The leaked build 7601.16562.100603-1800 is the same which was released to testers two days ago (though there is no guarantee that it wasn’t tampered with). here are the build details from Wzor.

MICROSOFT.WIN.7.AND.SRV.2008.R2.SERVICE.PACK-1.BETA-1.WAVE0.DVD-MSFT

BUILD: 7601.16562.100603-1800
FILE:  7601.16562.100603-1800_Update_Sp_Wave0-B1SP1.0_DVD.iso
SIZE: 1,254.15 MB
SHA-1: 79B0DF498F18DFFFE30B3E8B955BF300AB2EBED4
MD5: A69A8ED20FC91AAB4A0D0C16A885B313
CRC: 7249366E
NOTE: Wave0: English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish.

According to Wzor, the Windows 7 SP1 Beta download ISO contains three different packages based on platforms. There is the Windows 7 SP1 Beta for x86, Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for x64, and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 for iA-64.

The official Windows 7 SP1 beta would be released for public download towards the end of July, until then if you want to trust a potentially modified build, then that’s your call. And remember, Google is your best friend.

According to Neowin, the 1.22GB build was compiled on June 3, and is available in English, German, Spanish, French and Japanese editions. The official build number is 7601.16562.100603-1800 but don’t go searching for download links just yet because there isn’t any news of a new leaked version – though I’m willing to bet that would change pretty soon.

SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 brings all the incremental updates and hotfixes released via Windows Update as well as a couple of new virtualization features for Windows Server 2008 R2, as well as RemoteFX. While there aren’t any major new features announced for Windows 7 yet, there are rumors going around suggesting Windows 7 may natively add USB 3.0 support to the mix.

RemoteFX, which is the main highlight for SP1 is basically an enhancement to the Remote Desktop Protocol allowing rich multimedia and 3D experiences to remote users. This basically means that you can now have thin clients with very basic hardware to access remote servers which do most of the computing tasks (including graphics and media processing). Think of it as a cooler version of the mainframe computer architectures of the past.

If you are tempted to try Windows 7 SP1 for yourself then you better keep a close watch here, because Microsoft had previously announced the public beta of Windows 7 SP1 would be around the end of July.

P.S. The image above is just photoshoped.

Yeah you heard right. You can turn your ordinary laptop running Windows 7 into a Wi-Fi hotspot thanks to an undocumented Windows 7 feature called Virtual Wi-Fi. The feature, which had been under development by Microsoft Research allows you to split your wireless card into several virtual adapters, thereby turning your notebook into a wireless hotspot.

You can connect all sorts of Wi-Fi enabled devices and share internet connection among them. And if you are wondering, then no, it doesn’t setup an AdHoc network. This is regular access point, encrypted with WPA2 encryption.

Interestingly, you can still use your computer’s Wi-Fi like you do regularly while it is functioning like a hotspot, i.e. connect to other Wi-Fi connections etc. For more information, regarding the software or technology, take a look at the FAQS section on the official website.

You can participate in the public beta and download Connectify to your PC.

Planning the big move to Windows 7? Or you just want to do a clean install of your current operating system – Ninite is an application you should look out for.

Ninite lets you install all your applications from a single installer, all at once. This makes OS reinstallation really simple because you wont have to sit on your PC and install all the software. It gets even better, as Ninite lets you perform unattended installation, so you don’t even have to answer those annoying prompts and click next on wizards.

All applications are installed with their default options, plus Ninite is vigilant enough to skip all adware related prompts like toolbars etc. You get fully configured, squeaky clean installations.

All you have to do is go to Ninite’s website, and select all the applications you want to install. It will then build a customized installer for you. Download the installer, save it to a USB drive and then install/reinstall your operating system. After the OS installation is complete, just plug in the USB and run Ninite. Kick back and relax or reward yourself with a snack while Ninite handles all the dirty work for you.

It supports all sorts of common applications, browsers, tools, antivirus, media applications, utilities etc. All applications are in their latest versions. The popular ones include:

Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Skype, Windows Live, Pidgin, Thunderbird, WinRAR, iTunes, VLC, Google Earth, Hulu, Paint.NET, Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, uTorrent, Security Essentials, Avast, AVG, Flash Player, ,NET Framework, Silverlight, Dropbox, RealVNC, Python, FileZilla, WinSCP, PuTTy, Java, Eclipse, JDK, and a lot more.

That is pretty much all the basic stuff you need their. Just hop on over to Ninite and configure your customized installer right away. Happy upgrading to Windows 7! Oh and here is an awesome FREE theme pack for Windows 7 to celebrate it.

