Published by nb October 17th, 2007
in Windows and Blogsphere.
Ever since Vista was released, there has been discussion of when Microsoft would deliver SP1, and whether or not that delivery would be a significant milestone in the OS’s development. Microsoft has downplayed the importance of Vista service packs for months, arguing that Vista is “high quality right out of the gate,” but in the eyes of many businesses and consumers, the release of an operating system’s first service pack is the point at which the product begins to shift from “early release” to “mature product.”
Microsoft has released Vista’s SP1 to a group of select beta testers, but a Windows Update spoof has been discovered that allows any user to unofficially “join” that group. CyberNet News reports (via Ghacks) that a simple registry change will display Windows Vista SP1 as an available update ready for download. Installation of the beta will place an “Evaluation” watermark on the screen, but Ghacks has information on removing this as well. We don’t recommend doing this on your main system—the service pack is still in beta, after all—but it’s potentially useful as an early preview tool for anyone who can load Vista on a secondary system or test rig.
Continue at source.
Published by nb July 30th, 2007
in Windows and Blogsphere.
Microsoft has rolled out to select testers two new Windows Vista fix packs that deliver many of the same updates expected to be provided by Vista Service Pack (SP) 1.
The fix packs (detailed in Knowledge Base articles 938194 and 938979) were made available to Windows Server 2008 testers on July 29 earlier this month. The packs provide a number of performance and reliability improvements to Vista, testers said. Among the new Vista fixes are patches for speeding up Vista?s hibernate/sleep/resume performance; improving file copy/transfer capabilities; and enhancing Vista memory management, all of which are set to be part of Vista SP1, testers said earlier this month.
I?m wondering whether these two fix packs are just another name for what Microsoft has been calling the Vista SP1 private beta/preview. In spite of Microsoft?s best efforts to quash talk of its plans for Windows Vista SP 1 ? while simultaneously confirming its 2010 target ship date for Windows 7 ? the Windows team did tell certain testers to expect a private beta of SP1 the week of July 16th or possibly a week later (the week of July 23, which was last week).
?SP1 Beta is projected for release to influencers ? either the week of the 16th or the following week, depending on how things proceed. The public Beta will follow shortly thereafter,? according to a note Microsoft provided to testers it was considering adding to the Vista SP1 beta program.
Some other factoids from the note that went to certain testers earlier this month ? a copy of which I recently had a chance to see:
Continue at source.
Published by nb June 26th, 2007
in Blogsphere.
Ok, I am a little skeptical of this information , but MSTN is reporting that a Microsoft source has told them that a trial version of IE 8 is coming soon. What is soon? Who knows.
The other info they are getting is there will be two versions of IE8 one for Windows XP and one for Windows Vista. This really isn’t news as the same exists today for IE7 and there would have to be two going forward due to the lack of User Account Control technologies. That much is just common sense.
All this this really tells me is that in absence of any tangible info from Microsoft , that anyone can make headlines with no real info at all claiming someone at Microsoft said it.
Wake up IE team, what has happened to that once awesome communication tool that was the IE Blog.
Source: Windows Connected.
Published by nb June 26th, 2007
in Blogsphere.
Last week, Microsoft nixed at the last minute planned changes to its Windows Vista end-user license agreement (EULA) that would have broadened virtualization rights. Since then, speculation has been mounting as to why Microsoft did this.
Fear of Mac OS X and Linux on the desktop? A desire to thwart Parallels and VMWare? DRM concerns?
Queries to Microsoft regarding why company officials nixed the planned easing of Vista?s virtualiztion license were met with ?We have nothing further to say.? Period.
I realized over the weekend that none of us press/bloggers who was briefed by Microsoft on the planned changes had run the text of the EULA wording Microsoft officials provided to us. Maybe one of you out there will see some clues the rest of us missed as to why Microsoft decided to continue to ban users from running legally Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium in virtualized environments.
Here?s the EULA text the Softies sent me under non-disclosure on June 18:
Use with Virtualization Technologies (for all Vista SKUs)
?You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device. If you do so, the virtual hardware system is considered a separate device, and must have a separate license. Additionally IRM, DRM and BitLocker are now licensed to run in a virtual machine and that text has also been removed from the EULA. ?
On June 19, Microsoft officials sent this revised EULA wording, but still said the planned virtualization change was on. The revised wording read as follows:
Continue @ Source.
Published by nb June 22nd, 2007
in Windows and Blogsphere.
Windows Vista recently passed the 180 day mark since it was made available to business customers. Just as he did at the 90-day mark, Jeff Jones, a Microsoft Director from the Trustworthy Computing group and frequent blogger on security topics, has done a comparison of vulnerabilities discovered in Windows Vista versus other operating systems in their first 6 months of availability. Windows Vista holds up well in this comparison, showing a significantly improved vulnerability profile over its first 180 days of availability compared to Windows XP and the other operating systems that were examined. It?s interesting to note that Windows Vista is being subjected to a greater level of scrutiny than its predecessor, as tools used by security researchers have become significantly more sophisticated since Windows XP was released.
Of course, we?re always working harder to further reduce the number of vulnerabilities in our products. Windows Vista was our first client release to leverage the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) throughout the entire development cycle. As new techniques for finding vulnerabilities are discovered, we make updates to the SDL which will be used in the development of future products. A good example of how that process works is in Michael Howard?s entry on the SDL blog.
Jeff?s ?Windows Vista 6-month Vulnerability Report? is available here .
Source: Windows Vista Blog
Published by nb June 19th, 2007
in Blogsphere.
Because Microsoft won’t comment officially on “Fiji,” the expected, standalone update to Windows Media Center, it’s tough to confirm a date slip. But one Most Valuable Professional who’s in a good position to know is now predicting Fiji won’t ship until the latter half of 2008, instead of year-end 2007.
Source: All about Microsoft
Published by nb February 22nd, 2007
in Blogsphere and Office.
And speaking of first details about an upcoming Microsoft release, this week, Stephen Chapman published the first report about the next version of Microsoft Office, Office 14 on the AeroXperience forum. (Office 2007 was code-named Office 12; apparently Microsoft is skipping 13 for superstitious reasons.) According to the report–which is pretty general because the product isn’t due for more than two years–Office 14 will focus on individual impact (i.e., productivity), communication and collaboration, enterprise content management, business process and business intelligence, the Office platform (i.e., Office for developers), manageability, and security. This information is based on an internal Microsoft presentation that Chapman came across somewhere in his travels and is clearly the real deal. (If you’ve seen one Microsoft slide deck, you’ve seen them all.) The only concrete information in the presentation is the schedule: Microsoft expects to ship Office 14 Beta 1 in the first half of 2008, Office 14 Beta 2 in the second half of 2008, and the final version of Office 14 in the first half of 2009. Maybe it’s time for an Office 14 FAQ, too.
Source: Windowsitpro
Published by nb February 5th, 2007
in Windows and Blogsphere.
What will Windows 7, the next full version of the Windows client operating system, bring to the table?
Even though Windows Vista just made it out the door, it doesn’t seem to early for the speculation on its successor to begin. And Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has become one of the main sources of Windows 7 hints.
In early January, Gates told a group of bloggers with whom he held a private audience at the Consumer Electronics Show to expect the next version of Windows to feature more speech and digital-ink functionality and to take better advantage of 64-bit processing power. He said the next release of Windows was between two and four years away from shipping.
At the Vista launch in New York last week, Gates went further in a surprisingly cantankerous interview with Newsweek’s Steven Levy. (Maybe Gates didn’t like the subject of Levy’s latest book.)
Full story & source: All about Microsoft
