My thanks goes, as noted before, to Microsoft for providing the licenses to give away. Best of luck to you all!
Last Update: the final drawing has been completed. Congratulations to @wizardcm for winning the last license! I’ll strive to find more to give away from CES.
Windows 7 launched on October 22nd to mass fanfare, and a good friend of mine at the event thought it would be fantastic to spread the Windows 7 spirit. In addition to assisting with Mary Jo’s Windows 7 afterparty in NYC (giveaway video here), he passed a few licenses my way to give away on winJade, so here it goes.
I’ve got three Windows 7 Ultimate licenses to give away (pictured above), and they’ll be given away as follows:
- The first on Christmas Day (25th). @yertosaurus nabbed this one!
- The second on December 28. @migue333 won this license!
- The last on December 31. @wizardcm got this last license!
If you want one, dive in to find out what you need to do. It’s pretty simple.
There are three steps for you to take part:
- Tell us what you think is the best new feature in Windows 7. You can expand on this with whatever else you want, such as what you wished made it into Windows 7 prior to RTM or what you hope ends up in Windows 8. Remember to comment with a valid email address, and a valid twitter URL (twitter.com/yourtwittername) as the URL in your comment. Otherwise, I’ve got no way of getting in touch with you if you’ve won. If your comment doesn’t immediately appear, don’t fret; I need to approve comments before they show up, but I’ll still see your comment either way.
- Follow @eganist on Twitter. Otherwise, you’ll have no real way of knowing whether or not you won, which would truly suck if you happened to be one of the ones to win..
- Retweet This. Or, if you’d prefer using your own client, just tweet “RT @eganist Win 1 of 3 #Windows7 Ultimate licenses for Christmas, New Years’ from #winJade: http://is.gd/5v9lu” without quotes.
I need at least 100 qualifying retweets by 11:50 AM Eastern Time on Christmas Day for this giveaway to go ahead, so be sure to enter!
Each retweet counts as an entry, so if you want multiple chances to win, you can retweet that line (at most) once every 12 hours. The comment and any tweets need to be up before the drawing dates listed above to qualify for said drawing dates. That’s it, really.
Regarding shipping, here’s the thing: I can send the physical disc to any winners within the continental United States. However, I cannot ship the disc on my own to any winners outside the continental United States. As such, if you happen to win and you’re not in the continental United States (meaning the 48 states that happen to be touching each other), you have a choice of either reimbursing my shipping costs or agreeing to receive only the key on one of these discs. To the rest of you within the continental United States, if you happen to win, we’ll discuss how to get this thing to your place via email.
I should note that Microsoft employees, any employees working with the PR firms Waggener Edstrom and Edelman, as well as close friends and immediate family of me or anyone working for winJade cannot participate (it would be unfair, and you know it).
Follow Bryant on Twitter! 
The best features for me in Win7 are the Superbar and jumplists. I don’t get lost now when having multiple window opens because they don’t shift around anymore.
Superbar. While everything else adds to Windows 7, the Superbar really brings the quicklaunch toolbar and the old taskbar together in a way that really just works, with keyboard shortcuts to boost.
I think the best Windows 7 feature is Aero Snap. It’s the one feature that I hate not having when I use an XP or Vista computer; I drag the window to the top of the screen, only to have nothing happen! I really think Aero snap is a great feature that just makes you computer nicer and easier to use.
I definitely think that the best feature for Windows 7 is the Superbar. It’s just so much smoother.
Windows 7 is an amazing OS with a lot of great features: Aero, taskbar, jump list, etc. but my favorite is the incredible improvement of the user interaction. Everything is integrated, co-related, each piece is easy discoverable using intuition. Other feature that I think that is very important too is the possibility to mount and burn .iso images.
What I really love about the Windows 7 is how fast it is compared to older Windows.. It’s just freakin’ fast!!
what i really love about W7, mhm..
actually its really about what i really love about windows 7.
its about what windows 7 can do to me.
windows 7 can work faster even than XP or stubid MAC
Windows 7 provide GPS that its so helpful specially when you are a programmer, then u can just use it.
windows 7 provide the accelemeter, i loved it!!
widnows 7 showed in better interface than Vista, the Aero thing is just wonderful.
