Broken Webpages IE8 Beta Add-On on Vista SP1 and XP SP3

While building Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft is joggling the evolution of IE and its commitment not to break the web, namely content that is tailored to IE6 and IE7. Internet Explorer 8 is not only capable of rendering websites developed with modern standards, but also content that was designed with the shortcomings of its precursors in mind. In addition to building three rendering modes into the browser and ensuring the evolution of Compatibility View, the software giant is also taking the necessary measures to identify the specific websites that fail to play nice with Internet Explorer 8. In this context, the Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta Add-On is now available for download.

“The Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer Add-on appears as a toolbar button and a 'Report a Webpage Problem...' item on the Tools menu,” an excerpt from the tool's description reads. “When the toolbar button is clicked or the menu item is chosen, the control takes a screenshot of the web page currently being viewed. A new tab is then opened containing a report submission form. A scaled down version of the screenshot will be visible at the bottom, and the user has a choice of whether or not to include the full-sized screenshot (choosing No to the 'Include Screenshot' question means no screenshot will be sent).”

The add-on is designed to catalyze feedback for Microsoft when it comes down to webpages with rendering problems, which could contain scripting errors or any additional issues. According to the Redmond company, the add-on is set up to integrate exclusively with the Beta versions of Internet Explorer 8, and will not be available for the final version of the browser. The software giant revealed that the add-on's availability would be discontinued in the Internet Explorer 8 pre-RTM timeframe. The Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta Add-On would work with copies of the browser run on top of Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008.

“On the report submission page, the user also has the option to select a category best representing their observed problem. This category selection will be part of the report information returned to Microsoft. A 1000 character limit comment field is provided, if the user chooses to include some description of the problem. Additional data included in the report: the protocol type (http, res, file, etc.) of the URL being reported; the complete URL; a numerical value representing the Document mode,” Microsoft adds.

The Report a Webpage Problem Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta Add-On is available for download here.

Sysinternals Update: Process Monitor 2.01 for Vista and XP

Sysinternals Update: Process Monitor 2.01 for Vista and XP But also DebugView 4.76, AccessChk 4.21, Autoruns 9.35. Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, software architects in the Core Operating Systems Division, introduced the 2.0 major update to Process Monitor at the end of September 2008. Now, the tool has been taken one step further to version 2.01, this time just a minor refresh designed mainly to deal with a few issues associated with v2.0. The Process Monitor 2.01 release is an integral part of a larger update of the Sysinternals suite involving other three applications: Autoruns 9.35, DebugView 4.76, and AccessChk 4.21.

“Process Monitor v2.01 - this release fixes several bugs, including compatibility with Windows 2000, excessive exit delays, and adds the new networking events to the filter dialog's operations list,” explained Curtis Metz, Program Manager, Microsoft Sysinternals. Back in September, version 2.0 of Process Monitor brought real-time TCP and UDP monitoring.

Delivering network tracing capabilities to Process Monitor was Russinovich's next step in the evolution of the utility. Taking Process Monitor from version 1.0 to 2.0 involved adding new low-level capabilities, such as a stronger focus on system memory usage in addition to network tracing.

“Autoruns 9.35 - this Autoruns update adds additional autostart locations, including lsastart, s0initialization, savedumpstart, and servicecontrollerstart, and fixes several bugs,” Metz added. “DebugView 4.76 - debugview no longer truncates the last character of each line of a log file when it loads one back into the display. AccessChk 4.21 - this fixes a bug in the code that checks for malformed security descriptors that could cause spurious warnings.”

The new versions of the four updated utilities have also caused the entire Sysinternals Suite to be refreshed. As of October 16, Microsoft is serving a new release of the Sysinternals Suite now complete with all the touched-up utilities: Process Monitor 2.01, DebugView 4.76, AccessChk 4.21, Autoruns 9.35.

Process Monitor 2.01 is available for download here.
The Sysinternals Suite is available for download here.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Download Process Monitor 2.0 for Vista and XP

At the start of September 2008, Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich revealed that he was cooking a major update for Process Monitor, one of the components of the Sysinternals suite. As of September 30, version 2.0 of Process Monitor became available for download. The description of the tool authored by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell reveals that Process Monitor 2.0 is designed to integrate seamlessly with both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 2000 SP4 with Update Rollup 1, Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows Vista.

“Process Monitor v2.0: 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,” revealed Curtis Metz, Program Manager, Microsoft Sysinternals.

Concomitantly with the new release of Process Monitor 2.0, the entire Sysinternals suite was update and is also available for download. Russinovich refreshed two additional utilitoes on top of Process Monitor 2.0, namely Sigcheck and Contig. “Sigcheck v1.54: this Sigcheck release fixes a bug in CSV output formatting. Contig v1.55: Contig now supports the -accepteula command-line switch,” Metz added.

Via Process Monitor 2.0, users will be able to monitor in real time the file system of the Windows operating system along with the platform's registry and process/thread activity. Back in early September, Russinovich promised that Process Monitor would indeed evolve with the addition of new low-level capabilities, including a more intimate focus on memory usage, while at the same time delivering network tracing to the utility.

