Windows

With System Center 2012, Microsoft delivers tools to help customers wring more efficiency, uptime and performance out of their existing hardware and software.

The Nokia Lumia 900 puts Windows Phone in with the big kids, offering good performance, a bright display and stylish design.

Two very different Windows-7-based tablets from HP and Samsung offer a variety of features for business and personal use.

Hands-on with SkyDrive. What works, what's missing, and what you can expect.

Microsoft's old Windows desktop and tablet-friendly Metro UI make strange bedfellows

The OnLive Dekstop is an app for your iPad that gives you a virtual Windows 7 desktop environment, as well as Office 2010 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Reader and other basic Windows apps (Calculator, Notepad, Wordpad, Paint, Sticky Notes).

We take a peek behind Metro and show you some of the more interesting changes to the classic Desktop.

Don't be fooled by its name: DriverUpdate isn't simply a utility for keeping drivers up-to-date. It handles that task, certainly, but it also does more. This $30-per-year program streamlines the process of updating your Windows OS, as well as those apps, like Java and Adobe products, that frequently seem to be in need of updates, too.

There may be times when you need to run Windows on your Mac: perhaps there’s an application your company uses that’s only available for Windows, or you’re a web developer and you need to test your sites in a true native Windows web browser. Or maybe you want to play computer games that aren’t available for OS X. Whatever your reason for running Windows, there are a number of ways your Mac can do it for you.

Parallels Desktop 7 is the latest release of Parallels' virtualization program, which allows users to run Windows, Linux, and now even OS X Lion directly within Mac OS X. Since Macworld last reviewed Parallels Desktop 5, the program has acquired an updated interface along with a slew of performance improvements and new features. Among the latter, there's a simplified window for configuring virtual machines, support for Lion's full screen mode, Launchpad integration, an in-app store for purchasing Windows and other programs, the ability to use iSight (and other) webcams within Windows clients, improved virtual printing, and more.

It's still far too early in Windows 8's development cycle to pit the nascent OS against its fully-baked competition. But Apple's recently released OSX Lion offers up the most recent, competing view of what a PC operating system should look like in the age of the smartphone and tablet.

ITworld got an exclusive first look at Windows Server 8. Highlights of the over 300 new features include some pretty hefty performance improvements and balancing in Hyper-V 3 that's sure to make the virtualization crowd go wild.