"Eighteen months after Windows 7 was released, Microsoft is boasting that it has sold 350 million licenses of its flagship operating system. The platform's sales have barely slowed since the company last bragged about numbers; after 12 months, 240 million licenses had been shipped. All a far cry from Windows Vista's market take-up. Though Windows Vista sold well—around 330 million Internet users two years after launch—its reception was lukewarm, and though users actually quite liked it, it failed to achieve acceptance in the essential corporate market."

"For all the things Macs lack -- pre-installed Flash, USB 3.0, Blu-ray, and more -- you'd think that'd there'd be more clever commercials from Microsoft taking a jab at their fruity competitor. While commercials like Laptop Hunters hinted at such things, they didn't just lay it out there. Fortunately for Microsoft that's exactly what its new commercial does. In the commercial Mac and PC (laptops, not "guys", mind you) are flying aboard an airplane (conveniently named Windows 7). As the pair settle in the PC fires up a Blu-ray movie --Avatar.

"The words Windows and security have not always been compatible. In the past, Microsoft's quest to make its operating system as easy to manage as possible for the "typical" user has often meant sacrificing adequate safeguards against intrusion and infection. Windows XP's notorious vulnerability to network worms stands as a recent example; Microsoft shipped the operating system with a firewall but initially left it turned off by default.

"As I alluded to recently, the second round of Windows 7 vs. Linux benchmarks -- with the first round consisting of Is Windows 7 Actually Faster Than Ubuntu 10.04 and Mac OS X vs. Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu benchmarks -- are currently being done atop a Lenovo ThinkPad W510 notebook that is quite popular with business professionals. With the high-end ThinkPad W510 boasting a dual quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU with Hyper-Threading plus a NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M graphics processor, we began this second round of cross-platform benchmarks by running a set of workstation tests.

"Last month, Windows 7 passed Windows Vista in market share, according to Netmarketshare.com. One year after Windows 7 hit RTM and nine months after it was released, Microsoft's newest OS managed to acquire more users than its predecessor. The operating system reached the 10 percent market share mark four months ago, and just last week Microsoft announced it had sold 175 million licenses so far.

Microsoft is planning to release patches April 13 for 25 vulnerabilities affecting Windows, Office and Exchange.

Microsoft is planning a significant Patch Tuesday update April 13 to address 25 vulnerabilities across Windows, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange.

Lately it has come to my attention that there are some serious gaming flaws in Windows 7 that have carried over from Vista. On more than one occasion I've ran into slightly older hardware that would warp, skip, lag and in general have low frame rates.

"These days I almost feel bad for the guys at Microsoft. They've got what anyone in the world would consider a hit product on their hands, and guess what? Nobody cares. Everybody is so busy gushing over Apple's iPad—myself included—that they are not paying any attention to what's going on in the land of Windows.

Waiting for SP1 before jumping to Windows 7? It could still happen this year.

Now that Windows 7 has settled in inside consumer homes after the considerable marketing push from retail, attention is turning to Microsoft's next step in development – the first Service Pack.

Just to be extra safe, many IT professionals prefer to wait until at least the first Service Pack for a Windows version before implementing a new version of the OS into their departments. The reason is that the first massive wave of users will already have hit the OS to clear out any possible bugs and compatibility issues.

Even when Windows 7 launched into a warm reception (and brisk sales), Microsoft didn't reveal exact sale numbers for its new OS – until today.

Microsoft CFO Peter Klein announced at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference that Windows 7 has sold 90 million licenses to-date.

Up until recently, Microsoft's company line when boasting about Windows 7 sales is that is the fastest selling operating system in history, but without any accompanying number.

This news comes just days after the expiration of the free use of Windows 7 Release Candidate.