Process Monitor 2.0 is available for download here.
The Sysinternals Suite is available for download here.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Insight on Network Monitor 3.2 RTM

Version 3.2 of Network Monitor is being offered as an update to v3.1, but in this regard, the utility is also nothing like the 2.x releases. Tawanda Sibanda, the lead program manager for Network Monitor indicated that Network Monitor 3.2 was produced through a consistent effort of the Netmon team that worked to integrate into the product all the feedback it had received from customers. At the same time, Netmon 3.2 delivers the inherent bug fixes as well as a necessary boost in stability. Network Monitor 3.2 is designed to support Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

“So What’s New in Network Monitor 3.2? Process Tracking: Now you can identify rogue applications sending network data! View all the processes on your machine generating network traffic (process name and PID). Use the conversation tree to view frames associated with each process. Capture engine re-architecture to improve capture rate in high-speed networks. Network Monitor 3.2 drops significantly fewer frames that Network Monitor 3.1,” revealed Sibanda.

At the explicit request of its users, Microsoft implemented the “Find conversations” capabilities. With version 3.2, frames can be easily isolated in the same network conversation, Sibanda explained. The new iteration of Netmon is capable of parsing over 300 protocols, with Microsoft ensuring a high degree of customization when it comes down to the parsers. In this context, Networtk Monitor 3.2 also offers improved parser management, as users are permitted to expand the default parsers to the full set.

In addition, “in the upcoming months, we plan to place all our Windows parsers on the Microsoft open-source CodePlex site and allow the community to modify and contribute parsers. This version of Network Monitor seamlessly integrates new parser packages. [Network Monitor 3.2 also delivers] Network Monitor API: Create your own applications that capture, parse and analyze network traffic! More extensive documentation of the API and NPL. Access the documentation from Help > NPL and API Documentation. IA64 builds. PCAP capture file support. ContainsBin Plug-in: Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings,” Sibanda added.

Microsoft Network Monitor 3.2 RTM is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga

Over 2 Years of Feedback for Windows 7, and Counting

Even though Microsoft has only recently started talking Windows 7, in preparation for events such as the professional Developer Conference 2008, WinHEC 2008 and TechEd EMEA 2008, the fact of the matter is that Windows Vista's successor has been in development since 2007. In fact, for the past couple of years, namely as early as the end of 2006, the Redmond giant has been collecting feedback on Windows 7. And this process is by no means at an end, as it is bound to continue even following the market availability of the next iteration of the Windows client.

"Over the last two years we’ve had a team of dozens of professional researchers fielding surveys, listening to focus groups, and analyzing telemetry and product usage data leading up to the vision and during the development of Windows 7 – and we’re not done yet. From our independently run marketing research to reading your feedback on this blog we will continue to refine our product and the way we talk about it to customers and partners alike. That doesn’t mean that every wish goes answered! One of the hardest jobs of planning is in turning all of this data into actionable plans for development," revealed Mike Angiulo, Windows PC Ecosystem and Planning lead.

In addition to events and conferences such as TechEd, WinHEC, PDC and input gathered through surveys, the largest harvester of feedback is integrated within the Windows architecture, telemetry systems that send millions and millions of records to Microsoft, of course only with end users’ consent, and without any identifiable data.

According to Microsoft, the marrying of the feedback with the development process of Windows 7 is focused on three key areas. The company needs to ensure an equilibrium between the novelty aspect of the new Windows platform and the operating system's capacity to deliver satisfaction throughout its lifecycle. Another balance has to be achieved when it comes to handling aggregate and individual user input, in order to tailor the resulting product for the general case scenario designed to satisfy all consumers. At the same time, Microsoft needs to deliver the right operating system at the right time, and an example of what not to do in this matter is of course Windows Vista.

"We have input on key tradeoffs. We have a position on future trends. That’s usually enough to get started on the next version of the product and we stay connected with customers and partners during throughout development to keep our planning consistent with our initial direction but isn’t enough to know we’re ready to ship. Really being done has always required some post engineering feedback phase whether it’s a Community Technical Preview, Technology Adoption Program or a traditional public Beta," Angiulo stated.
By Marius Oiaga

Windows 7 Boot Performance – Under 15 Seconds

A 15-second boot time is the target Microsoft is aiming for with the evolution of Windows 7's startup performance. The software giant in fact spared no resources for the next major iteration of the Windows client, and has an entire team focusing exclusively on the performance associated with the startup process. However the effort is much larger than just a single team, spanning across the entire Windows project and to the Redmond company's hardware and software partners.

"Startup can be one of three experiences; boot, resume from sleep, or resume from hibernate. Although resume from sleep is the default, and often 2 to 5 seconds based on common hardware and standard software loads, this post is primarily about boot as that experience has been commented on frequently. For Windows 7, a top goal is to significantly increase the number of systems that experience very good boot times. In the lab, a very good system is one that boots in under 15 seconds," revealed Michael Fortin, Microsoft distinguished engineer and lead of the Fundamentals feature team in the Core Operating System group.

Statistics gathered through the Customer Experience Improvement Program from Windows Vista Service Pack 1 machines indicate that just 35% experience boot times of 30 seconds or less. The remaining 75% boot in as much as 50 seconds. Fortin indicated that there are millions of computers corresponding to the data received by Microsoft. But in this regard, the Redmond company considers that the startup experience delivered to end users, even with Vista SP1, is simply not good enough.

"From our perspective, too few systems consistently boot fast enough and we have to do much better. Obviously the systems that are greater than 60 seconds have something we need to dramatically improve—whether these are devices, networking, or software issues. As you can see there are some systems experiencing very long boot times. One of the things we see in the PC space is this variability of performance—variability arises from the variety of choices, and also the variety of quality of components of any given PC experience," Fortin added.