Windows 7 groups the open tasks with the quick launch which that gives the user the comfort while using it.
widows 7 better in search for documents with Indexing technology.
windows 7 widgets!!!!! oh what i can tell about it!! its just amazing while u can drag it and drop it where u want, and YEAH the most interesting thing, which is never slow ur pc!
windows 7, Windows Live Essentials … its really nice collection of media and email center that you work within one platform for differents projects.
windows 7 remote media!!!! WOOW, as i live in a campus!!!, we use it all, am saving my HD for my projects not for songs and movies! its so help ful
Life is easier with Windows 7!!!! i think it should be called, Windows Sense 7 !!!
i forgot to add my twitter account
:D
what i really love about W7, mhm..
actually its really about what i really love about windows 7.
its about what windows 7 can do to me.
windows 7 can work faster even than XP or stubid MAC
Windows 7 provide GPS that its so helpful specially when you are a programmer, then u can just use it.
windows 7 provide the accelemeter, i loved it!!
widnows 7 showed in better interface than Vista, the Aero thing is just wonderful.
Windows 7 groups the open tasks with the quick launch which that gives the user the comfort while using it.
widows 7 better in search for documents with Indexing technology.
windows 7 widgets!!!!! oh what i can tell about it!! its just amazing while u can drag it and drop it where u want, and YEAH the most interesting thing, which is never slow ur pc!
windows 7, Windows Live Essentials … its really nice collection of media and email center that you work within one platform for differents projects.
windows 7 remote media!!!! WOOW, as i live in a campus!!!, we use it all, am saving my HD for my projects not for songs and movies! its so help ful
Life is easier with Windows 7!!!! i think it should be called, Windows Sense 7 !!!
My favourite part of Windows 7 is how fast the machine starts up and closes – no more tedious hanging around
It would be hard to pin down a single new feature which is my favorite. Of course, I love the Superbar and Aero Peek/Snap, but it’s all the little things that make Windows 7 great. The enhanced personalize/themes control panel, the improved performance, the way gadgets are on the desktop instead of a sidebar, the desktop slideshow feature, etc…
Maybe it’s the reduced retail price that’s my favorite feature, I don’t really know. All I know is that I’ll never be going back to Vista
I like every single little thing in Windows 7, but what I like most about it is the speed (which doesn’t decrease) and not having to reinstall every couple of months. XP was terrible because it got weighed down by everything that you installed, and it’s great to see Windows 7 can retain it’s speed and stability in all sorts of situations.
An example would be: I’ve been running the RTM since it first came online, I’m running it with a legal key from Technet, my HDD has very little space left (yes, I know I install too many things, but I just can’t help it), I always have many programs running (like chrome, which has a separate process for each tab), but Windows 7 hasn’t slowed down, or failed. I tend to sit at it for over 5 hours straight (having breaks along the way of course, I’m not crazy) but I can always be sure that it is ready to go and doesn’t need a reboot because something went wrong.
I could go into detail about all the other features I like, but I think that expresses enough.
I love both AeroSnap and the SuperBar.
On the downside, I’ve only had Win7 installed 2 days, but have already hit a little snag. An error which so far doesn’t seem to have working solution
Maybe you can help attract attention to it?
Anyway, for the contest here is my twitter page:
http://twitter.com/no_substitute
Here’s the facts about the error:
“The application failed to initialize properly (0×0000142). Click OK to terminate the application.”
December 24th, 2009 by Kim
Hey
I’m not the only one with this problem and nobody have found a working solution for Windows 7 yet. I now request the collective wisdom of the blogworld to come up with a workaround for this.
This error is hindering the start of any console-related programs . Not even cmd.exe will run!
In my case I am trying to run gpg.exe of the GnuPG package for my Enigmail install in Mozilla Thunderbird. I have found two articles that I think are relevant, but I don’t feel confident enough to edit the registry in the way one of the “solutions” suggest and the other is a hotfix that isn’t made for Windows 7.
These links point to the articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960266/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/824422/en-us
All solutions suggested by Microsoft themselves for this issue on other OSs mention this file, Winsrv.dll, as the culprit. This reference can also be found in the kb/824422-article above, since that is listed in that particular registry value.
I will not, ever, use System Restore to fix anything on my computer, so that is never a valid solution. I should be able to fix anything on a current system, with replacing files or editing system settings. There’s no telling what changes has been made since last restore point was saved and will be lost forever if I “go back”. So, please, don’t suggest using system restore. A full reinstall is a much safer way to go, but I’d rather not do that, again (I just installed Win7 to start using during the Christmas holidays).
