IT pros invited to talk about Windows

Microsoft has set up a website to host frank exchanges about its new operating system between its own developers and IT professionals serving the business community.



The online portal, Talking about Windows, offers third-party techies looking to deploy Windows 7 a "behind-the-scenes" account from the engineers who built it.



Responses to engineers' videos and blogs can be posted, alongside Q&As linking to supporting resources, including

'Ten things IT pros should know about Windows 7.'



Microsoft said visitors will be told the thinking behind certain product decisions and trade-offs, seemingly to head off a repeat of the disquiet seen when Vista went live.



Largely seen as a misfire to businesses, particularly compared to previous Windows iterations, the current OS has attracted complaints about compatibility and security.



Yet the late-stage trial release of its replacement has sparked fresh accusations, from Mozilla and Opera, that Microsoft's behaviour with browsers is anti-competitive.



Adding to the company's workload, security firm F–Secure said the new OS repeats a Windows flaw that meant users mistake executable programs for ordinary text files.



Virus writers have exploited this 'feature' of Windows, which hides extensions for known file types when they are viewed in Explorer, since its creation in Windows NT.