But in the end it's not just Windows, it's also the installed software and the underlying hardware that deliver an impact on the perception of performance, or the lack of it. One major contributor to a reduced level of startup performance is "the off-the-shelf configuration" of OEM computers. Microsoft found that while a pre-configured OEM machine would boot in 45 seconds, the same computer, but featuring a clean install of Windows Vista SP1, would have a boot time of just 23 seconds, which, with additional optimization, could be taken down to just 21 seconds.

"As an example Windows 7 effort, we are working very hard on system services. We aim to dramatically reduce them in number, as well as reduce their CPU, disk and memory demands. Our perspective on this is simple; if a service is not absolutely required, it shouldn’t be starting and a trigger should exist to handle rare conditions so that the service operates only then," Fortin explained.

Windows 7 will be tweaked with the inclusion of a revenged service trigger mechanism which will manage auto start items more efficiently. On top of this, Microsoft is also optimizing Vista's successor to offer an enhanced parallelism of driver initialization. In this context, individual driver loading times will not take a toll on the startup time.

"In terms of reading files from the disk, Windows 7 has improvements in the "prefetching" logic and mechanisms. Prefetching was introduced way back in Windows XP. Since today’s disks have differing performance characteristics, the scheduling logic has undergone some changes to keep pace and stay efficient. As an example, we are evaluating the prefetcher on today’s solid state storage devices, going so far as to question if is required at all. Ultimately, analysis and performance metrics captured on an individual system will dynamically determine the extent to which we utilize the prefetcher," Fortin said.
By Marius Oiaga

Download Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 for Vista SP1 and XP SP3

The wait is over. At almost six months since the introduction of Internet Explorer Beta 1 in early March at MIX08, Microsoft unveiled the second Beta for the next iteration of its proprietary browser. In this context, the Redmond company lived up to its promise to deliver the second development milestone of IE8 by the end of this month, with the Beta 2 bits going live on August 27. According to Microsoft, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is available for download for 32-bit Windows XP, and both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The Redmond giant indicated that the browser would integrate with the latest versions of the Windows client and server platforms, including Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Windows Vista Service Pack 1(SP1).

"We’re excited to release IE8 Beta 2 for public download," stated Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager. "In addition to English, IE8 Beta 2 is available in Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), and German. Additional languages will be available soon. While Beta 1 was for developers, we think that anyone who browses or works on the web will enjoy IE8 Beta 2. We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services)."

Since the beginning of this week Microsoft has been building up the anticipation for the delivery of IE8 Beta 2. Although the company never confirmed the August 27 deadline, the release date had been already leaked. At this point in time the Redmond giant is reportedly gearing up for a November launch of the gold bits of IE8. In this context, Beta 2 is the last development milestone before IE8's Release to Web (RTW).

IE8 Beta 2 sports a number of new features such as InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking, InPrivate Subscriptions, but also Compatibility View, Search Suggestions, SmartScreen Filter Web Slices and Accelerators.

"If you are currently using IE8 Beta 1 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 with Automatic Updates turned on, you will receive IE8 Beta 2 through Windows Update. Download IE8 Beta 2, use it – the browser itself, the developer tools, writing an Accelerator, marking part of your page as a Web Slice – and let us know what you think," Hachamovitch added.
Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 2 is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga

Free XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Deployment Toolkit Available for Download

Free XP SP3 and Vista SP1 Deployment Toolkit Available for Download - Grab the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Update 1 right here. Microsoft has made available for download a Solution Accelerator designed specifically to handle the deployment of the company's desktop and server software products including Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, the Office 2007 System, as well as Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 R2. Essentially, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Update 1 is offered as the next iteration of the original MDT 2008, which, in turn, represented the evolution of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 delivered in 2007.

"We are pleased to announce the release of our first update to Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 (MDT 2008). We have added two major features: OEM preload scenarios for Lite Touch Installation and Zero Touch Installation with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and a new management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1. Minor updates include bug fixes and design changes to override driver platforms as well as the ability to inject all drivers into Windows PE," stated Nick MacKechnie, Senior Technical Account Manager at Microsoft New Zealand.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Update 1 fits perfectly into the software giant's efforts of streamlining and automating the deployment of its flagship products, specifically the Windows Server and Client operating systems and the Office platform. What the resource is designed to deliver is a comprehensive toolset comprised of both process guidance and tools, centralizing them into a single Solution Accelerator aimed at IT Professionals.

In this context, customers will be able to access and leverage a collection of scenario-based guides and automations, unified into a single common deployment console via MDT 2008 Update 1. But, in the end, the actual role of the toolkit is to compensate for the price of Microsoft's proprietary software by reducing the Total Cost of Ownership. With standard server and desktop images, cut down installation time and service disruptions, and boosted configuration management, MDT 2008 Update 1 will help businesses save money on the long run. This is provided through the deployment flexibility introduced by the toolkit, including options such as Lite Touch Installation (LTI) or even Zero Touch Installation (ZTI).