I’ve added my findings on several forums to see if I can get some help there:
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/23296-does-anyone-know-fix-0xc0000142-problem.html
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7programs/thread/2297ad07-4338-41ac-aa81-4a563474aaf4
I added it on my twitter too:
http://twitter.com/no_substitute
Somewhere, someone, anyone should be able to come up with something that will work. Maybe someone can get their friend/relative who works at Microsoft to raise attention to the problem.
Thank you in advance for any and all help you can give.
/Kim
windows7 error howto fix software issue 0xc0000142
The snap feature looks so cool. I love you can how easy it would be to multi task on it.
Here is my tweet
http://twitter.com/gppkd/status/7014474477
Well..I don’t have Windows 7, but my son does and he say EVERYTHING about Windows 7 is awesome! and that old versions of Windows do not compare!
So….I’m gonna go with that! I want it!!!
Thanks!
I don’t have Windows 7 , but what i heard and read about it … It must be the best WIN yet ! Bigger Better Faster ! I WANT IT
Best features? superbar and the jumplists, Win7 is also much mire frugal in use of system resources, much tighter coding for the win:)
http://twitter.com/dadasdadsasda
The best feature I find in Windows 7 is firstly that it is so clean and neat and secondly the SuperBar is very cool!
just adding my twitter url, sorry I didn’t before
I have happy to get Windows 7 because I cannot stand Windows VISTA, it is not user friendly like XP. Thanks and hope I win
The best new feature in Windows 7 IMO, is Libraries.
I don’t have to waste disk space anymore copying my files to my user profile, and the Libraries view in Explorer looks darn good.
I wish that Windows 8 brings more stuff to the Windows party, e.g. full x64 code (no more WoW64), more client features in Windows 8 Server (we /are/ paying thrice as much for a reason, right?), and a better WMP (preferably: as good as Foobar2k/Winamp, and looks as good as iTunes).
http://twitter.com/saraminda/status/7067629875
I think this feature would benefit me.
Share files and printers among multiple PCs—from one Windows 7-based PC to another, you can share files, music, photos, and even printers
There are so many nice features about Windows 7 that it seems unfair to comment about just one of them. If I were to write about a feature I’d want in future releases, its a Download Manager built right into Windows itself. When they can have one for downloading RC and Beta versions why not build it into Windows?
I forgot to add my twitter URL
http://twitter.com/vinodsin
Also, in future versions of windows I hope it can become somewhat like its counterpart – windows mobile version where one can turn the computer on with the press of a button rather than booting it up.
Amazingly to some…my favorite “feature” of Windows 7 is the cleaned up look of Windows Explorer. I absolutely despised what MS did to Windows Explorer in Vista and someone there figured out how horrible it was and addressed it.
Ack…forgot my link…http://twitter.com/techslacker
Best feature hands down, The super bar/Aero snap-peek combo
Needed feature a builtin download manager. It was in the 40xx longhorn builds and worked perfectly, it should be a basic part of the os by now.
The absolute best feature in Windows 7 is the libraries. I love how it organizes all my similar folders into one place.
http://twitter.com/djlegion
I retweeted! So far I haven’t found anything I don’t like about Windows 7.
http://twitter.com/simplyandreah
@mmc67 on Twitter I love the Play To feature. I love that I can Play music,share photos, and videos from your PC to media devices in my home network. and I can send media from my PC to other compatible devices in my home
Other than fixing what MS did to Vista, I think the Superbar is the best feature. I’d love to have my own copy – I’ve only seen demos so far.
Here is my tweet http://twitter.com/simplydab/status/7258069421
thanks and Happy New Year!!
I have 3 computer geek sons whose standard response to any problems I have on my computer is “User error!” But they all tell me Windows 7 is faster (I like!) Windows 7 is easier to use (I like!) and maybe I will be better able to organize my files, photos, and writings on Windows 7 (I like very much!). Another thing I would like very much is if I were to win this contest as there is no way I could afford it myself!
I follow @eganist on twitter @jbafaith and I tweeted this contest:
http://twitter.com/jbafaith/status/7257995917
jbafaith2001@yahoo.com
twitter.com/jbafaith
What I love the most about windows 7 is the fact that it is not windows vista.