Vista News

by Herb Torrens 08 October 2008 A Microsoft Springboard Virtual Roundtable on Tuesday examined Windows Vista performance, fielding technical views from some panelists that had actually carried out system upgrades. The general opinion among the group was that Service Pack 1 for Vista had transformed the much-maligned operating system into an ideal solution for enterprise IT managers. Mark Russinovich, technical fellow in the Core Operating Systems Division at Microsoft, hosted a seven-member panel of industry experts. It was the third session in a Microsoft series that features live, online discussions about Windows Vista. Ironically, the seven-member panel spent much of the time (over an hour)...

Forget Freddy, it's a nightmare on Windows Street! By Katy Abby Everything seemed to be going so well. The sun was shining and the fish were schooling as the seaweed drifted lazily through the waves. It was altogether reminiscent of the loveliest underwater desktop environment... Watch what happens next in the spoof saga of an underwater scuba diver who comes face-to-face with the consequences of a system error. Although you may find the final moments to be terrifyingly evocative of your last computer crash, don't let it keep you up at night. It's just a commercial... right? Play the video eNqPTOb31S8 YouTube - The blue screen of death (banned commercial??)

Virus Bulletin (VB) conducted its latest test in September, posting the results this month. The security research company evaluated 24 anti-malware products for Windows Server 2008. The basic requirements for a product passing the test is detecting, both on demand and on access, in its default settings, all malware known to be "In the Wild" at the time of the review, and not detecting any false positives when scanning a set of clean files. Continue Reading: AntiVir, F-Secure, and Kasperksy fail latest Virus Bulletin test

When Chrome arrived last month, we had mostly positive thoughts about what Google was bringing to the browser market. With a month gone by, it's time to see how well the new browser performed in September. We looked at how the browser market stood in August, so we've got a nice basis of comparison to see Chrome's impact. Between the two months, Internet Explorer dropped by just over half a percent: from 72.15 percent to 71.52 percent. This is nothing new. What is new is that Firefox's growth was stunted: the most popular alternative browser dropped by 0.27 percent (from 19.73 percent to 19.46 percent), and Opera lost everything it grabbed in August: from 0.74 percent to 0.69 percent. These losses can be attributed mainly to Google...

I have found this article in my ZDNet newsletter - it is of concern as we are all too trusting! Clickjacking: Researchers raise alert for scary new cross-browser exploit | Zero Day | ZDNet.com Researchers are beginning to raise an alarm for what looks like a scary new browser exploit/threat affecting all the major desktop platforms — Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Adobe Flash. The threat, called Clickjacking, was to be discussed at the OWASP NYC AppSec 2008 Conference but, at the request of Adobe and other affected vendors, the talk was nixed until a comprehensive fix is ready. The two researchers behind the discovery — Robert Hansen and Jeremiah Grossman — have released droplets of...

Rumor: Core i7 Motherboards to be Incompatible with Performance DDR3 Memory Written by Paul Lilly 10/07/08 at 10:16:54 AM Intel's upcoming Core i7 platform may throw a curveball to anyone swinging sticks of high performance DDR memory. According to news and rumor site The Inquirer, running memory voltage any higher than a modest 1.65V on an X58-based motherboard outfitted with a Core i7 processor could damage the CPU. The limitation came to light thanks to an admin on the XFastest forums who posted pictures of the unreleased Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard in retail trim. A closeup of the DIMM slots reveals a warning label which states "According to Intel CPU SPEC, DIMMs with voltage setting over 1.65V may damage the CPU...

There appears to be a shift taking place in the PC industry: the move from 32-bit to 64-bit PCs. We've been tracking the change by looking at the percentage of 64-bit PCs connecting to Windows Update, and have seen a dramatic increase in recent months. The installed base of 64-bit Windows Vista PCs, as a percentage of all Windows Vista systems, has more than tripled in the U.S. in the last three months, while worldwide adoption has more than doubled during the same period. Another view shows that 20% of new Windows Vista PCs in the U.S. connecting to Windows Update in June were 64-bit PCs, up from just 3% in March. Put more simply, usage of 64-bit Windows Vista is growing much more rapidly than 32-bit. Based on current trends, this...

If you have any need to find out what your computer is really doing under the hood, you know that Process Monitor is the tool. Today, Process Monitor 2.0 was released. From the Sysinternals blog: This major update to Process Monitor adds real-time TCP and UDP monitoring to its existing process, thread, DLL, file system and registry monitoring. You can now see the TCP and UDP activity processes performed, including the operation (e.g. connect, send, receive), local and remote IP addresses and DNS names, and operation transfer lengths. On Windows Vista, Process Monitor also collects thread stacks for network operations. Download here: Process Monitor As before, Process Monitor includes: Monitoring of process and thread startup and...

