Vista News

Microsoft keeps reminding us that this $300 million ad campaign is nowhere near done, as it is split into many stages. The third (and current) stage is called "Rookies," and it features cute little kids using Windows Live programs. Last week, we saw four-year-old Kylie using Windows Live Photo Gallery to make a picture of her pet fish Dorothy "better," then send it off to her mom and dad. A new ad now shows Alexa, who is older and therefore takes more than just one picture, using Windows Live Photo Gallery to stitch the photos together into one big picture of her home-made fort and then print it out. Just as with Kylie, the ad finishes with Alexa saying, "I'm a PC and I'm seven years old." I've embedded the video for your viewing...

Good news! Comodo just released COMODO Internet Security 3.8.64263.468. Including both a 32 bit version and a fully native 64 bit version too. What's New in this version? NEW! COMODO Threatcast - COMODO's community based alerts statistics NEW! Native Vista Firewall - Improved Firewall with Windows Vista enhancements NEW! Native Vista HIPS - Improved HIPS compatible with Windows Vista enhancements NEW! Buffer Overflow Prevention - Defense+ can now detect and prevent one of the most common attacks used by attackers: shellcode injection NEW! Antivirus Heuristics: The Antivirus engine now includes heuristics scanning capabilities NEW! Proxy server settings for AV and program updates IMPROVED! Trusted software vendor list is expanded...

Last week, Microsoft finally announced that there would be six editions of Windows 7, just like there were for Windows XP and Windows Vista. The company will release Windows 7 Starter (worldwide only via OEMs), Windows 7 Home Basic (only in emerging markets), Windows 7 Home Premium (retail and OEM), Windows 7 Professional (retail and OEM), Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (retail only during promotions and OEM), and Windows 7 Enterprise (volume licenses). However, as part of its initiative to simplify the lineup, the software giant will only market Home Premium and Professional to average users. Most will be getting Windows 7 with their next purchase of a desktop, notebook, or netbook. (Speaking of netbooks, Microsoft also noted last week...

After moving the Wave 3 version of Windows Live Essentials out of beta last month, Microsoft has now updated specific applications in the suite. Windows Live Essentials, which refers to the suite of Windows Live client applications (as opposed to Web services), consists of a long list of software: Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Writer, Toolbar, Family Safety, Office Live Add-in, and Silverlight. Movie Maker remains in beta but its build has changed along with every other application (grab the new build from download.live.com. Messenger: 14.0.8064.206 (previous build was 14.0.8050.1202) Mail: 14.0.8064.206 (previous build was 14.0.8050.1202) Photo Gallery: 14.0.8064.206 (previous build was 14.0.8051.1204) Movie Maker...

The rumor first started in April 2008, and many were skeptical Microsoft was really planning to follow in Apple's footsteps and launch its own retail stores. In November, the company launched its online Microsoft Store in the US, and the general consensus was that the rumor had been put to rest. Not so. In press release late today, the software giant announced that it will indeed be rolling out new Microsoft-branded stores. David Porter, head of worldwide product distribution DreamWorks Animation SKG, will join Microsoft as corporate vice president of Retail Stores, reporting to Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. The stores, according to Microsoft, will improve the PC and Microsoft retail purchase experience for...

more: techPowerUp! News :: Microsoft Certifies NVIDIA ION Platform for Windows Vista Home Premium

Last month, the Hotmail team announced that POP3 support had been rolled out to nine countries: United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The plan for worldwide support was said to be progressive and the rollout deadline was a vague "later this year." An insider told me last night that the switch has now also been flipped for US and Brazil Hotmail accounts. There hasn't been any official announcement on the various Windows Live blogs yet, but I'll update this post if more details come to light today. If you want to start using it now, there are some details you should be aware of: POP server: pop3.live.com POP SSL required? Yes User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example...

Days after the leak of build 7022 (32-bit) to public torrent sites, WinFuture.de has posted a screenshot clearly showing a 64-bit Enterprise edition of build 7032. We already know of a build 7034, but this is significant because there have been no screenshots or any other tangible proof of any of the 703x builds. The screenshot shows the following build string: "'6.1.7032.0.winmain.090129-1812," meaning that the build was compiled on January 29, 2009 at 6:12PM. Since it is an interim build, it's not surprising that the screenshot shows the build expiring on July 2, 2009. Other than the new build number, the screenshot (full-size image) does not show too much. A date is shown in the bottom left in a European format, but all this shows...

The Ultimate Extras embarrassment has been quite an issue since the launch of Vista, and while Microsoft did apologize and things started to get better in 2008, the fact remains that the company wasn't delivering as promised. Many users went as far as saying that Ultimate was useless because Ultimate Extras weren't plentiful, but of course those who bought Ultimate didn't buy them for the extras. And Microsoft is hoping those users will make the same decision for Windows 7 Ultimate, which won't be getting the feature when it's released. Here's the quote that shows Microsoft has given up (it almost slipped through our fingers after all this Windows 7 SKU news): Our new approach to planning and building Windows doesn't have the capacity...

