For over two decades Microsoft and Apple have had the technology industry’s most high-profile (and occasionally the most rancorous) rivalry. But today, I doubt that either of them considers the other to be its chief rival.

If you could sequester either Apple CEO Steve Jobs or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in their office and close the door and ask (off the record) for the name of their top rival, I suspect both of them would give you the same answer: Google.

For that reason alone, you’d think Microsoft and Apple would be more likely than ever to collaborate (and that’s certainly a possibility). However, it’s also easy to forget that the two companies have a long history of working together and developing products for each others’ platforms. They are traditional frenemies.

The fact that Microsoft released Office for Mac 2011 this week (more on that in a second) is only the latest example of times when the two have been on the same page. These are still the exception rather than the rule, but we’ve come up with a list of the 10 best collaborative moments between the two companies.

10. Microsoft launches Outlook for Mac in Office 2011

With Office for Mac 2011, released on October 26, Microsoft has once again made the Mac OS X version of its world-dominant productivity suite jive a lot more closely with the latest Windows version, after several Mac editions that diverged wildly from their Windows counterparts in recent years. But, by far the most significant part of Office 2011 is that it brings back a version of Microsoft Outlook for email and Exchange syncing, replacing the Mac-specific Entourage (a horribly buggy piece of software). This makes the latest Macs much better equipped to function in the business world.

9. Apple and Microsoft spurn Blu-ray for digital downloads

Both Apple and Microsoft have been under pressure for the last couple years to get on the Blu-ray bandwagon. Microsoft has been under pressure to put Blu-ray in Xbox 360 and Apple has been under pressure to put Blu-ray drives in Macs. However, both have resisted and have responded with the same reason why: Blu-ray is an expensive temporary solution and the future of high definition video is digital downloads

If you had been holding on to Microsoft Windows XP and just recently made the move to Windows 7, you’ve begun to discover that a lot has changed in the operating system besides just the new user interface with all its new bells and whistles.

For example, chances are that one of the first places that you probably turned to when troubleshooting problems in Windows XP was the Event Viewer. Well, when you get to Windows 7’s Event Viewer, you are in for a new experience.

In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, I’ll introduce you to some of the new features in Windows 7’s Event Viewer.

This blog post is also available in PDF format in a TechRepublic download.

An overview

As you know, Event Viewer maintains logs that record information about program, security, and system events that occur on your system. While XP’s Event Viewer is an effective tool that you can use to view and manage event logs, gather information about hardware and software problems, as well as monitor security events, it does have some shortcomings. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that XP’s Event Viewer does such a good job at logging events, that the number of items in the log can be staggering. As such, sorting through the logs can be a very daunting task. To add insult to injury, not all the events are documented very well and many aren’t documented at all — often leaving even the most experienced troubleshooter puzzled.

Another drawback in the system stems from the fact that Windows XP has other logs that are stored as text files on the hard disk. This means that when troubleshooting problems, you may have to scan through a bunch of text files in addition to scanning through Event Viewer.

Fortunately, Windows 7’s developers have spent a great deal of time and effort on improving Event Viewer. Let’s take a closer look.

The new Event Viewer

To begin with, the Windows 7 version of the Event Viewer has been completely rewritten with a new user interface that makes it much easier to filter and sort events as well as control which type of events are logged. In addition, you can now perform some basic diagnostic tasks right from within Event Viewer itself.

Microsoft has stated that they are going to impose stricter standards in order to ensure that events logged in

A friend mentioned that his one-year-old Windows 7 system was taking much longer to boot than it used to. I explained to him that Microsoft had done a lot of work to make Windows 7 boot up much faster than previous versions of the operating system but that slightly slower boot times were inevitable. As you add more applications and utilities, it will, of course, take a bit longer to boot up the system.

While my friend agreed with that statement, he was adamant that his system was taking much longer to boot up than was acceptable — he estimated that on a regular basis it was taking close to two minutes to boot up! While that might have been more common during the Windows 2000 or XP eras, I agreed that what he was enduring was probably longer than it should have been. (Keep in mind that there are hundreds of variables that can come into play that affect boot time, such as processor speed, memory speed, hard disk speed, as well as the types of applications and drivers that run during startup.)

I arranged to go over to his place and help him troubleshoot and fix his slow-booting Windows 7 system. As it turned out, it was a pretty simple procedure, and we had his system booting up much quicker in no time at all. All I had to do was delve into Windows 7’s Event Viewer, tap in to the correct log, and create a Custom View to ferret out the correct Event IDs, and then the problem and solution became readily apparent.

In this edition of the Windows Desktop Report, I’ll show you how to use some of the new features in Windows 7’s Event Viewer to investigate the boot time and track down issues that can cause a slowdown in the boot process.

This blog post is also available in PDF format in a TechRepublic download.

Overview

Windows 7’s Event Viewer includes a new category of event logs called Applications and Services Logs, which includes a whole host of subcategories that track key elements of the operating system. The majority of these subcategories contain an event log type called Operational that is designed to track events that can be used for analyzing and diagnosing problems. (Other event log types that can be found in these subcategories are Admin, Analytic, and Debug; however, describing them is beyond the scope of this article.)

Now, within the operating system section is a subcategory titled Diagnostic-Performance with an Operational log that contains a set of a Task Category called Boot Performance Monitoring. The Event IDs in this category are 100 through 110. By investigating all the Event ID 100 events, you will be able to find out exactly how long it took to boot up your system every time since the day you installed Windows 7. By investigating all the Event ID 101 thru 110 events, you will be able to identify all instances where boot time slowed down.

Getting started

You can find and launch Event Viewer by opening the Control Panel, accessing the System and Security category, selecting the Administrative Tools item, and double-clicking the Event Viewer icon. However, you can also simply click the Start button, type Event in the Start Search box, and press Enter once Event Viewer appears and the top of the results display.

Creating a Custom View

Once you have Event Viewer up and running, you can, of course, drill down through the Applications and Services Logs and locate the Diagnostic-Performance Operational log and begin manually looking through the events recorded in the log. However, you can save yourself time and energy by taking advantage of the new Custom View feature, which is essentially a filter that you can create and save.