"MDT 2008 Update 1 enables deployment of the following Microsoft products: Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate (32 and 64 bit) RTM and SP1; Office Professional, Professional Plus, Enterprise, and Ultimate 2007; Windows Server 2008; Windows Server 2003 R2 (32 and 64 bit); and Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and Service Pack 3 (32 and 64 bit) or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition," Microsoft added.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 Update 1 is available for download here.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Vista SP1 Update Makes Intel Turbo Memory Play Nice with SCSI Devices - The hotfix is also available for Vista RTM and Windows Server 2008

According to Microsoft, Intel Turbo Memory, a caching solution associated with Intel Centrino Duo and Intel Centrino Pro processors, fails to play nice with SCSI-class devices via Windows Vista Service Pack 1. The Redmond company informed that it is not only Vista SP1 that prevents nonvolatile (NV) cache commands from being transmitted to SCSI hardware products, but also the RTM editions of the latest Windows client, as well as Windows Server 2008. However, users impacted by issues with Intel Turbo Memory failing to communicate NV cache commands properly to SCSI-class devices can turn to Microsoft for a solution, as long as Vista or Windows Server 2008 are part of the equation.

"Intel Turbo Memory is an integrated nonvolatile caching solution. ITM works together with Microsoft RAID, and it introduces support for caching of a RAID device. This NV caching solution requires that NV cache commands be sent to the RAID device. In Windows Vista, the NV cache commands can be sent only to HDC-class devices. However, many RAID products are Small Computer Standard Interface (SCSI)-class devices. Therefore, the NV cache commands cannot be sent to these devices," Microsoft revealed.

Intel Turbo Memory is essentially designed to monitor and record the behavior of the end user. The solution will then cache the data accessed most frequently and make it directly available to the processor. In this context, Intel indicated that memory intensive applications can gain a speed bump of as much as 100%. However, the solution is also useless in the scenario described by Microsoft. A hotfix is available, set up to resolve the issue, but end users will have to contact the Redmond company in order to access it.

"A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only this problem. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix," Microsoft added.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Error Recipe: Vista SP1, USB Optical Disc Drive and Resume from Standby - A hotfix is available

Windows Vista Service Pack 1, a USB optical disc drive and the process of resuming a computer from standby are the perfect recipe for a Stop error message, according to Microsoft. Essentially, a computer running Vista SP1, or even the plain vanilla version of the operating system that is resuming from Standby while connected to a USB optical disc drive will produce either the STOP: 0x000000E4 (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) or the STOP: 0x0000000A (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) error messages.

"The parameters in the error message vary, depending on the configuration of the computer. This issue may occur on a computer that is running Windows Vista, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1), or Windows Server 2008. Not all '0x000000E4' or '0x0000000A' Stop errors are caused by this problem," Microsoft explained.

Windows Vista SP1 and RTM versions, as well as all the flavors of Windows Server 2008 are affected by the issue. However, Windows XP SP3 or earlier releases, as well as Windows Server 2003 on the server-side, are apparently not impacted in the least. Microsoft has a resolve in place, but it requires Vista and Windows Server 2008 users to contact Microsoft directly in order to access the hotfix.

"A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem described [above]. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix," Microsoft added. Traditionally, if the issue is not widespread, and does not affect the vast majority of Windows users, the Redmond company will not produce a fix designed for delivery through Windows Update. All Windows hotfixes are in the end introduced into upcoming service packs for the operating system if they fail to evolve into updates, which, apparently, is not the case here.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

Vista SP1 Compatibility Center Debuts

Vista SP1 Compatibility Center Debuts - Into Beta Looking for software and hardware products fully compatible with Microsoft's latest Windows operating system? Well, look no more, as the Redmond company has unveiled the ultimate resource designed to parade the software and the hardware solutions tailored to Windows Vista, now with Service Pack 1. Set up to offer consumers extensive information as to what products are tailored to Vista, the Windows Vista Compatibility Center centralizes data on in excess of 9,000 items that play nice with the operating system.

The Windows Vista Compatibility Center was announced the past week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Huston, Texas by Brad Brooks, corporate vice president, Windows Consumer Product Marketing. However, the new Vista compatibility hotspot took a while to become fully functional. But now users can browse for cameras, printers and scanners, MP3 and media players, TV devices, communication devices, mice, keyboards and input devices, displays, networking, graphics cards and storage devices compatible with Vista.

But in addition to hardware, the website also offers an extensive list of software which integrates seamlessly with Vista, totaling in excess of 9,000 items. But, in the end, browsing is not really manageable with all the categories and subcategories but search capabilities are available.

The items featured on the new website are labeled as compatible if they pass the Certified for Windows Vista, Works with Windows Vista, or Games for Windows logo programs or if the developer claims that it offers support for the platform. "Hard block" products in the Windows Vista Setup program are deemed incompatible, and if information is insufficient, Microsoft will display a "Status Unknown" message. The bottom line is that since Service Pack 1 introduces no architectural changes compared to the RTM version, the Windows Vista Compatibility Center is not limited at the gold build of the client but also extends to Vista SP1.

"Released in February 2008, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes the complete set of Windows Vista updates we've issued over the past year. Available at no charge, Windows Vista SP1 doesn't add features or require you to learn anything new - it simply makes your PC even more enjoyable to use and helps it run more reliably and smoothly. In addition, our hardware and software partners have worked extensively with us to help improve the Windows Vista experience. They've updated more applications to be compatible with Windows Vista, delivered new device drivers, and ensured that most new devices and software programs are compatible with Windows Vista," Microsoft informed.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Windows Vista SP1, the Truth and Nothing but the Truth

Windows Vista SP1, the Truth and Nothing but the Truth - Well, the Microsoft version Can users handle the truth about Windows Vista? Now with Service Pack 1 in its arsenal, Microsoft is ready to prove that they can. Or, at least, its own version of the Vista SP1 truth. Microsoft is on a mission. A mission to salvage what little is left of the latest Windows client, although admission of such a scenario will never come from the company. There are, of course, inherent questions as to why the software giant is reacting so late to spreading the Vista gospel. What is clear in this context is that Microsoft's truth about Vista failed to correspond to the reality of the operating system before SP1. While its was poorly marketed as a Wow in performance, security, reliability, compatibility and stability, Vista revealed its true face to consumers, moving slower than XP in common scenarios and being plagued by software and hardware incompatibility problems.