This week, Microsoft announced that there would be six editions of Windows 7, though the company would only be pushing Home Premium and Professional in retail stores and via marketing. The question of how Microsoft would be handling the netbook market trend has come up more than once ever since Vista's successor was announced. Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows Consumer Product Marketing, claims that Windows 7 has a smaller OS footprint, faster boot-up and shut-down times, improved power management for enhanced battery life, and other improvements that will make it possible for all Windows 7 editions to run on netbooks. Full Story: Microsoft answers Windows 7 netbook question - Ars Technica

Common Windows problems could soon be solved by clicking a "Fix It" button. Microsoft has started putting the button on its web-based support pages that detail the most common problems hitting PC and Windows users. Clicking the button kicks off a download that, once run, carries out the series of steps needed to fix a specific problem or remove a bug. Microsoft also has plans to extend the click-to-fix system to help users recover from a crash. Problem pages The "Fix It" button first started to appear on Microsoft's support pages in late 2008. Now it appears on more than 100 separate entries, Lori Brownell, Microsoft's general manager of product quality and support told tech news website Cnet. Microsoft has kicked off a project to...

Microsoft has launched a new contest over at serverquestcontest.com aimed at Silverlight game developers. The contest, which is limited to a minimum age of 16 years old and residents of the US, will run through 11:59 PM PT April 30, 2009, after which there will be a voting period between May 1 and May 14. Winners will be announced on May 25, 2009. Entrants will have to create a user profile on the site, download the free Software Development Kit, and use it to develop an online game. There is a limit of three unique entries per person and per e-mail address. The specifications of the game are quite strict. The initial file download size cannot exceed 4MB Total file size must be < 10MB Resolution limited to 800x430 There are no frame...

As expected, Microsoft debuted the next phase of its $300 million campaign at the Grammys yesterday. The ad is a very good one, not because it uses a 4-and-a-half year old little girl, but because it actually shows her using Windows and Windows Live to get a task done. Kylie takes a digital camera with which she took a picture of her pet fish "Dorothy," connects it to her laptop, and then uses Windows Live Photo Gallery to edit it and share it with her mom and dad. The ad finishes with Kylie saying "I'm a PC and I'm four and a half." In case you didn't watch the Grammys last night, here's the video: Microsoft recently folded its Windows Live team into the Windows team, so it's not a big surprise to see a Windows Live application...

There has been little talk of Windows 7 builds since the public release of the first beta build (7000) last month, but Microsoft has definitely been busy. What many seem to overlook is that build 7000 was compiled on the afternoon of December 12, 2008. Since then, there have been many other builds compiled, including 7003, 7004, 7012, 7015, 7016, 7022, 7025, 7028, and 7034. A few of these have leaked, but only one hit public torrent sites. This past weekend, the 32-bit version of build 7022 started to rage across piracy networks. According to the build string (7022.winmain.090115-1850), it was compiled January 15, 2009 at 6:50pm. To put things into perspective, build 7025 was compiled exactly five days later. Full Story: What's new...

Apparently along with hanging installs the SP1 update for .NET3.5 also installs itself into FireFox with no warning or opt out option... Remove the .NET Framework Assistant 1.0 from Firefox « adrift Full Story and removal info above... NOTE: As always when editing the Registry make sure to create a proper backup first.

As part of AMDs Cloud Computing, the Fusion Render Cloud is aimed at gamers using laptops for gaming. The Render Cloud is a super computer with over 1,000 GPUs and allows weaker computers to play games by sending the "frames" over the Internet to the user, who plays the game through a browser window of some kind. I like the concept of it, as it means things like "can I run this game?" will be a thing of the past, but to play a game like Farcry 2 well or something, you'll need a broadband that is capable of delivering it. Full article here: News Room Home

GImageX (ImageX GUI) Updated Version now Available You may remember that back in the early days of my blog, I posted a tool that myself and fellow MCS consultant Jon Bennett (also of AutoIT fame) had worked on called GImageX. This tool was a Graphical User Interface for the Microsoft ImageX command line tool. Well - Jon has spent some long lonely evenings in hotel rooms during recent engagements and has completely re-written GImageX (now v2.0.1 BETA) This new version includes: Native x86 and x64 versions entirely written in C++. Tiny ~100KB executable. Doesn’t use the imagex.exe utility at all – instead it uses the WIMGAPI interface (the wimgapi.dll file from the imagex directory) Progress bars, time elapsed, time remaining, file...

No matter how much memory you have in your PC, you may not be getting the most out of your installed RAM. A few little-known system tweaks can improve the way Windows manages memory, freeing up more RAM for your applications. As described in an entry on the Microsoft Developer Network, all non-server 32-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista impose a memory limit of 4GB. Your system may allow you to install more than this amount of RAM, but with few exceptions, the extra memory won't do Windows or your applications any good. Moreover, even if you have 4GB of memory installed in your PC, you may not be able to use it all. For example, if your video card comes with 1MB of memory and you have 4GB of RAM, your system actually has 5GB of...

The Microsoft-Apple battle has been raging for ages, and when the iPhone and Microsoft Surface were announced, trolls squirmed with excitement at the prospect of yet another completely different pair of products to compare and bash. So if you're like me, you may find the video below a breath of fresh air. Stimulant, the developer of the sample application, describes it by saying: XRay is a mashup of Microsoft Surface and the iPhone. Stimulant created a Surface application that reveals photographs, but by laying an iPhone on Surface, more layers of imagery are revealed, synced in real time with the upper image layers shown on Surface. The only limit to how many iPhones can be used at once is, well, how many iPhones you have handy. Full...

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