goals. This paper is for information technology (IT) professionals and system administrators who need to tune the performance of a server that is running Windows Server 2008 R2. What's New: This substantial revision includes new sections for "Performance Tuning for File Server Workload (SPECsfs2008)" and "Performance Tuning for TPC-E Workload." The "Performance Tuning for File Servers" section now includes guidance for NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate and subsections for "Tuning Parameters for NFS Server," "File Server Tuning Example," and "File Client Tuning Example." The "Performance Tuning for SAP Sales and Distribution Two-Tier Workload" section is updated. This revised white paper also clarifies energy consumption versus power consumption and recommends a device-specific mechanism for binding interrupts, if the driver model supports it. For a full list of revisions, see the following link. Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perf_tun_srv-r2.mspx
Windows PC Accelerators This white paper describes the key benefits and implementation considerations for Microsoft Windows PC Accelerators. PC Accelerators are a collection of features that were introduced in Windows Vista that directly address performance and responsiveness in computers. The PC Accelerators include Windows SuperFetch, Windows ReadyBoot, Windows ReadyBoost, Windows ReadyDrive. This paper is intended for PC and storage device manufacturers that want to develop products to take advantage of the Windows PC Accelerator features in Windows 7 and Windows Vista. What's New: Changes in this revision include the new ReadyBoot feature, the Windows 7 improvements for SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, and ReadyDrive, and improved descriptions and organization throughout. Read more: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/perfaccel.mspx
What's New in Blogs for Hardware and Driver Developers "LiveKd for Virtual Machine Debugging" by Mark Russinovich in "Mark's Blog" When Dave Solomon and I were writing the 3rd edition of the Windows Internals book series, Inside Windows 2000, back in 1999, we pondered if there was a way to enable kernel debuggers like Windbg and Kd (part of the free Debugging Tools for Windows package that's available in the Windows Platform SDK) to provide a local interactive view of a running system. Dave had introduced kernel debugger experiments in the 2nd edition, Inside Windows NT, that solidified the concepts presented by the book. For example, the chapter on memory management describes the page frame database, the data structure the system uses to keep track of the state of every page of physical memory, and an accompanying experiment shows how to view the actual data structure definition and contents of PFN entries on a running system using the kernel debugger. At the time, however, the only way to use Windbg and Kd to view kernel information was to attach a second computer with a serial "null modem" cable to the target system booted in debugging mode. The inconvenience of having to purchase an appropriate serial cable and configure two systems for kernel debugging meant that many readers skipped the experiments, but otherwise might have followed along and deepened their understanding if it was easier. After giving it some thought, I realized that I could fool the debuggers into thinking that they were looking at a crash dump file by implementing a file system filter driver that presented a "virtual" crash dump file debuggers could open.... Read more: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2010/10/14/3360991.aspx
Windows Logo Program News Video Fidelity Requirements Remain Optional In response to feedback from partners, the video fidelity requirements (STREAM-0082, STREAM-0083, STREAM-0084, and STREAM-0085) will not be required. The Windows Logo Kit (WLK) currently treats these tests as optional only, so no changes will be made to the WLK to ensure that partners that are interested in testing the video fidelity of their device can continue to do so.
Process for Obtaining a PnP-X Vendor ID You can request a Plug-and-Play Extensions (PnP-X) vendor ID from winqual@microsoft.com. In response, you will receive an email that contains a table with a vendor ID assignment. Use the number in the PNP-X ID column of the table for the VEN_XXXX file in the PnP-X X_hardwareId tag. For example, if the number that is listed in the PNP-X ID column in the table is 1234, the corresponding field would be VEN_1234.
New VeriSign Signing Certificates Accepted on Winqual Recently, VeriSign released 2048-bit RSA keys. Winqual can accept these keys.
FAQ: Why Does My .cat File Signature Have an Expiration Date? A logo-certified, Winqual-signed driver does not expire. The .cat file remains valid as long as you do not modify the .inf file.
Only a test-signed driver has an expiration date. The code that checks the digital signature examines the time stamp and verifies that the signature was applied during the valid time period of the certificate. If no time stamp exists, the code uses the expiration date of the certificate.
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