Vista News

As expected, Silverlight 3 was announced today at MIX09, this year's iteration of Microsoft's annual conference for web developers, designers, and enthusiasts. While the keynote that just finished was full of little announcements that were handed out faster than the audience could swallow them, the one that stood out the most was the third iteration of Microsoft's Flash alternative, Silverlight. Links for the first and last beta of Silverlight 3, and the many development tools surrounding it, went live earlier today. During the keynote, Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Platform at Microsoft, announced a list of improvements that left me wondering if "the third time's the charm." The new beta is 40KB...

'I'm a PC' Marketing Pays Off for Microsoft, OEMs News Analysis. Microsoft and its partners are reaping big rewards from the $300 million Windows marketing campaign. [Editor's Note: Please read the companion post at Apple Watch. Together, the two posts offer full analysis of February Windows PC and Mac sales data and six charts (three per post).] That's my conclusion after reviewing February U.S. retail PC sales data released by NPD on March 16. Apple's steep U.S. retail sales declines continued in February, comparatively worse than January's already dismal showing. Meanwhile, Windows PC sales continued their recent year-over-year growth rally. Full Story .... Microsoft Watch - Marketing - 'I'm a PC' Marketing...

Over the weekend, I put Windows 7 build 7000 on my desktop and Windows 7 build 7057 on my laptop, and went through trying to spot as many changes between the two as I could. Although I go deeper than I did with build 7048, this is still not a comprehensive list. There is almost three months difference between the two builds: the beta was compiled on December 12, 2008, at 2:00pm and the leaked build 7057 was compiled on March 5, 2009, at 8:00pm, so there's a lot of work to cover. This post is about tracking every noticeable visual change; although I do mention some fixes here and there, I'm mainly focusing on tweaks that are "tangible" as opposed to the thousands of bugs that have been fixed. As before, the screenshots are lined up...

"The guessing game is on again. Microsoft is tight lipped about the Windows 7 release schedule which is the main reason why so many different Windows 7 release dates are floating around on the Internet. Depending on the website that you visit you find release dates for Windows 7 that range from the second quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010. That’s more than 18 months of difference." -Windows 7 news More here: No Windows 7 In 2009? | Windows 7 News ~Lordbob

Windows Mobile has many things it could be doing better, and updates are near the top of the list. Currently, you have to get your update from your manufacturer (HTC, LG, etc.), but it looks like Microsoft might be changing that with Windows Mobile 7. The idea is to cut out the middle-man, so that users can get updates straight from Microsoft just as they do with Windows. In a March 12 job posting on Microsoft Careers, Microsoft explains that it is looking for a Principal Development Manager. Here's the part that's most important from the job description (emphasis mine): Windows Mobile 7 will change the way you view your phone. We aren't just building a me-too iPhone or RIM competitor; we're changing the way customers use and...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for March 2009: three bulletins Microsoft will patch three vulnerabilities this Tuesday. One is rated as "Critical" and the other two are marked "Important." Details inside. According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue three Security Bulletins on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions on these bulletins the following day (March 11 at 11:00 AM PST, if you're interested). One of the vulnerabilities is rated "Critical" and the other two are marked "Important." The first one earned its rating through a remote code execution impact, meaning a hacker could potentially gain control of an infected machine. All three patches will require a restart. More ...

Just before announcing that Internet Explorer 8 has been finalized, Microsoft has released a new report titled "Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding issues in benchmarking and performance analysis." The document explains the various browser and network components and how each piece can impact performance when benchmarking, capabilities and limitations of various benchmarking tools, as well as ways to design tests to avoid these issues. What makes this report extremely dubious is the chart that is buried at the bottom. It shows IE8 outperforming Firefox 3.05 and Chrome 1.0, something that no other test on the Internet has ever shown before. Before I start to rant and rave, I want to explain that I am an IE8 user (in fact this...

It is widely expected that the Windows 7 Release Candidate will arrive in April, 2009, though whether the rumored April 10 date holds remains to be seen. Just over a month from now, we'll likely be playing around with the RC and wondering when the final will arrive. Despite the fact that Microsoft insists on sticking to the January 2010 timeframe, which is three years after the general availability of Vista, many sources have already pointed to an earlier release. This is not surprising whatsoever; January is not a good time to release a new product. ZDNet expects that the final version will be ready in July 2009 since the beta will be expiring the month after. "When the Beta expires on August 1, 2009, you’ll need to reinstall a...