Loyal to the saying "better late than never," Microsoft did react, first with the evolution delivered by SP1 and more recent with the Vista-centric performance at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2008. "[A] major theme is around Windows Vista deployment. You'll hear from Brad Brooks about where we are. It's time for us to bust through the mist. We've got to bust through the mist with you first, because you're out there with our customers. You must be running our software first, so that you can be credible and honest in front of our customers. You also have to be supported on the back end. So I think our goal today with you is to bust through the mist on Windows Vista," stated Allison Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft.

It fell on Brad Brooks, Corporate Vice President, Windows Consumer Product Marketing, to bring the truth about Windows Vista to the public. In this regard, the mission was to dispel the myths about Windows Vista. Myths circulating at the level of common consumer perception in the marketplace. Still, Microsoft is ready to bet big that the real story of the operating system is different from the image of a handicapped product built by Apple's constant mockery with the Get a Mac ads.

Microsoft, Do Blame Microsoft!
Microsoft simply cannot throw the blame on anyone else but itself. The reason is rather simple and Brooks said it out loud and clear: "We've been quiet about it." It appears that the new translucency policies set in place by Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group for Windows 7, are contagious and they spread to Vista too. Microsoft simply sat back and took everything that was thrown at the latest Windows client. The company failed to react in any manner to Apple's Get a Mac ads that trashed Vista and made it an item synonymous with a perfect victim for ridicule, irony, sarcasm and so on and so forth. However, at the same time, a much needed wake up call seems to have taken Microsoft out of its lethargy. I just hope that it will not be a repeat of the Wow...

Vista Some Things Broken – a Lot of Things Broken
"And let's start that story, the real story, at the beginning, with the creation of Windows Vista. We had an ambitious plan. We made some significant investments around security in this product. And you know what, those investments, they broke some things. They broke a lot of things. We know that. And we know it caused you a lot of pain in front of your customers, in front of our customers. And it got a lot of customers thinking, and even yourselves and our partners thinking, ‘Hey, is Windows Vista a generation that I want to make an investment in?’" Brooks asked.

In Brooks’ own words, Vista is now dramatically changed compared with what the company was offering just a few months ago. What's different? A little something called Service Pack 1. SP1 has taken Windows Vista to the next level of reliability, compatibility, support and, most importantly, performance. There is a simple experiment that all Vista users can try out – uninstalling SP1 after at least a month of use, and trying to run plain vanilla Vista RTM. The conclusion is that, had the gold edition of Vista debuted at SP1, Microsoft would not have any myths to debunk.

Pain Is Good, Pain Is Progress
"The changes did cause a lot of pain, but you know what, customers are starting to see the benefits," Brooks argued. It's precisely the fact that customers are just now starting to see the benefits of Windows Vista after over a year and a half since the product hit the shelves, that is the problem with Vista. And still, going forward, Microsoft has to commit itself to a continuous strain when it comes down to marketing the operating system against its very noisy competitor, but also against the generalized perception of the operating system.

But, at the same time, Brooks underlined the fact that Microsoft had been in this situation before. The most recent example with the exception of Vista is, of course, Windows XP. Vista's predecessor had an equally mixed reception, but ended up shaking off the negative aura to become what it is today. "Now, the point I'm trying to make is that the frustrations, they're not okay, that we've faced with Windows Vista, they're not, absolutely. My point is this is not the first time that Microsoft, that we, the ecosystem, have launched an operating system into the marketplace. It was just the first time in a long time. And you know what? We've faced these challenges before, and we're going to overcome them again," Brooks stated.

Microsoft is on the verge of releasing its response to Apple and the Get a Mac ads. A new marketing campaign combined with the panacea that is Service Pack 1, and wrapped up in a very favorable context, as Vista is the only Windows OS available via the retail and OEM channels as of June 30, could just be the recipe that will bring Microsoft back in the game.

"The product continues to get better every day. It didn't stop with SP1. John talked to you about the telemetry data that we're getting in every day, every moment about Windows Vista. We're using it to improve the product, to make it better, and to turn around and ship updates for the products every week to our customers through Windows Update, on a scale and a scope that is unmatched by any of our competitors, continuing to make this product better every day," Brooks promised.

Free the People!
Brooks confirmed that Microsoft has poured a lot of money into a new ad campaign for Windows. However, he failed to disclose any details on the subject. Still, what the Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 is designed to be is a turning point for Vista. The event is synonymous with the moment when Microsoft starts fighting back. Brooks promised that the Redmond giant will get more and more vocal in the next couple of months, and that a Vista crescendo is building up. "You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping? Well, we've woken up, and it's time to take our message forward," Brooks said.

Truth be told, nothing has hurt Microsoft and Windows Vista more than Apple's Get a Mac ads. Still, the Redmond company needs to be careful when hitting back. Apple is currently in a stage of its evolution where it can do no wrong. The Cupertino-based hardware company has transformed Mac machines into nothing more than genuine Windows PCs, with support for Vista and XP, but convinced consumers that they're still buying Macs and not PCs. Microsoft, on the other hand, has every move placed under a microscope and scrutinized for the faintest fault. The Redmond company needs to understand that what works for Apple will not help it at all, and might even backfire. What is necessary is an entirely new perspective, one synonymous with Microsoft 2.0 after Bill Gates.

