• OnLive's train wreck: Office on the iPad

  Demos, like appearances, can be deceiving. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, one of the media hits was OnLive Desktop, a service that provisions a Windows 7 desktop environment that includes Microsoft Office 2010 to the iPad over an Internet connection. For many, the idea of being able to run the full Office suite is very appealing, given some of the limitations of the iPad's native office productivity tools such as Apple iWork suite (Pages, Keynote, and Numbers), Quickoffice, and Documents to Go.

• Tech stories of 2011: Jobs, Android and Anonymous rank in top 10

  In 2011, the increasingly mobile and socially networked world of technology became more intertwined than ever with politics and the law. Patent wars shaped competition in tablets and smartphones, hacktivists attacked a widening array of political and corporate targets, repressive regimes unplugged citizens from the Internet, and the U.S. government moved to block the giant merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA. With the passing of Steve Jobs, the world lost a technology icon who redefined the computer, entertainment and consumer electronics industries. These are the IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 technology stories of the year:

• Microsoft to Windows XP: Please die, already

  Microsoft is eager for Windows XP, its 10-year-old operating system, to fade into computing history. The sooner the better, in fact. But for that to happen, the Redmond company needs millions of XP users to drop creaky, old XP and migrate (hopefully) to Windows 7, or even to Windows 8, which won't arrive until next year.

• Microsoft posts record quarter but says tablets have “cannibalized” netbooks

  Despite weak consumer demand for PCs, Microsoft posted record first quarter revenue of $17.37 billion for the period that ended Sept. 30. This beat analysts' reported expectations of $17.2 billion. Revenue increased 7% percent over the year-ago period. Microsoft credited the increase to enterprise demand for Office, server and development tools.

• Windows XP to Windows 8: Don't go there

  A majority of enterprises have migrated to Windows 7 or are planning to do so. But for Windows XP holdouts ready to side-step Windows 7 for the upcoming Windows 8 OS, you are risking a gap in support, stresses research firm Gartner in a new "first take" analysis of Windows 8 migration in the enterprise.

• Prepare your PC for future data disasters

  Reformatting and restoring a PC is not fun--in the way spending 2 hours in the dentist's chair is not fun. You have to back up all your data (and pray that you haven't forgotten anything), reformat the hard drive, install Windows, track down missing drivers, find and reload all your software, restore your data, and pull out clumps of hair over the things you inevitably neglected to save. (Firefox plug-ins, anyone?)

• Switching to desktop Linux? 6 ways to ease the migration

  With all the many compelling reasons for a company to switch to Linux on the desktop, it's no wonder that businesses large and small are increasingly relying on the free and open source operating system.

• Windows 7: 10 Cool Keyboard Shortcuts

  Keyboard shortcuts are wonderful time-savers but many of us are either too accustomed to the mouse or too lazy to get beyond Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.

• Safely dual-boot Windows 7 and XP

  QUESTION My PC dual-boots Windows XP 32bit and Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. Every time I work in XP I lose all my restore points in Windows 7.

• How to get more from a quad-core PC

  QUESTION: My Windows 7 Home Premium computer has a quad-core processor and 4GB of RAM. I've not found any advantage to using four cores. How can I use the processor more effectively and allocate different processes to the individual cores?

• Asus unveils three tablets and a slate

  At CES 2011 today, Asus announced three new Android tablets and a Windows 7 based slate PC. The tablets, all Android-based, go by the moniker "Eee Pad" while the Windows 7 device is called an "Eee Slate." Each one offers some unique features, from stylus input options to sliding keyboards or docking stations. Unfortunately, we don't yet have exact shipping dates or prices for the Android tablets, and the Eee Slate looks to be fairly pricey.

• Is Linux really harder to use?

  Not surprisingly, the misperception that Linux is harder to use than other operating systems is also one that competing vendors routinely use to scare potential new users away from Linux.

• Microsoft, get back to work!

  Steve Ballmer assured analysts and the world that Microsoft is hard at work developing a Windows 7-based tablet to compete with devices like the Apple iPad.

• Five reasons it's time to switch to Windows 7

  Tomorrow is D-day for Windows XP SP2 users. Granted, Windows XP SP2 will still work, but tomorrow is the last Patch Tuesday for the venerable OS which means it will become more unstable and less secure as time goes on.

• The best Windows 7 downloads

  Not quite happy with the way Windows 7 works, or looking to get more out of the operating system? You've come to the right place. We're big fans of Microsoft's latest OS, but we're also big fans of making Windows better. In this article, we've rounded up the best Windows 7 downloads. They'll let you customize it in any way possible, give it features that Microsoft removed or neglected to include, and more. So get ready to download--you're about to take Windows 7 to a new level.

Whitepapers about Windows 7

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  Best Practices for Preparing for SharePoint Migrations

  This paper focuses on some of the most common platforms that content can be moved from: Windows Server file shares, Exchange public folders, and previous versions of SharePoint. However, the strategies discussed can also be applied to content from other sources, such as Documentum, Novell or UNIX file shares, Notes databases, and web sites.