So Windows 7 has finally been released to public – and I wasn’t here to celebrate and cover the launch. So in an attempt to make up for the gap, I created an exclusive Theme Pack for Windows 7, which I’m sharing as a free download.

The Fall Leaves theme is inspired by a recent contest on Gizmodo, though I’m not using any of the images from that contest. Instead the whole theme is composed of 11 high quality photographs from Flickr, all licensed under Creative Commons 2.0. I would like to thank everyone for giving me the permission to use their work.

All the wallpapers are 1920×1080 (Full HD) in resolution and would fit pretty nicely on all types of displays, wide-screen or not. I did a bit of touching and editing with the images before packing them in the theme. Click through and have a look at all the amazing photos – and the Download Link for the theme of course.

Download Windows 7 Fall Leaves Theme Pack

Click here to download the theme, and if you like it, do leave a comment, or a suggestion. Maybe I’ll do more themes in the future.

DirectX 11 based hardware has just started rolling out on the streets thanks to ATI and boy I don’t need to emphasize how hot things are getting now that Windows 7 is also officially out. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do with your new Graphic Cards until some real world applications (read: DirectX 11 games) come out – which seems like will make it by the end of the holiday season.

In the meanwhile, you can take your GPU for a spin on the world’s first publicly released DirectX 11 Benchmark – Heaven by Unigine Corp. The benchmark demo is available as a free download right now and is based on the company’s Unigine engine.

In case you’re wondering, this is the first time I heard about them too, but hey who are we to complain. At least we got some Dx11 action right? Anyways, you can download the benchmark from Unigine’s website. Here are a couple of videos demoing the benchmark.

You can see how much difference can Hardware Tessellation make on your visual experience. Here’s another video to prove my point.

The latest ad from the Rookies campaign brings back Kylie and she shows off more happy stuff. And like she says: “… this is getting gooood!”.

Firefox may not have been quick enough to adapt the Jumplists feature in Windows 7 like Google Chrome, but there’s one piece of functionality the development team is really interested in – Windows 7 Multitouch.

I stumbled upon a video (embedded below) of how Firefox handles Multitouch in various scenarios you may encounter in a web app. A couple of demos are shown with some common testing samples which highlight the features of the new Multitouch API for DOM being built into Gecko. These includes simple games, cropping an image and the regular pinch and zoom to resize.

One thing you could notice in this Minefield build compiled on August 17 is that it still doesn’t show any traces of the mockups we had seen, which left me in doubt whether the new UI would ever show up before Firefox 4.

Anyways here is the video and yeah do share your comments on how you think Multitouch would help you in a desktop browser.

Nokia has just announced that its working on its very own Netbook (video after the break) all suited with an HD display, HDMI, integrated 3G with hot swappable SIM card, A-GPS with Nokia Maps and a massive 12 hour battery life. All that power packed into a stylish design running Windows 7. Looks like Microsoft – Nokia deal wasn’t only limited to Office on Symbian eh?

For the official answer to why Nokia decided to enter the Netbook market, Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices, Kai Oistamo said:

“A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility. We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”

According to the official Nokia blog, we can expect more details at Nokia World 09 which is all set to rock on September 2. I can’t really wait to get more details on this because this Netbook already has me drooling. Here is the official video to help all of you join in.

According a head to head comparison between Windows 7 64-bit and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 64-bit, you wouldn’t notice any difference in performance between the two when running DirectX 10 titles. But things aren’t at simple as they seem. Continue reading after the break if you’re interested.

I remember when Vista came out, lots of people complained about its poor gaming performance compared to Windows XP. Of course those comparisons were only limited to DirectX 9c because that’s the highest version of the technology Windows XP could support. Game performance in DirectX 10 enabled games decreased even further because it required more processing power.

Thankfully that isn’t the case with this OS transition. Vista and Windows 7 share the same DirectX 10 performance and given the fact the drivers for Windows 7 are far more stable than they ever were for Windows Vista, you can be sure of an overall better experience.

Of course I can’t say anything about DirectX 11 gaming performance because there isn’t any game title supporting Windows 7′s standard DirectX version out yet. But from my over all experience with Windows 7 and limited knowledge of DirectX 11, I’d say that the experience wouldn’t be a lot more faster than DirectX 10, because more work would be offloaded to the GPU.

For the sake of closing the article with one decisive recommendation, I have this to say: If gaming is your primary concern, then I would recommend you to wait instead of upgrading to Windows 7 right away if you are using Windows Vista of course. You won’t be able to play those very few DirectX 11 games but you’d get a far more greater choice for Dx11 GPUs around the first quarter of 2010. That would be the best time for gaming enthusiasts to upgrade.