"Now, we've got a highly vocal minority out there in Apple. They kind of look at this and say, hey, you know what, you're kind of boring with the mundane message; it's not cool. They tell you it's the ‘i-way’ or the highway. Well, you know what - we think that's kind of a sad message. Everyone in this room knows better. We know that software that is made for this world is made to be compatible with your whole life, whether at work or at play, on home or on the go. Free the people: That is what we do, that is what we do every day - that is the value that we create for the world today," Brooks concluded by saying.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Microsoft: Windows 7, Perfect Target for State-of-the-Art Hacking Tools

Microsoft: Windows 7, Perfect Target for State-of-the-Art Hacking Tools - Vista compromised multiple times, acknowledges the Redmond company. Believe it or not, but Microsoft is setting up Windows 7 as the perfect target for what the company referred to as state-of-the-art hacking tools, some of them not even created yet. Windows 7 is heading straight for a feast of attacks, and Windows 7 Server will be joining it at sharing the menu. Sporting new bulletproofed cores, the successors of Windows Vista and respectively Windows Server 2008 are being designed to raise the bar in terms of security, but the question is: will it be sufficient? Because a new standard of security is also valid for the current releases of the Windows client and server operating systems, and both are far from perfection.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer claimed the title of the most secure operating system in the world for Windows Vista at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 in Houston, Texas, last week. But even with Turner applauding Vista as more secure than Apple's Mac OS X, Linux and all of the open source for that matter, Microsoft is still acknowledging that the operating system was owned more than once.

But this is not stopping the Redmond giant from baking Windows 7 as the next "most secure operating system in the world," a goal that has to be delivered by the Windows Security Assurance (WinSA) team. Windows 7 and Windows 7 Server are planned as new security standards in comparison with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

"WinSA’s charter is to ensure the core Windows operating system and Server products are resilient to attack. Security researchers worldwide continue to explore new and creative ways to compromise our operating systems: unfortunately, even with its advanced features and the extensive engineering improvements, Vista has been compromised multiple times already. We’re focused on making the next releases even more secure than previous ones," a member of the Windows Security Assurance group revealed.

Michael Howard, Senior Security Program Manager in the Security Engineering group at Microsoft stated in the past that security is an ongoing cat-and-mouse game, and that the Redmond company has to set standards higher and higher with each release, and fight attackers trying to overcome them. This is precisely what the evolution from Vista and Windows Server 2008 will deliver with Windows 7 and Windows 7 Server.

Windows 7 - Zero Security Barriers
At the same time, Howard was one of the first to admit that perfection is impossible to achieve, and as Vista was compromised, so will Windows 7. Microsoft's Security Development Lifecycle is working to ensure an as low risk as possible for eventual successful attacks which will break Windows 7. However, since Windows 7 is but an evolution of Windows Vista, and the current Windows client featured no security barriers, but just added mitigations, it is clear that, in terms of security, this development model will be perpetuated.

The introduction of any security barrier in Windows 7 would fundamentally alter the architecture of the operating system. Mitigations such as User Account Control, PatchGuard, driver signing and ASLR have already produced their fair share of pain, related mostly to compatibility problems. Microsoft simply cannot afford to go beyond just evolving the existing security mitigations and setting new protection layers in place. Just don't expect any of the extra tiers to act as impassible barriers, because this won't happen.

Proof of this is the new position of Software Development Engineer in Test offered by the WinSA. "We are seeking a highly technical, self-starting tester and/or pentester to join our engineering team to find security bugs through a variety of means before we ship. You’ll have the opportunity to create, use, and deploy state-of-the-art hacking tools. You’ll investigate new Windows features for security soundness, and scour legacy code for security flaws. You’ll come to see the OS from the perspective of a target, and figure out ways to defend against attacks. Come help us make Windows the most secure operating system in the world!" Microsoft said (emphasis added).

The Redmond company is willing to break down the code of Windows 7 and place the operating system on the "cutting edge of penetration testing". Windows 7 will have to take on a barrage of hacking tests, all inhouse and all for the sake of a more secure Windows. And of course, before it ships to the general public, by the end of 2009, as Microsoft hinted.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Microsoft Makes Vista SP1 Play Nice with the VIA 64-bit CPU

Microsoft Makes Vista SP1 Play Nice with the VIA 64-bit CPU - Hotfix is available for download. Even though the processor market is dominated by Intel, with AMD struggling to expand its elbow room, new players are able to find a little room to breathe. VIA Technologies is an illustrative example in this respect, with its products embraced even by Microsoft. However, the marriage between Windows client and server operating systems and VIA chips is not necessarily a match made in heaven. Case in point: computers with Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 RTM/SP1 have problems recognizing the new 64-bit CPU from VIA Technologies.

"Microsoft has released a hotfix to support the new 64-bit CPU from VIA Technologies. You can apply this hotfix on computers that are running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). This hotfix adds the ID and vendor strings for the new VIA 64-bit CPU. After you apply this hotfix, computers that are running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista SP1 can recognize the VIA 64-bit CPU and the system model that is based on this kind of CPU," the Redmond giant stated.

