I’m a big fan of Xobni - the plug in for Outlook that makes Outlook, well, good. If you search for anything, it will bring up everything relevant in a sidebar so you can see it at a glance, show you all files you’ve exchanged, pull out contact details such as phone number from emails. Essentially it’s quite awesome. However, I’ve just discovered that Xobni 1.8 was making my life a misery.

Here at Dennis towers, all emails older than a month on the Exchange server are archived using Symantec Enterprise Vault - which compresses old emails down and opens them on the fly when needed. It’s clearly a major space saver on the servers, and works well and also means we don’t have to bother archiving on the client side, which is handy.

However, recently every time I tried to open an archived mail Outlook would simply disappear in a puff off logic - which really isn’t conducive to effective communications. As all email over a month old is placed into a vault it really was something of a major problem.

Originally I laid the fault firmly at the feet of my recent upgrade to the technical preview of Office 2010 - which was going swimmingly until I realised it wasn’t compatible atall with the Enterprise Vault plug-in. This meant a swift downgrade back to Office 2007 - at which point I encountered the crashing problem.

Huffing, puffing, uninstalling  and reinstalling made no difference so there was only one thing for it - a complete wipe and reinstall of my laptop - which at least gave me a chance to move from Windows 7 RTM to final code. However, after installing Office 2007 and the Enterprise Vault plug I was relieved for it to find it working, but then after installing the latest version fo Xobni, to my horror the crashing had returned.

At this point the penny dropped - clearly it was Xobni, and not Office 2010 and its remnants, that was at fault, and a quick Google revealed this thread on a Xobni forum discussing the very issue. I had clearly been distracted by the Office 2010 installation.

Xobni is very responsive to  its users, but the suggestion in that thread that you ‘don’t use Enterprise Vault’ is pretty poor. Enterprise Vault is not the sort of thing most users will be using at home - it will be the something that companies will have set up, and not a matter of choice for users.

Alternatively, one of its engineers has posted a build of Xobni that he claims to have solved the issue - though it’s older than the current version of the programme.

I can’t tell you if it works though as I haven’t tried it. Instead in the same forum one helpful poster suggested that he has solved the issue - you simply go into options and turn off the Xobni Plus auto correct feature.

And I can confirm that it works fine.  I can’t tell you how great it is to finally have both Xobni working and access to email older than a month.

However,  there’s no follow up on this from Xobni - simply because it won’t want you to turn off the Xobni Plus feature as it want you to upgrade to that paid for version.

This is fine, as Xobni is a great product, and the upgrade adds some good features - but it need to get on top of the Symantec Enterprise Vault issue straight away. Xobni is meant to enhance users productivity, but for those with Enterprise Vault, it’s doing precisely the opposite and that’s a shame.

In what is probably not an amazing coincidence, Asus has launched a flurry of products that are available on just the same day as Windows 7. Funnily enough, pretty much all of them will ship with Windows 7 - funny how these things pan out.

Two products caught our eye. Well, mine anyway.

Firstly was theUL50VS, a notebook that despite its decent 15.6in display, can according to Asus manage up to 12 hours away from the mains - which seems frankly amazing if true.

Key to this is certainly the use of a Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 - a CULV processor- which stands for Consumer Ultra Low Voltage. This runs at a rather lowly 1.3GHz, but still seemed comfortable with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - which I was told Asus is now going with as standard. The 4GB of DDR3 RAM probably helped here though.

First impressions of the notebook were pretty good and we were surprised to see an RRP of just £1,099 inc VAT, especially as it features a 160GB SSD.

The display is LED backlit and it wasn’t wanting for brightness but it only offers 1,366 x 768 pixels. This isn’t much on a screen of this size and is clearly where a lot of cost has been saved.

The lid was quite thin, and has a brushed aluminium finish but the main body is constructed of glossy black plastic that had already attracted a serious amount of fingerprints.

