Vista News
All the latest Windows Vista and Tech news.
IT professionals – if you haven’t already seen this elsewhere, our Volume Activation folks have a TechNet webcast planned for this Friday they’d like you to know about:
Title: TechNet Webcast: Deploying Windows With Volume Activation (Level 300)
Overview: This follow-up webcast to "Plan for and Deploy Volume Activation for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2" is focused on demonstrating how to build product activation into your deployment planning for Windows. Join us to see how to set up the Key Management Service (KMS) and enable Multiple Activation Key (MAK) activation using the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT), and learn how to configure the keys in your master image using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 and...
This post will give a bit more depth on SmartScreen® and our approach to spam filtering, and on a particularly evil kind of spam called a phishing attack. I'll' also explain why individual e-mail accounts experience different levels of spam, and what you can do to reduce spam in your own account.
A deeper look behind the numbers
In my last post, I gave two key measurements:
Hotmail filters out 98% of all spam it receives.
Spam in the inbox is under 5%, meaning that fewer than 5% of the messages in your inbox are spam.
Let's take another look at those numbers. The first is the amount of spam that our filters catch relative to the total amount of spam that comes into the system. The second is amount of spam in the...
I want to take a moment and let folks know about the Windows Experience Pack we are making available starting today for people with PCs running Windows 7 and/or Windows Live Essentials. While we can’t send all of you on vacation, we can give you something special to help you daydream and customize your PC and online experience.
With the Windows Experience Pack, you are able create an alter-ego of yourself in a specific destination – a beach, mountain, safari, or city. When you create your alter-ego, you create a fully customized avatar for that destination that becomes a part of a Windows Live Messenger and Windows 7 theme for your PC. You’ll also be able to download a .jpg image of your avatar to share, print, or use as your icon...
I wanted to follow up on our last post about Windows activation – a friend of mine had posted on Facebook about seeing a notification from Windows that he might be a “victim of counterfeit software”. Following his status update, someone else commented on his post and said that he didn’t understand how anyone could be a “victim” of counterfeit software. Let’s talk about what that means, because it’s really an important topic to consider. It’s critical that you to know what to look for when purchasing genuine Windows so you can avoid the risks of counterfeit software.
I’ll give you a scenario. Say that my friend “Mark” (not his real name, but we’ll use it for this scenario) wants to buy Windows 7 for his PC, and he’s trying to find a...
What’s new on Talking About Windows? Well, hear from Jeremy Chapman, Senior Product Manager for Microsoft, as he shares his knowledge on the User State Migration Tool (USMT), which transfers information from XP to Windows 7 faster and easier than ever before.
Program Manager Michael Kleef knows the benefits of making edits offline. Listen as he talks about using Advanced Group Policy Manager to eliminate mistakes and make changes before going live
Ashwin Palekar, Principal Group Program Manager, addresses remote application accessibility, data security and compliance, and other related scenarios.
Mike Mitchell, Principal Group Program Manager, talks about the advantages of the Microsoft Assessment Planning Toolkit (MAP)...
Smashing Magazine, an online (and independent) publication focused on web designers and developers, and the design community, has released 35 really neat desktop wallpapers for January 2010. A calendar is embedded into each of the wallpapers.
These wallpapers were created by designers all across the world. Smashing Magazine features a quote from designer on how they created their wallpaper in their post. They plan to post wallpapers by designers for each month.
Fellow Microsoftie (and fan of Smashing Magazine) Tim Heuer decided to take those 35 wallpapers and create a Windows 7 theme for everyone to download and install on their Windows 7 PCs!
Download: Smashing Magazine January 2010 Wallpaper Windows 7 Theme
Those...
Every e-mail system has spam, and Hotmail is no exception. However, our SmartScreen™ spam-fighting system is one of the most effective in the industry. This post will give you the inside scoop on how we use it to fight the menace that is spam, and what you can do to help.
Spam is war
Why do people send spam in the first place? It’s simple: for the money. Spam is big, big business. Much of it is also illegal, but, unfortunately, that hasn’t kept people from sending it.