The hotfix became available at the end of June 2007, but is yet to be integrated into all copies of Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Usually, Microsoft waits for the next service pack release to incorporate hotfixes that are not released through Windows Update, but it looks like in this situation the company will indeed turn the fix into an update. Still, for the time being the update designed to make Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 play nice with the x64 processor from VIA has to be ordered directly from Microsoft.

"A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix," Microsoft informed.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Windows 7 M1 Reduced Functionality Mode Just as Vista RTM

Windows 7 M1 Reduced Functionality Mode Just as Vista RTM - The Windows kill switch lives on. Windows 7 Milestone 1 features Reduced Functionality Mode, just like Windows Vista RTM. With the advent of Service Pack 1 for its latest Windows client, Microsoft scraped the anti-piracy mitigation from the operating system, going back to the behavior of Windows XP when dealing with pirated, unactivated or expired copies of the platform. But if you thought that Vista SP1 was the end of Reduced Functionality Mode, think again. The kill switch has survived into Windows 7 Milestone 1 Build 6.1 6519.

Windows 7 M1 brings to the table the same limitations as did Windows Vista RTM. In the original Vista version which hit the shelves on January 30, 2007, Microsoft introduced Reduced Functionality Mode to deal with copies of the operating system failing to pass the activation or the validation processes. At the same time, the company used RFM to cut access to test-drive editions of Windows Vista, time bombed and set to expire after the trial period ended, independent of the activation or validation status.

This is the case for Windows 7 M1. The first development milestone for the next iteration of Windows, which was shipped to Microsoft's closest partners at the end of 2007, was also time-bombed, and has expired. Passing the expiration date throws the machines running Windows 7 M1 into RFM. Users have access only to the browser and can connect to Microsoft servers in order to activate Windows 7. But of course that M1 Build 6.1 6519 cannot be activated. The operating system is approximately a year and a half from its finalization, according to Steve Ballmer which pointed to the end of 2009 as the deadline for the delivery of Windows 7.

Chances are that just as RFM was cut from Windows Vista SP1, the kill-switch will also not survive in the final versions of Windows 7. Release Candidate versions of Vista SP1 are also set to expire starting with June 30, 2008, but the operating systems will not be thrown into reduced functionality mode. Instead, the kernel was tweaked to stop one hour after the RC development milestones of Vista SP1 have booted, and present users an END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD error message.

In contrast, copies of Windows 7 M1 move to reduced functionality mode immediately after the user signs into an account. The reason for this is the expiration of the test-period for Build 6.1 6519. The initial limitations can be hacked easily by allowing Internet Explorer 7 to connect to Microsoft, and then typing "C:" in the address bar. This will open Windows Explorer which will permit users to access "My Computer" in the Windows Explorer window. Here, right click on the system partition while holding the Shift key pressed and open a Command Prompt window. Just type Explorer and hit Enter in order to bring the user interface to life. Still, be advised that Windows 7 M1 will boot unexpectedly at short periods of time, even with this hack, making the now expired copy of Vista's successor unusable.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Patches Available for IE7 on XP SP3 and Vista SP1

New patches are available from Microsoft via Windows Update, designed to resolve security vulnerabilities in various versions of the Internet Explorer browser. Internet Explorer 5.01 SP4, Internet Explorer 6, and Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows 2000 SP4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows Vista are all affected. The Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-031 comes with a severity rating of Critical, and it plugs a private and a publicly disclosed hole. IE6 and IE7 running on Windows XP Service Pack 3 as well as IE7 running on Windows Vista Service Pack 1 contain a Critical HTML Objects Memory Corruption vulnerability which is taken care of via the IE Cumulative Security Update for June 2008.

"The security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1; Internet Explorer 6 on supported versions of Windows XP; and Internet Explorer 7 on supported versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista. The security update is rated Important for Internet Explorer 5.01 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service pack 4, and Moderate for all other supported releases of Internet Explorer 6," explained Terry McCoy, Program Manager Internet Explorer Security.

In the eventuality of a successful exploit targeting the HTML Objects Memory Corruption flaw, an attacker could gain complete control over an affected system, and perform remote code execution. The second vulnerability is less severe. The Request Header Cross-Domain Information Disclosure hole only allows for information disclosure. In this context, the HTML Objects Memory Corruption vulnerability poses the greatest risk to end users even in the context of XP SP3 and Vista SP1.

"A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way Internet Explorer displays a Web page that contains certain unexpected method calls to HTML objects. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by constructing a specially crafted Web page. When a user views the Web page, the vulnerability could allow remote code execution. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged-on user," Microsoft informed.

Source: news.softpedia.com

14 Things that Microsoft Needs to Do with Windows 7

Microsoft made no secret out of having, for some time now, been cooking the next iteration of Windows, a translucent development process with very little transparent areas including details such as multi-touch, support for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and the evolution of the Windows Vista kernel, graphics and audio subsystems. Pieces of the Windows 7 puzzle are indeed starting to come together, and a more consistent perspective will be delivered at the company's 2008 Professional Developers Conference, that will take place between October 27 and 30 in Los Angeles.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and with Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, have made it clear that Windows 7 will be the evolution of Windows Vista. With the current operating system acting as the foundation for the next, there have already been mentions of Windows Vista SP2 or even Windows Vista R2, but since actual details are gagged, all speculations about Windows 7 are fair game. In this context, Gates has also mentioned that Windows 7 will be a product of Microsoft's philosophy that states "do things better." The Redmond company's Co-Founder indicated that Vista has given ample opportunity for improvements with Windows 7.