Elsewhere the spec is good, with switchable graphics a highlight, letting you choose between long-life Intel GMA X4500HD or Nvidia G210M for more video punch.

This is activated on the fly inside Windows 7 by pressing a button at the top left. Press it when the machine is off, and it will boot in about 10 seconds into a basic Linux OS, giving you access to the web, pictures, and Skyp. It works too.

With 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet and Blluetooth this is a laptop that will attract both consumer and business interest - the latter helped particularly by the keyboard featuring a dedicated number pad.

The really impressive bit though is that 12 hour battery life - after all, getting half of that from a laptop this size would be impressive so we look forward to getting our hands on a finished sample to test this out.

We also like the look of a new Asus Eee PC videophone, which has been upgraded from the first one released last year with the addition of a touch screen.It looks good but the RRP of £240 seems a bit steep. Luckily it’ll be on offer this Christmas for £199, which could see it reach some, rather large, stockings.

If you’re patiently waiting for Windows 7 to arrive or, as is likely you’ve already got hold of a copy - either via post, or via download then here’s some of my favourite little tips and tricks to get you started.

Windows 7 is full of small and subtle improvements so this is just scratching the surface. If you’ve got any more that aren’t here and think they should be then comment below.

1. Search bar

Remember when the Start menu was everything? Sensibly Vista was the first to remove the actual word Start from there, which was always ironic when you clicked it to shut down. Vista also introduced the ability to use it to launch apps, just by typing in the box, but in Windows 7 it’s taken further, which much greater granularity. You can find, programs, documents and even particular control panel settings, enabling it to rival Mac OS X’s Spotlight.

2. Windows Search Federation

I mentioned how great the new Start search  box is. Well it uses a new feature called Windows Search Federation, meaning it’s possible to link external websites directly into Windows 7, so you can search them right from the search bar. Here’s one for Flickr to get you started.

3. Windows arrow keys

Since moving to Windows 7 I’ve become addicted to the new way of arranging windows on the desktop. Hitting the Windows arrow keys will snap a Windows to the left or right, or Windows Up or down will Maximise or Restore. You can even use it to move windows across multiple displays if you have them them. A top contender for the ‘Why Didn’t Windows Always Have This’ award.

4. Windows P

It’s much easier now to set up multiple displays in a consistent fashion - previously all laptop tended to do it differently. Hit the Windows key and P and you can a pop up that lets you send the desktop to projector or extend across multiple displays

5. Burn ISO images

You can now burn ISOs to CD or DVD directly from within Windows and even verify the burn. It even works reliably. No doubt the next version will offer burning to Blu-ray just in time for the format to become obsolete.

6. Screen resolution

Adjust your desktop resolution always used to be a bit of a pain, but now when you right click on the desktop the context menu has an option called ‘Screen resolution’. ironically, Windows 7 does a great job at setting things up for you, so you’ll have less need to use it than you might previously. Still, about time.

7. Aero Peek/Shake

This is really two but it’s all part of the new and improved Aero goodness. Aero offered Aero Glass, which meant that windows edges were opaque and looked pretty, but it wasn’t that useful. Now you get app thumbnails when you roll over open apps in the task bar, and you can go to them or close them from the taskbar too. You can also get rid of a cluttered desktop by grabbing the Windows you want and shaking it with the mouse - and bring the other apps back when you’re done.

8. Problem Steps Recorder

This is a dream for  troubleshooting someone else’s computer. If you can’t Remote Desktop in, they can launch the Problems Steps Recorder by typing ‘psr’ in the Start box. Hit record and it captures each step into an .mht file, which can easily be emailed. You can view each step as an image, and there’s text beneath it too for additional information.

9. Jump lists

You might be aware of Jump Lists, but if you’re new to Windows 7, then it will take a while for you to get used to using them. Right click on the new large taskbar icons and a list of useful recent documents or files will appear, depending on the application. If you prefer you can drag up holding the left mouse button instead, which brings up the jump list with a cool animation too.

