As some of you may have noticed (we heard from you on Twitter!) we had an issue with the Windows Live ID service between 9 and 10AM PST this morning. Due to the failure of one server, Windows Live ID logins were failing for some customers, and this increased the load on our remaining servers. We took the problematic server offline and brought a new server into rotation. We identified the root cause and fixed it in less than an hour, but it took a while to resolve the logjam that had built up in the meantime, and to redistribute the load to normal levels.
As with all incidents like this, we will fully investigate the cause and will take steps to prevent this from happening again. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience this may...
Vista News
All the latest Windows Vista and Tech news.
After writing my previous blog post about how Windows Home Server and Zune worked together, I received an interesting e-mail with a great question. “What does Windows Home Server provide with Zune that Windows Media Center could not do on its own?” I realized at that moment, some readers are not fully aware of the full Windows Home Server feature set – especially when you integrate your Windows Home Server with other Microsoft products.
Windows Home Server provides a lot of added benefits to the Windows Home Server + Zune + Windows Media Center scenario. Let’s first talk about what Windows Media Center and Zune are capable of.
Windows Media Center is a beautiful interface found inside consumer Windows 7, Vista, and XP SKUs that...
Earlier today, AMD announced the ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card – the latest addition to the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series of graphics cards.
The ATI Radeon HD 5450 will cost less than $60 (USD) for a 512MB memory configuration and supporting DirectX 11 making it one sweet deal if you’re looking for a DirectX 11 graphics card for your Windows 7 PC.
The Radeon HD 5450 offers entry level performance and ultra-low power consumption and also supports AMD’s multi-monitor technology called ATI Eyefinity and their ATI Stream technology. There will be variations of this card depending on partner offers including passive cooling models or whisper-quiet, single slot fan-cooled models.
This graphics card is perfect for someone...
This week, Net Applications released their January browser market share report. Their report shows that Internet Explorer 8 is not only the most popular browser on Windows with 27.9% usage share, but that it now has 25.6% of market share across all OS’s on a worldwide-weighted usage share basis (data provided by Net Applications). We launched just less than a year ago, so it’s both humbling and thrilling to see so many people choose our product so quickly – making it the most popular browser of choice worldwide.
There are many reasons people choose which browser to use. Most people want to know and trust the company behind their browser. And people are looking a browser that protects them – and their privacy online. In an August...
In the coming days, we’ll be deploying a new update for Windows Activation Technologies, the set of built-in activation and validation components built into Windows 7. Called Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, this update will detect more than 70 known and potentially dangerous activation exploits. Activation exploits are sometimes called “hacks”, and attempt to bypass or compromise Windows’ activation technologies. This new update is further evidence of Microsoft’s commitment to keeping customers and partners secure. The update will determine whether Windows 7 installed on a PC is genuine and will better protect customers’ PCs by making sure that the integrity of key licensing components remains intact.
So, what...
Last week at the Black Hat DC conference a presenter showed how one manufacturer's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) could be physically compromised to gain access to the secrets stored inside. Since that presentation, I have had plenty of questions from customers wanting to know how this might affect Windows. The answer? We believe that using a TPM is still an effective means to help protect sensitive information and accordingly take advantage of a TPM (if available) with our BitLocker Drive Encryption feature in Windows 7.
The attack shown requires physical possession of the PC and requires someone with specialized equipment, intimate knowledge of semiconductor design, and advanced skills. While this attack is certainly interesting...
Laptops with high-end graphics capabilities offer good performance in areas like playing HD video or games and can consume a lot of energy and battery life while in use. Laptops with lower-end graphics capabilities get good battery life but tend to sacrifice in the performance area. You could either get a laptop that rocked in performance, or a laptop with awesome battery life – but not both. NVIDIA went out to solve this issue: give PC manufacturers the technology to provide the best of both worlds to their consumers. Today NVIDIA has announced their new Optimus technology. With Optimus, NVIDIA is solving the common problem of having a balance between performance and battery life (as it relates to graphics) in laptops.
Many laptops...
Hi, my name is John Scarrow and, in conjunction with other product groups, I oversee service abuse and security issues for Windows Live and other Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer. Building from Dick Craddock’s previous post, I’m going to get into the nuts and bolts of how we fight phishing scams at Hotmail using SmartScreen® technology.
Phishing, as defined in Wikipedia, is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Traditionally, the majority of phishing attacks target financial institutions and online retailers, and are aimed at acquiring log-in...
Windows Home Server was a large part of CES this year. I was pleasantly embraced by all you fellow Windows Home Server users and I joyfully shared the new features sets that Power Pack 3 empowered your home server with. The beautiful thing about our booth is the ability to walk everyone step by step, on how to take advantage of these new features. For those of you who were not at CES, I’d like to take the time to share with you those steps that I shared with CES attendees. One of the key scenarios that got a lot of interest at the show was how a Zune music player can benefit from having a Windows Home Server around as well. This post goes into more detail about why and how it all works together.
As most of you probably know, Power...
On February 15th, people still running the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will receive a notification reminding them that starting March 1st, 2010, their PC will begin experiencing bi-hourly shutdowns. These shutdowns will continue through June 1st, 2010.
On June 1st, 2010, a non-genuine experience is triggered where your wallpaper is removed and “This copy of Windows is not genuine” will be displayed in the lower right corner above the taskbar. This means your PC will no longer be able to obtain optional updates or downloads that require genuine Windows validation.
To avoid any data loss, I suggest making plans to move to a released version of Windows 7 before the automatic shutdowns start. During these shutdowns, your work...
This blog post was written by MVP, Alexander Kent. Alexander is the founder and principal of Kentdome LLC, a Los Angeles, California based company specializing in enterprise security, custom software engineering, network infrastructure and co-location services. In recent years Alexander has taken a particular interest in the Windows Home Server platform. As a result, Kentdome LLC has produced a number of WHS solutions under his architectural guidance. In addition Alexander has been a very active technology evangelist, sharing his excitement for the WHS platform. Today he will share some information about Remote Access challenges. Enjoy!
Windows Home Server is generally considered a great file server and backup solution for home...