While Microsoft excluded Windows 7 from the security patching ceremony in January and in February, things went a little differently on this month's Patch Tuesday. Microsoft fixed three vulnerabilities yesterday: two were spoofing-related and were marked Important, while the other was marked Critical as it had a Remote Code Execution impact. According to the security bulletin for the last one, Microsoft said that the patch was meant "for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008." So I was surprised to see it in my Windows Update queue today (pictured above) on Windows 7 build 7000. Microsoft disclosed that the security update resolves several privately...

source:Adobe

What's new in the latest Windows 7 build? I'm asked this question every time there's a new build out and I see it asked on forums, too. Usually, the response is brief because it's really hard to spot all the changes when you're just using the new build. That's exactly why I've put this post together: I have Windows 7 build 7000 on my laptop, and Windows 7 build 7048 on my desktop, and I've gone through trying to spot as many changes as I can. That's not to say that this list is a comprehensive one, but it's a solid start, and I encourage you to leave feedback in the comments as I will be reading all of them before I do a more thorough comparison between the beta to the RC. Build 7000 was compiled on December 12, 2008, at 2:00pm and...

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/microsoft-research-techfest-2009-a-glance-at-the-road-ahead.ars Microsoft Research's TechFest, not to be confused with the yearly TechFest event that occurs in India, is an annual showcase of the various technologies that the company's researchers have been working on. The 2009 event that took place last week (February 24-26) featured a few prototypes that we've already seen before, like WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft Songsmith, but there were also many that have only started to emerge out of Microsoft's research labs around the world, including those in China, India, the UK, and the US. The gathering of hundreds of researchers, as well as the broader group of Microsoft employees and...

more:Cepro.com

By now, having read the headline and looked at the above image, you've concluded that I've finally gone crazy. "That Microsoft news writer at Ars has finally lost it," you mutter sadly, shaking your head. I assure you though, it hasn't happened yet, nor is this an early April Fool's joke. While you can't get the shirt pictured above from Microsoft anymore (no longer available), the company will be offering it again soon: it's called The Misdemeanor. The one that you can currently purchase for a mere $10 is The 101, and it's available at Urban Outfitters. In case you're you're wondering, yes, the binary does translate to "Softwear by Microsoft." Still think this is some kind of prank? The official website for "Softwear by Microsoft, A...

Microsoft said Thursday it will release three security updates on this coming Patch Tuesday, including one that is rated "critical" and could allow an attacker to take over the computer. The critical update affects Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Server 2003 and 2008, the company said in an advisory. The other two updates are rated "important" and could be used for spoofing, in which an attacker is able to masquerade as someone else. One of the patches affects all supported versions of Windows and the second affects Windows 2000, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Missing from the security updates is a fix for a security vulnerability in Excel, for which there have been Zero-Day exploits. Microsoft to release three security updates...

Introducing Safari 4 Beta. Take a look at the remarkable new features of the world’s fastest web browser. Works great with Windows vista and Windows 7. Here: Apple - What’s new in Safari - See the new features available in Safari 4 Beta for Mac and PC.

more:eweek.com

Some folks are up in arms over what Microsoft Business Division Chief Stephen Elop said today during a presentation to analysts at the Morgan Stanley Technology conference: "There will be ad-based revenue streams. There's an opportunity to draw those pirate customers into the revenue stream. We want to draw them into the Windows family and maybe there's an upsell opportunity later," according to Silicon Alley Insider. Elop wasn't lying, but he certainly did not reveal anything new. As ZDNet noted, we've known that Microsoft was working on both ad-supported and subscription-based Web application versions of Office 14 since PDC 2008. Just to make sure though, I e-mailed Microsoft for clarification and got the following response back...

This past weekend, the blogosphere was abuzz over a video that Office Labs put together regarding what it foresaw for 2019. Many watched the video and happily criticized Microsoft because they believed none of it would ever happen, saying that while the video was entertaining, it was all just a big waste of time. It's not, and here's why. Yes, the video is very much out of this world, and I will be the first to agree that not everything in it will come out of the labs, but the key thing to know is that Microsoft is working on everything you see in the video. So after you check out the video embedded below (this is the full version, most have seen the shorter one), also check out the PowerPoint slides that were used alongside the...

Microsoft has more than once hinted that it is interested in releasing the Microsoft Surface to the general public, assuming that it can cut the price down significantly enough. We haven't heard many details about what Redmond has been up to on this front, but now some intriguing ones have surfaced (pardon the pun). Microsoft recently sent out a marketing survey for a horizontal multitouch computing device codenamed Oahu (which appropriately translates to "The Gathering Place"). Oahu is likely to be consumer version of the Microsoft Surface, and Microsoft is currently estimating that such a device would set a family back $1,500. According to the survey's description of Oahu, it really is a Microsoft Surface: more than one person can...