Vista News

More here: Conficker on April 1st: Eve of destruction or big joke? - Network World What do people know about this? I have heard a lot about it, but don't know a lot about it. ~Lordbob

According to a page on the Microsoft Partner Program website, Microsoft is planning to give its partners the Windows 7 Release Candidate via both TechNet and MSDN. The page says the build is available "now," though as of publishing time, a quick check on TechNet and MSDN shows that it's not yet available there (only the beta is), nor is it available on Microsoft Connect. Most likely this is just another slip up, like last month when it was revealed that Microsoft plans to give out the RC in May, so MSDN and TechNet subscribers will not be getting the RC anytime soon. However, today's information is more specific than the previous leak: May 5 looks like the date for the public release of Windows 7 RC. Full Story: MSDN and TechNet get...

Microsoft plans to ship 8 security bulletins next Tuesday (April 14, 2009) to fix remote code execution and denial of service vulnerabilities affecting Windows, Office and Internet Explorer. According to the company’s Patch Tuesday advance notice, five of the bulletins will be rated “critical,” meaning they can be exploited by hackers to take complete control of Windows machines. Patch Tuesday heads-up: 8 bulletins, 5 critical | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

Sure, Windows 7 is a better Windows than Vista, but it would have been much less so in December 2006 when Vista was released. Enough adjustment to Vista has happened that Windows 7 won't be as imposing a change. I'm coming to the belief that Windows 7 is basically Vista 1.5 - a notably upgraded, but not substantially different, product. But the passage of time and "work" done by Vista has freed Windows 7 from the disrepute of its predecessor. My sense of the complaints about Vista is that the two biggest ones had to do with UAC (User Access Control) and lack of support for devices. Microsoft compromised some on UAC in Win7 (that compromise led to some controversies—I think they caved in to bad PR, they see it differently) but the...

Last month there was a job posting on March 12 that quickly led to speculation around whether or not Microsoft was planning to revamp the updating system for its Windows Mobile platform. The general consensus is that the change won't come until version 7.0, but after that, Microsoft is aiming to deliver more frequent updates to customers of Windows phones. Officially, Microsoft has yet to announce anything, but another job posting, this one from April 10, made on Microsoft Careers seems to further confirm the original theory: "Have you wished to see your Windows Mobile phone with new features "magically" show up without you buying a new one? Do you want to see greater and better quality and cool software delivered to your love ones’...

As you can see above, screenshots of Windows 7 build 7077 have started to appear around the Web. There are also reports that the 32-bit version has been leaked and is readily available on various websites. Nevertheless, a good source has told me there are no noticeable differences between build 7068 and any of the 707x builds. This is much more important than the information leak of build 7070, though it's not immediately apparently. In the "About Windows" dialog box, there isn't an actual build string as we've seen in previous interim builds. It simply says "Version 6.1 (Build 7077)." The only other build we've seen this for is in the beta build released to the public (which also was leaked before Microsoft gave the download to...

You learn the most interesting things when you poke around in some of the arcane files that are included with Windows 7 beta releases. In the most recent build of Windows 7 that I’ve been able to examine, I’ve confirmed that Microsoft plans to release its next version of Office in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. That’s a detail that my colleague Mary Jo Foley didn’t discover in her December 2008 rundown of what we know about Office 14 Read More.....

JBOD? JBOD? JBOD stands for "Just a Bunch of Disks" and normally refers to one or more physical drives working independently. The AMD SB700 controller offers the added feature of concatenation, where the capacity of multiple drives is added together. When one drive is full, the data is saved to the next drive automatically. As independent physical drives, JBOD does not offer the performance or security advantages of RAID logical drives. However, in RAIDXpert, 3 you create, manage, and delete a JBOD the same as a logical drive. You can designate from two to four physical drives with online capacity expansion. If you attach a single physical drive that was previously partitioned, RAIDXpert will recognize it as a JBOD. However...

It looks like someone flipped the switch a little early. The Windows 7 Release Candidate download page on TechNet has made a premature appearance, much like the beta download page did before the beta was released to the public. The public RC will apparently be coming in May 2009, and not in April as previously rumored. The RC testing program will be available at least through June 2009, and the actual build will expire June 1, 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. This is different from the beta, which was available in English (32-bit and 64-bit), German (32-bit and 64-bit), Japanese (32-bit and 64-bit), Arabic (32-bit and 64-bit), and Hindi (32-bit). A quick glance at...