A bit of interesting news.... Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Windows Update - Everything Microsoft forgot to mention Does Vista already have Windows 7's new kernel? By Stuart J. Johnston For those waiting for a faster, better-performing version of Windows, you'll have to wait at least nine months for Windows 7. But if you can't wait, Vista Service Pack 1 may provide a peek into Microsoft's plans to equip Windows 7 with a dramatically smaller, more agile operating-system kernel. The new kernel is meant to deliver the kind of performance boost that users have been demanding ever since Vista first shipped nearly two years ago. In fact, the new kernel may already be in Vista SP1. (An...

Zune + Windows Mobile rumors were being whispered around quite forcefully earlier this year, and now we know why. In February, Mel Sampat asked the following question on the Windows Mobile Team Blog: "What are some ways the Zune player and a Windows Mobile device can work better together?" In April, blogger Chris Lanier reported that we would be hearing details of a "Zune integrated with a phone later this year." Apparently, it's late enough in 2008. In an interview with CIO, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the Zune software will be coming to Windows Mobile. Continue Reading: Ballmer: Zune software coming to Windows Mobile

New Firefox 3.0.3 Released If you already have Firefox version installed, then you can just update Firefox by clicking on Help and Check for Updates in Firefox. Release Notes: Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3 Release Notes Download Link: Firefox web browser | Faster, more secure, & customizable

Windows has supported multiple monitors for as long as graphic cards have had two or more display ports. At the same time though, Windows to this day still does not support multiple monitors when it comes to the taskbar. Multiple-monitor setups are becoming more common, and there are always developers, gamers, and enthusiasts who don't know what to do when they're given a desktop with just one monitor. These groups of people have resorted to using third-party solutions that give them the functionality they need, but what they really want is support right out of the box. Chaitanya Sareen, a senior program manager on the Windows 7 Core User Experience team, has taken the time to address this request on the E7 blog. Continue Reading...

Just spotted this. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/25408564#25408564 Source: http://bink.nu

Special-edition Zunes aren't a new thing; the Joy Division Zune, for example, shipped in limited quantities just four months ago. In fact, I've stated my belief before that Microsoft is pumping out too many special-edition Zunes, but nevertheless, we have another once coming next month. Today the software giant announced that its new 120GB flavor would be coming in a Gears of War 2 special edition that would bring a whole new meaning to games on the Zune. For $280, US and Canadian residents will be able to get their hands on the latest creation from Xbox and Epic Games. Continue Reading: Gears of War 2 120GB Zune coming November 7 (Updated)

Reports have started to trickle in that some lucky users have had their Windows Live Hotmail accounts moved to the new Wave 3 version. Yep, that's the version that is reportedly up to 70 percent faster for signing in, viewing e-mail, and opening e-mail. Microsoft has yet to give a date for when it expects everyone will be moved over, but I think it's safe to say that Windows Live Hotmail Wave 3 will have been rolled out around the time the Wave 3 desktop applications go final. Of course, performance improvements aren't the only things that users have to look forward to. Continue reading: Microsoft slowly moving users to Windows Live Hotmail Wave 3

Source:- BBC NEWS | Technology | BT to kick off fresh Phorm trial If your in the UK and have friends and family using BT PLEASE make them aware of this invasion of privacy and make sure they do not mistakenly take part. To voice your objections to PHORM in the UK please sign the following petition on the Prime Ministers web site - Petition to: Stop ISP's from breaching customers privacy via advertising technologies. | Number10.gov.uk

Walmart to pull plug on DRM servers Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 4:52 am 9-28-2008 UPDATED RELATED NEWS POST 10/11/08: http://www.vistax64.com/vista-news/186355-wal-mart-decides-maintain-drm-servers.html So, Walmart is to pull the plug on its DRM servers and leave all the customers (suckers) who bought DRM-encumbered music up a creek without a paddle. Here’s the email sent out to customers: Read more at the Source: Walmart to pull plug on DRM servers | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

Tech myths come in all shapes and sizes: Some contain a morsel of truth, but many of them are so wildly preposterous that it's hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously. "A myth generally exists to explain the worldview of a group of people," says Rob Enderle, a consumer analyst. "This means its intent is to convey an idea but not necessarily the whole truth, and given it's conveyed largely from person to person, the initial story can change a great deal." At the risk of perpetuating Internet-sized myths even more, here are some of the most famous examples of myths, along with some debunking and comments from those in the know. Full Story: Opinion: Famous tech myths that just won't die

Is More Memory Better? Author: Richard Swinburne Published: 8th July 2008 Consumers have enjoyed record low memory prices for over nine months now in DDR2 memory. Over the past six months, even latest 4GB and 8GB kits have been finding new lows. We've seen a continued demand for DDR2, even with all of the DDR3 support that's been cropping up. Many Nvidia nForce and all AMD processors are still limited to DDR2 and even the new Intel P45 chipset still supports it, so it doesn't look like it will be going away any time soon. In fact, the P45 chipset only supports 8GB of DDR3 memory, while DDR2 gets 16GB! But with the increased availability and decreased price, enthusiasts are faced with a new question: is a 4GB kit or even an...

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries. So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web. All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all...