Not surprisingly, the launch of Windows 7 has triggered at least a temporary spike in PC sales according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katheryn Huberty. Computer sales jumped about 40 percent during the week of Microsoft’s OS launch compared to the same period a year earlier.

That number is in part offset by buyers holding off on their purchases during the previous two weeks, when sales dropped 29 percent and then 2 percent versus 2008, but is well above earlier weeks, when sales were up by at most 19 percent.

Yesterday we told you about the Japanese arm of Burger King offering a seven-pattie Whopper which costs 777 yen. It was all to celebrate the release of Windows 7. Some of you thought it was just for promotion and that the burgers would not be made or eaten. Others just drooled like Homer Simpson.

But we now have 46 seconds of video footage that shows how you would eat such a monster burger. This brave man takes his meat competitor like a true champ. If only his jaws could dis-locate.

Microsoft is promoting Windows 7 in Japan with the help of Burger King, who is offering a Windows 7 Whopper. And they really mean Whopper this time as it has seven patties in an otherwise normal Whopper. It measures 5.1 inches tall and costs 777 yen ($8.53).

Microsoft has repeated the “seven” theme in multiple publicity events, but none so tasty as this one. I wonder how many of these Whoppers they will sell.

Those living in Europe will have a few versions of the upcoming Windows 7. The operating system is called Windows 7 E and will leave out Internet Explorer as well as other browsers so that users can choose their own browser.

It’s a regulation that Microsoft will work around by offering free copies of IE8 to OEMs. Consumers will be able to choose their own copies through CD, FTP or retail channels.

It was pretty clear that the latest incarnation of Windows would be available this fall. Now Microsoft has announced the date. The latest version of the Windows operating system, Windows 7, will hit general commercial availability on Oct. 22.

That should give you plenty of time to choose which of the million versions is good for you. Will you be buying a copy?

Looks like Microsoft is in the final stages of getting their Windows Mobile 6.5 OS update ready for public release. Window’s Marketplace mobile application is almost ready for launch. And so, Microsoft has given a few lucky Windows Mobile users a sneak peek at the Windows Marketplace.

The “coming soon” notification has been replaced by a functional mobile application store. The Pandora application is also ready for download.

On May 5th, general users will have access to Windows 7 for one full year. It is already available for download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. This is only the Release Candidate version and will expire on June 1, 2010. The Release Candidate is basically the near finished product and the final stage in testing.

Supposedly it will have all the features of the final version. We still don’t know when the final version will be released but according to rumors it’ll be late 2009 or early 2010. Windows 7 features a bunch of new features including a new taskbar, libraries, jump lists, and more. Windows 7 will also come packaged with the newest Internet Explorer (IE8).

The upcoming Windows 7 Starter Edition seems kinda lame when you consider that it can only run three applications at a time, but if you are using it with a netbook, it makes a little more sense. Most people use netbooks to browse the Internet and maybe check their email, with some MP3s playing in the background.

And since more applications are becoming Web-based, those applications can be stored online instead. We will be keeping an eye on Windows 7 Starter Edition to see just how well it fares. Of all the Windows 7 editions, this one is the oddest.

Coca Cola has more up its sleeve than just high fructose corn syrup and sugar. The company is coming out with a Windows-powered vending machine that will gather more statistics than any other vending machine on the market.

The machine will offer more types of drinks and flavors of Coke and will also keep track of what was sold and when, thus giving Coca-Cola some valuable intel with which to fight the cola wars. The vending machine can also alert the restaurant’s owner, and Coca-Cola, when one of the cartridges is almost empty.

Sotec’s latest netbook is Hello Kitty-branded, but don’t let that fool you. It packs some heat when it comes to performance. Powered by an Intel Atom N270 1.60-GHZ processor and 1GB of RAM, it runs Windows 7 with ease, as you’ll see in the video below.

The netbook performed decently with normal web surfing with data being transferred in the background and also when opening 400 pictures in Bridge. Need more? Even while editing in Photoshop CS3 with that 1.6 Ghz Atom CPU and 1 GB of RAM.

Some user feedback of Windows Mobile 6.5 has led to some changes in its UI. The most obvious change is the removal of the honeycomb. It may still have Trix and Lucky Charms hidden away inside somewhere, but the honeycomb is gone.

The icon grid is still arranged in the same way, but the actual hexagonal icon containers are no more. The second most obvious change would have to be the new scrolling, which limits flick scrolling to one page at a time once.

It’s been long overdue and at long last Microsoft has redesigned the Windows Mobile interface. No doubt users will like the honeycomb layout and the Zune-like feel. There’s more to like with no-waiting voice mail, cloud-syncing MyPhone online service, and a new app store. Hey, where have I heard this before?

Things are not only meant to be finger friendly, but are designed to be used with one hand. The design on some of the screens has clearly been inspired by Windows Media Center and much of the information can be accessed by simply swiping up/down, left/right.

Welcome to January 2008. Amongst all the CES coverage we’ve been doing we failed to notice yesterday, being the second Tuesday of the month, revealed to us on our Windows desktops that monthly ritual all Microsoft customers must endure: security patches. We’ve decided here at SlipperyBrick to implement the Microsoft Security Bulletin Watch - a basic way of us providing you information about new patches Microsoft is releasing.

For January 2008 Microsoft has released one Critical, One Important and seven Non-Security, High-Priority updates on the Microsoft Update site. You may not of course need all of these - it depends upon your machine’s specific Windows OS flavor and what you already have installed on your PC. Check after the jump for a summary of the most important updates.

“No Wow, No How: Windows Vista” titles the number 1 spot on PCWorld’s list of the 15 biggest tech disappointments of the year and we can’t really disagree. Heck, I personally upgraded a machine from XP to Vista earlier this year and was unable to use Internet Explorer on it for months, and I still cannot get Windows Media Player to work correctly with MPEGs.

Just as PCWorld had pointed out there are a lot of cool things in Vista that are an improvement over the previous OS, but it just “…isn’t all that good.” The article goes on to note that hardware incompatibilities seemed to be over the top early on, it runs slower than XP and the new user account controls caused more irritation than a feeling of safety. PCWorld could not finish up the article without at least mentioning that the fastest notebook they tested with Vista running on it was a MacBook. We also cannot refute that Vista will eventually have its dominate day in the sun, but it’s unfortunately not this day.

If you keep hoping that the day will come when you can stop your TV broadcast in mid-stride and pick it up again from a different room there is a company located in Redmond, WA that you should know about. It’s called Microsoft.

The software giant is hoping on the day after the big Apple news to steal a little bit of the tech crowd’s attention with its announcement of Extenders for Windows Media Center, a range of applications for Windows Vista that Microsoft promises will make it easier for you to have media convergence in your home.