Microsoft recently published two job postings that hint at two separate and possible developments for the Zune platform. The first one seems to suggest that Microsoft wants to get some type of Zune service operating in your living room, possibly via a device similar to the Apple TV, or something linked to the Xbox 360. We already know that the Zune platform is heading to Windows Mobile, but what exactly Microsoft wants to do with the living room isn't yet known. The second job posting is hinting that Microsoft is finally looking to roll out the Zune and Zune Marketplace overseas. Full Story: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/04/zune-wants-your-living-room-finally-to-go-international.ars

Just when you thought our tax dollars and TARP funds were going out the window, a Texas senator added a provision to the state budget that would require state agencies to get written approval from the Legislative Budget Board before buying Windows Vista technology related to an operating system, equipment, or licenses. Microsoft spokesperson Tonya Klause* said in a statement, Given our daily work with government agencies and longstanding technology partnership, we’re surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process this language will be removed.” Tech journalist Ed...

I know this isn't Vista related but it mentions Office so thought people might be interested. April deadlines loom for Windows XP, Office 2003 product support | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

Attack code targets browser vulnerability Robert McMillan Online attack code has been released targeting a critical, unpatched flaw in Mozilla's Firefox browser. The attack code, written by security researcher Guido Landi, was published on several security sites on Wednesday, sending Firefox developers scrambling to patch the issue. Until the flaw is patched, this code could be modified by attackers and used to sneak unauthorised software onto a Firefox user's machine. Firefox 'firedrill' critical fix coming next week News - PC Advisor

When I first saw this, I had to do a double take. I made sure it wasn't April 1 at least three times before I conceded. While looking around Encarta's homepage today, I stumbled on a message that Microsoft was getting rid of MSN Encarta completely: "On October 31, 2009, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009." Looks like employees at Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica will be throwing parties tonight. Full Story: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/microsoft-to-kill-encarta-later-this-year.ars

Two days ago, details of Windows 7 build 7068 leaked. Now, screenshots of build 7070 have arrived, and the story goes a little something like this: "I just came back from Microsoft, since my Dad works there. He works for in the SQL server division and here are some screenshots I took about the new build 7070. I don't know if there is anything new to this build, but they installed it yesterday, so it probably will be leaked soon. They said it was a major update; maybe not to the user interface but more to the Kernel. Just letting you guys know " Of course, there's no "major update to the kernel" but the screenshots do look legitimate. The screenshot above is just one of three. You can see the other two over at Facepunch forums. I've...

Windows PowerShell 1.0 Installation Package for Windows Vista (KB928439) Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a new command-line shell and scripting language designed for system administration and automation. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell enables IT professionals and developers to control and automate the administration of Windows and applications. Windows PowerShell 1.0 for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB928439) Installation date: ‎26/‎03/‎2009 15:37 Installation status: Successful Update type: Optional Microsoft Windows PowerShell is a new command-line shell and scripting language designed for system administration and automation. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell enables IT professionals and...

This week, Microsoft Connect testers received the RTM-Escrow build of Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Ars has learned. The company is letting testers grab it as a standalone installer package (all languages) as well as slipstreamed versions in English, Spanish, German, French, or Japanese. As always, there are 32-bit, 64-bit, and ia64 versions available, but for some reason Microsoft has not included a patch to allow testing for the release via Windows Update, as it usually does. For those interested, the build string is "6002.17043.090312-1835" and Microsoft claims the service pack includes 793 individual hotfixes (the official list on TechNet still talks of the RC build). Assuming no more drastic changes...

Microsoft today released the Release Candidate build of Service Pack 2 (6002.16670.090130) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 to the public. You can grab the standalone installer package from the Microsoft Download Center for 32-bit five languages and 32-bit all languages, 64-bit five languages and 64-bit all languages, as well as Itanium five languages and Itanium all languages. If you have Vista in English, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish, download the five languages package, otherwise get the larger "all language" version. There is also a five language and an all language.iso image available, as well as a patch that will allow you to get it via Windows Update. While this is a public release, it is still a Release...

When a new market of small-factor computers became very popular last year, Microsoft wasn't feeling too hot. Linux and Windows XP were being used, and the consumers buying these PCs were not able to take advantage of all the hard work that had gone into Vista. It didn't matter that with Vista SP1, the operating system was running better than its XP on higher-end machines. New computers don't necessarily mean better, faster, stronger anymore. Netbooks mean smaller, cheaper, lighter, and many consumers are quite happy to use XP, the operating system they had gotten used to during Vista's unusually long development. Microsoft simply did not foresee this new trend occurring when it was working on Vista; the demand for the inexpensive...

Microsoft has released the final version of Internet Explorer 8 :party: Internet Explorer 8: Home page