Office file format documentation updated

There’s been a big refresh of the technical documentation about the internal workings of the doc, xls, ppt, and other major Office file types.

You can download the entire package (read the notes about jimmying Adobe Acrobat 9), or simply access the new info from the MSDN web site.

Funny how times change. I remember when Microsoft guarded the binary file formats like the family jewels. Now they’re readily available online. That’s progress. Really.

Install any version of Windows 7 from the Ultimate DVD – and get 120 free evaluation days to boot

My latest Windows Secrets Newsletter column just hit and it contains a couple of tricks that you might want to peruse.

To my mind, the really amazing news is that you can install any version of Windows 7 – Ultimate, Pro, Home Premium, or the others – from any Windows 7 DVD. That means if you ripped or ripped off a copy of the final version of Windows 7 Ultimate, say, you can use the DVD (or ISO file) to install Windows 7 Home Premium.

The trick doesn’t change the “bittedness” – if you have a 32-bit Windows 7 Ultimate DVD, you can only use it to install 32-bit copies of Home Premium, for example – but you can easily change the DVD so it’ll install Ultimate, Pro or Home Premium.

Here’s why that’s important to those of you who have a copy of the Win7 Ultimate DVD (or ISO file). If you go ahead and install Win7 Ultimate right now, Microsoft gives you 30 days before you have to type in an activation key. If you use the trick in my Secrets column, you can extend the free time up to 120 days – which pushes you out beyond the October 22 ship date. So you can start to use the “real” Windows 7 right now, no sweat, perfectly legally in all respects.

But if you install Windows 7 Ultimate right now, when time comes to activate, you have to supply an Ultimate key. And Win7 Ultimate costs two arms and two legs.

Chances are good that you want to install Windows 7 Home Premium right now. (A few of you may really want Pro, but almost everybody will do just fine with Home Premium.) Unfortunately, unless you know the trick, that Windows 7 Ultimate DVD you have right now only installs Windows 7 Ultimate – and you’ll get stuck with either a whopping bill when Windows 7 ships, or you’ll be faced with re-installing Win7.

So check out the column, follow the tricks, and get a copy of Home Premium installed right now. It’s all legal, all legit – if you know how.

Win7 to sell in UK for half the US price? Nawwwww…

Nate Lanxon at CNet UK has an article that breathlessly declares that you folks in UK will be able to get Windows 7 for half the price charged to us Yanks.

In the UK, full versions of Windows 7 Home Premium — not an upgrade edition — are going to cost around £65. That’s less than the price the Yanks have to pay just for an upgrade version — $120 (£72) — and half what they’ll have to cough up for a full version — $200 (£122).

What Nate says is absolutely true. But he doesn’t mention the Windows 7 Family Pack, which should give those on the left side of the little puddle three licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium for a paltry US $ 150, or about £30 each.

As I mentioned three weeks ago, it isn’t clear from Microsoft’s announcement whether the Family pack consists of three full licenses, or three upgrades. But, clearly, it’s difficult to put together an apples-to-apples comparison.

Right now, if you live in the US or have a friend in the US, the best approach appears to be installing the RTM version of Windows 7 Home Premium, and buying the Family Pack. If you don’t need all three copies, you surely can find a couple of people who do. When the Family Pack arrives, use the keys in the box (or have your friend in the US email you the keys) and you’re in like Flinn.

Changing of the Guard – Gmail, iTunes

Two headlines in the past couple of days really caught my eye. Hard to believe.

First: Gmail. Thomas Claburn at Information Week reports that traffic on Gmail has increased 46% between July 2008 and July 2009. Gmail just overtook AOL as the third largest email provider, after number-one Yahoo Mail and number-two Hotmail. Er, Windows Live Hotmail. At the current rate of growth, Gmail will take over Hotmail in the next year.

Gmail’s torrid growth coincides with a period of aggressive innovation. Google has delivered new Gmail features and capabilities every week, more or less, since the opening of Gmail Labs in June last year.

Google has also been encouraging businesses to start using Google Apps, which includes Gmail as well as online applications like Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Video.

The second notable statistic: according to a press release from market research company The NPD Group, iTunes now accounts for 25% of all music “units” sold in the US.

iTunes also continued to solidify its lead in the digital music arena, as consumer downloads from iTunes comprised 69 percent of the digital music market in the first half of 2009, followed by AmazonMP3 at 8 percent.

At the current rate of growth, downloads will outsell physical CDs by the end of 2010.

Amazing.

Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 7 now available

The Win7 SDK has just been posted, and it’s freely available for download.

Many of the important parts of the SDK are available online, but if you do a lot of puttering with Windows 7 – particularly if you try to program anything under Windows 7, even if it’s just VBA macros – the SDK is a worthwhile download.

Free Windows 7 Pro at Launch Events all over the US

WinGeek reports that Microsoft is giving away free copies of Windows 7 Pro if you register and show up for one of its US launch events. If you’re interested, do it NOW because these are bound to fill up very, very quickly.:

Use Windows XP? Get this product NOW

If you use Windows XP, you need to download and run  the latest version of Sophos Anti-Rootkit, like, right now.

As far as I know, nobody has ever seen a rootkit in the wild that works on Vista or Windows 7. I also don’t know of any real-live rootkits that work with 64-bit Windows XP. But the vast majority of Windows XP users are vulnerable, and should check their machines.

Now.

This new version of Sophos Anti-Rootkit will run on Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit. It’s absolutely free, as always. Good product from a good company.

Conficker keeps on ficking

Why don’t we hear anything about the Conficker worm these days?

Rob Rosenberger says it’s boring, so the media’s lost interest. The threat’s still there. Conficker is still out infecting lots and lots and lots of Windows XP machines. But there’s no spectacular new, uh, news, so Conficker no longer rates as a good water cooler discussion topic.

Too bad. I’m going to great lengths to upgrade all of my XP machines – and all of my friends’ and clients’ XP machines – to Windows 7, specifically because of Conficker.

While Windows 7 is far from impervious, it’s a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult to crack than XP. (At least, if you don’t count ActiveX controls – but don’t get me started.)

Conficker alone should have you worried enough to look at upgrading. It’s still out there, even if you don’t hear about it.