Believe me, spam is a battle. Spammers won’t ever quit, and they are very clever. Spammers are constantly finding new ways to exploit the services that we provide to our customers, to abuse the very system that you use every day to communicate with your friends...
More at: Vista SP2 Upgrades on NVIDIA Chipset PCs Result in Crashes - A hotfix is available - Softpedia
I am continuing the series of videos Mark Relph sent me last from the CES 2010 showroom floor. Mark stopped by the NVIDIA booth at CES 2010 and talked with NVIDIA’s Ujesh Desai about their 3D Vision Technology running on Windows 7. Check out the video:
NVIDIA also offered a sneak peek at their upcoming GeForce GF100 graphics card.
More...
Windows Home Server is showing off its momentum at CES this year.
Windows Home Server Program Manager Jonas Svensson is just one of many of our team members down at the show. He reports back that the first thing he saw when pulling up to the convention center this morning was our Windows Home Server posters!
Jonas sent us pictures of all the CES activity, including the bustle of people lined up to enter the showroom floor, and how Windows Home Server looks in the Microsoft booth. Check out the cool new LaCie box there too. In case you missed it, LaCie just announced a new network storage server based on the Windows Home Server platform. We are showing the product for the first time at CES. LaCie brings an exciting new...
As CES winds down, interest in Windows Home Server remains strong. Despite this being one of the last days of the show, it was still extremely busy and tons of people were on the search for the Windows Home Server booth. Windows Home Server Marketing Manager Nicole Berett shared with us some of the great stories the team heard at the booth today. Nicole said they had many customers talk about how they were using Windows Home Server in their small office/home office (SOHO). One story that stood out in particular was a couple who owned a small IT consulting business in Wenatchee, Wash. and used Windows Home Server to connect to all of their customers and data. They recommend to all of their customers that they should use Windows Home...
For many of you who couldn’t make it CES 2010 this year (including myself) in Las Vegas, we thought we would try to bring a little CES to you here on the blog. Mark Relph, Senior Director on the Windows Ecosystem Team and fellow blogger here on The Windows Blog, sent me a long a few videos to post for you. Our booth had a great setup this year with a wide range of Partner products being showcased. In the first of several videos, Mark takes us through the Microsoft Booth and stops to talk about several products along the way…
Stay tuned – we’ve got video interviews from Mark with AMD, D-Link, Canon, NVIDIA and Kodak on the way!
For more about Mark, see his post talking about the Windows 7 Logo Program. He also...
The downlevel release of 5 Troubleshooting Packs from Windows Vista are now live on the web. It is running off the Microsoft Automated Troubleshooting Services (MATS). These are the first to be released, there are more to be released in the coming months.
The link to these is:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/mats
Executive Summary
· 5 self-help diagnostics for Windows Vista ready for release
o Sound Playback and Recording
o Printing
o Devices and Drivers
o CD/DVD Reading and Writing
o Aero Glass Desktop Effects
· Combined 44 root-cause/resolution pairs
Greetings, I’m Tony “Frosty” Welch - Community Manager for HP’s The Next Bench. I’m posting here (thanks to the Windows Team) to give fellow CES attendees and enthusiasts a heads-up on some goings-on at the event. First, you’re all invited to a Tweet ’n Greet we’re hosting at the Microsoft booth (Central Hall #7133) Friday.
For those of you “tweeters” at the show who are interested in seeing the latest HP products with Windows 7, come by between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. Meet us in the Windows Demo Area and get a hands on demonstration of the HP TouchSmart, Envy 15, the Envy Beats, and the HP Pavilion DM3 Notebook – all running on Windows 7.
Have a Windows 7 or HP question that you’ve dying to ask? You’ll also be able to chat with...
You can watch the live webcast of the 2010 International CES Microsoft Keynote starting at 6:30 today (January 6th) over at the CES 2010 Virtual Pressroom on the new Microsoft News Center (previously PressPass). Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer and Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Division, will deliver the keynote address this year.
More...