Last night I went to Microsoft’s Vista After Hours event in Manchester. It was an evening event aimed at IT Pros (a few had attended the Tech Net day event that the Vista event piggybacked on to) and highlighted some of the consumer features of Windows Vista.
The event presented by James Senior and Matt McSpirit was very much a entertaining double act and done in a informal manor, I guess the beer given away helped with that!
Shown at the events was Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta which I must admit looked very nice, especially the stitching functions, also shown as Windows Movie Maker with as always happens when you demo something crashed, but it was the only thing that crashed also shown was Virtual Earth.
Of interest to Media Center enthusiasts were Sideshow devices, including a new Sideshow Remote and of course Windows Media Center and Windows Home Sever.
A lot of interest was generated by the Windows Home Server demo, I think it stuck a chord with the IT Pros, the backup function and remote access really impressed them. For me that star of the show was Media Center, which came over very well with people totally amazed about this "hidden" feature of Windows Vista, James did a great job showing off the TV Toolbox and Big Screen Headlines addins (I should have a video review of that out soon). I think people were blown away with the features of Media Center and how impressive it can be, with it bringing music, pictures, videos and TV all together. One guy even stood up and was almost weeping at the lack of promotion of Microsoft’s consumer products in the light of Apples great marketing.
Lots of questions came up over integration of Windows Home Server and Windows Media Center, one of the common questions was how can you record TV directly to Media Center, which of course can’t be done out of the box but can be done if you follow this guide or listen to Richard Miller on Show 119.
Over all it was a good event and I hope it helps spread the word about Media Center and Microsoft’s consumer products and there are still some events left to run so you may have time to register find out how to register for Vista After Hours
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