According to Steam’s recent hardware survey, gamers are ditching their trusty Windows XP and flocking to the new kid, Windows 7.

The statistics show a total increase of 2.47% for Windows 7, which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, while Windows XP is seeing a sharp decrease of 3.2%. Which means, 23% of Steam gamers are Windows 7 users!

Looks like Microsoft finally got things right, after the disaster that is Vista.

Another item of interest is the 64-bit OS adoption rate. Be it the odd Windows Server 2003 or even Windows XP, every single version of 64-bit Wiindows is seeing an increase in adoption.

We finally get a first look at the upcoming Microsoft Windows 7 as it gets unveiled at the All Things Digital Conference yesterday. But still, little is known about the highly-anticipated OS that is to be the successor of Windows Vista come 2010.

From the video above, we can see that there are lots of emphasis on touch interface support. Multi-touch gestures in photo galleries like two-finger zoom, flicking, and panning, multi-touch paint program where you can draw with 10 fingers, Multi-touch piano software, application that pulls from Microsoft Live Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth with, again, support for touch.

There will also supposedly be an OSX-like dock. Ha, the copycats are in action again. Time will tell if this will be an innovative breakthrough, or a lackluster offering like the Vista.

Microsoft finally releases its highly anticipated Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP today. But not without some hiccups.

SP3 was found to be incompatible for users running Microsoft Dynamics RMS, hence, an official release on Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update is not available at this time.

But, you can still grab the service pack from their download.windowsupdate.com domain:
Chinese (Hong Kong), Czech, English, French, German (Deutsch), Hebrew, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Simplified (Chinese), Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.

As long as you are not running Microsoft Dynamics RMS, it is perfectly safe to install SP3 now. But, beware of undiscovered bugs that often haunts any major software updates.

Windows XP SP3 Overview

SP3 includes the hundreds of updates and fixes released since SP2. And it includes four features that are backported from Windows Vista. Nothing too exciting for the average consumers though.

• NAP is a policy enforcement platform meant for enterprise use that blocks systems attempting to access a network until they meet whatever security criteria the corporation has in place.
• “Black Hole” Router Detection helps detect and protect end users from a router that drops packets without returning the specified Internet Control Message Protocol response.
• Microsoft Kernel Cryptographic Module incorporates cryptographic algorithms in a single module other kernel mode drivers are capable of hooking into and accessing.
• The new Product Activation module allows users to install XP without entering a product key at installation.

Other new features include:

• A more descriptive Security Options control panel user interface.
• Enhanced security for Administrator and Service policy entries.

For more in-depth details on SP3, download Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3.pdf from Microsoft.

Zune seems to be fairing pretty well in terms of cult fans compared to other Microsoft products. You don’t see people tattooing Windows logo do you?

Well, this is mszunefan from ZuneScene’s Forum, showing off his new Zune tattoo which took 3 hours to complete.

I hope he doesn’t start regretting when Zune gets phased out eventually.

Halo 3 fans sit tight, ’cause Microsoft has announced the launch of a special Halo 3 edition of its Zune portable music player! Available for pre-order now exclusively from GameStop, the player will cost $249 and ship from June 15, 2007.

The Halo 3 Zune comes with:
Videos:

• Halo 3 “Starry Night” advertisement
• Halo 3 E3 2006 announcement trailer
• Halo 2 theatrical teaser trailer
• Three Halo 3 “making of” documentary videos
• A custom episode of Red vs. Blue – just for Zune!
• The first six episodes of Red vs. Blue Season 1

Music:

• Halo Original Soundtrack – Complete Album
• Halo 2 Original Soundtrack, Volume 1 – All tracks by Marty O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori
• Halo 2 Original Soundtrack, Volume 2 – Complete Album

Artwork:

• Over 120 different images, including game concept art, storyboards, paintings, and conceptual marketing imagery

The sleek black Xbox 360 Elite is finally shipping. But if you had been slow in pre-ordering, it looks like you will have a bit of waiting to do as most online retailers already ran out of stock.

The Xbox 360 Elite sports a HDMI port and a 120GB HDD and will retail at US$479.99. Microsoft also released Black Wireless Controller, Black Rechargeable Battery Pack, and Black Play & Charge Kit to match the black console.

Great news for the ladies who loves pink and hates iPods. Microsoft has confirmed its shipping of new pink Zunes this coming May 1st!

Not very good news for those who bought the limited edition pink Zunes off eBay at exorbitant prices.

The pink Zune will sell at US$249.99 and is available for pre-order now from EBgames. It comes with the same 30GB storage capacity and hopefully with v1.3 firmware.

Yes, April’s coming. But according to Game Informer magazine, a black Xbox 360 is in the making and it is no April Fool’s joke.

The new Xbox 360 will feature a larger 120GB hard drive, HDMI output, and includes a HDMI cable. It is expected to retail for approximately US$479.

Apple continues to bash Vista with this new ad called Security…

Dell has just started shipping their laptop and desktop machines loaded with Windows Vista. Their prices seem to remain similar to those before.

For those of you on the Windows side of the fence and is looking for an upgrade, might want to give this a shot.