10. UAC

User Account Control was the hook upon which many hung their hatred for Windows Vista. Too intrusive! Too annoying! No surprise then to find that it’s been tweaked for Windows 7. You can do more than just put up with it or turn it off but choose from two intermediate settings that just alert you when other programs make changes and dims the screen, and one that omits the latter. With these present, it’s likely to be left on, protect your PC and not make you want to punch your computer every time you do anything.

I’ve just discovered a Windows 7 shortcut today and I like it so much I feel the need to share.

Windows 7 has a cool new feature where if you drag a Windows over to the left of the right of the screen it will automatically snap to fit half the monitor, making it very easy to place two documents next to each other. Also if you drag it to the top it will maximise the document to fill the screen.

The only issue is that if you’re running two monitors you can’t snap to the edges in the middle, as Windows sees both as once big screen - therefore you can only snap to the far left and far right. This means that you still have to do the side by side thing manually, which isn’t so great.

However, if you press the Windows key and then the arrows on your keyboard it will snap left, right, and up, while down with reduce the window size. The cool bit though is that it snaps to the edges of your physical monitors, solving my little problem.

This is a rather long-winded way of describing something that if you’re running Windows 7 and have two or more monitors you can try out in seconds. It’s neat - so go do that now.

Thank you.

After several months of running the beta of Windows 7 as my main work OS (don’t try this at home kids) I was forced yesterday to do a clean install on my system. I was down to my last three days before the beta would start shutting itself down every two hours automatically, and I thought that this probably wouldn’t be conducive to effective working on my main machine.

I had Windows 7 Release Candidate at the ready, having borrowed a USB key from one of compatriots at sister title Bit-Tech.net. The reinstall went smoothly and I installed a few apps but it was only when I checked the system properties that I realised that I’d actually installed the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

I have to admit that up to now I’ve never been brave enough to actually try it, with the thought of lack of driver support and application support seeming like too much of a headache.

As it happens though, everything I’ve installed - just worked. Everything is snappier than it was before but I can’t tell if that’s down to a clean install or due to Windows 7 64-bit being more efficient. Probably both.

It also means that for the first time I’ll be able to use the full 4GB of memory installed on this ‘ere laptop. Which is nice.

Any 64-bit issues I’ll be reporting on but I’m hoping that being at the bleeding edge of computing won’t hurt too much.

OK, I know I’m a few days late on this one but I thought it was still worth highlighting for those that missed it. Microsoft has backtracked on the artificial limit it had threatened to place on Windows 7 Starter Edition – at least according to Microsoft expert Paul Thurrot on his Windows SuperSite.

The deal was that once Windows 7 was released Microsoft would target a particular of flavour of the OS directly for netbooks, called Starter Edition. This would have the limitation of only allowing three applications to be running at one time, and you’d get a ‘computer says no’ message if you tried to launch any more.

Naturally, pundits were up in arms about this rather Noddy sounding approach- after all, you’d have your browser, your Word application and Spotify open and then you’d be stuck having to shut something down to say, run a video.

Then again, maybe there was something in this. If you’ve actually used a netbook you’ll know that as great as they are in concept they do have their limitations.

Keyboard and screen size are well known, but the 1.6GHz single core Atom that most of them run with 1GB of RAM is not actually that fast at all. After all, it might be lighter on its feet than Windows Vista, but there’s no doubt that Windows 7 is more taxing for a netbook that Windows XP.

So maybe there was some sense in it, protecting poor consumers from the curse of struggling mini machines.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps the great collective that is Microsoft possibly realised that users who found their little netbooks slowing down to much could take the drastic measure of shutting down the applications themselves. It’s a crazy approach, I know, but it might just work.

After all, if Microsoft was to limit itself in that way, the likes of Ubuntu could suddenly find themselves enjoying a bit of a boost, and that’s not something that the folks of Redmond would care for much.