The intimate connection between Windows 7 and Windows Vista manages to raise questions as to just how much of the current Windows client is going to survive into the next version, and just what sins it will pass along. Hopefully, Microsoft has learned relevant lessons from Vista, and will not repeat the Wow mistakes. There are of course a few things that the Redmond company can do to ensure this.

1. Performance! Performance! Performance!
Microsoft commissioned Principled Technologies to compare Windows Vista RTM and SP1 to Windows XP SP2. Here is what they found:
Vista RTM vs. XP SP2 - "Windows Vista was noticeably more responsive after rebooting than Windows XP on several common business operations. Overall, Windows Vista and Windows XP were roughly equally responsive on most test operations. Windows Vista was more responsive on some operations, and on those operations on which it was more responsive, Windows XP typically responded only a half a second or so faster."

Vista SP1 vs. Vista RTM vs. XP SP2 - "Overall, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP performed comparably on most test operations. Differences were typically less than a half second. Windows Vista SP1 was noticeably more responsive after rebooting than Windows XP on several common home operations. Overall, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Vista performed comparably on most test operations, with differences typically less than a half second."

No! This won't do with Windows 7! It simply won't! Let me make this clear, Windows 7 has to fly in comparison with Windows Vista and Windows XP. Fly! And the difference cannot be described with such qualifiers as "noticeably," "roughly equally responsive," and "differences typically less than a half second." In case that users have failed to be clear on this one, the performance they want with Windows 7 compared to Vista is that of a Ferrari compared to a bicycle. That's it! It's simple, now get it done! Just look at what Apple is doing with Snow Leopard to get a proper idea of what needs to be done.

2. Hardware Requirements – Less Is… Well... Less
Microsoft has already confirmed through the voice of Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications that, at the end of 2009, Windows 7 will sport the same system requirements as Windows Vista does now, or did at the end of 2006 – beginning of 2007, when it was launched. This would be nothing short of excellent for Microsoft. They will need to make Windows 7 fly (see #1) and they will have to do it on the same systems that Vista is sluggish (to use an euphemism).

The benefits of such a move would be tremendous for Windows 7, and related specifically to in-place-upgrades. Users are bound to think twice if they also have to upgrade their hardware in order to move to a new operating system. But just taking the software and slapping it on any "old" system configuration and get more will do half the marketing campaign for Microsoft.

3. Windows 7 vs. Vista vs. XP vs. Mac OS X vs. Linux vs. Lawn Mowers
One of the things that killed Windows Vista was the constant comparison with Windows XP, and not with Mac OS X or Linux. What Microsoft needs to do is set up a comprehensive set of tests and guidelines for comparing operating systems, and to provide general access to online benchmarking tools that will give an accurate and realistic perspective on scenarios involving Windows 7 vs. Vista vs. XP vs. Mac OS X vs. Linux.

And I don't care if users are able to access the benchmarking tests via browsers from embedded platforms installed on their lawn mowers, or from a high performance operating system running on a supercomputer, Windows 7 will have to outperform everything that's thrown against it. Everything! So, what if it’s Microsoft's tests? So what?! The company just needs to give end users, OEMs, corporations, developers, IT professionals and even Mac OS X and Linux users a palpable proof that Windows 7 is better. Palpable!

4. The One True Love for the Applications Environment
Windows 7 will be stretched between the need to evolve to 64-bit programs and the necessity to provide support for legacy applications. Virtualization is the best solution for the operating system to support Windows 7-specific software solutions, but also products designed to integrate with Windows Vista, Windows XP and even older Windows Platforms. By building virtualization into Windows 7, and ensuring that legacy applications will run in emulated environments replicating the OS they were tailored to, Microsoft will scrap one of the biggest worries that have plagued Windows Vista.

5. Put the Whip on the Evangelism Division
Really now! The biggest failure of Windows Vista is not hardware and driver incompatibility, it's the work done by the Microsoft Evangelism division for the operating system. I don't care if it's NVIDIA, ATI, Intel, AMD, HP or some obscure manufacturer building lawn mowers (see #3) in Alaska or in Siberia... if it has to run Windows 7, a Microsoft evangelist should provide everything from support to Pina Coladas, walks on the beach and in the rain, and massages. Don't wait for the manufacturers to come to you, go to them, go early, and woo them with the trademark Microsoft geek charm...

6. No More Kill Switches, in Translation "Vista RFM No Más"
All Windows users are created equal! Even those running pirated Windows. Microsoft needs to work this to its advantage and ensure that the jump from pirated Windows to genuine copies of the client is as easy and as cheap as it can be. One example is the 2007 gambit made on the Chinese market with the slashed Windows Vista prices. Sure enough, the company would still be losing money, but it will be losing a lot less than with the free pirated copies of Windows.

But, at the same time, it is important to ensure that users of genuine Windows are not made to suffer from malfunctioning Reduced Functionality Mode kill switches, like they did with Vista. In SP1, Microsoft killed RFM, and it was the right thing to do by its users. The Redmond company, the only one who has access to the statistics with the false positives of the Windows Genuine Advantage antipiracy mechanism for Vista, and all the operating systems thrown into reduced functionality mode despite being genuine, knows this better than any of us.

7. Infinite Windows 7 Flavors for All
Windows Vista came in six flavors... Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. If Windows 7 will come in 100, 24, 12, or also 6, Microsoft has learned nothing from Vista. Nothing! Yes, six editions do offer consumers the right choices, at the right price... but they also manage to create confusion. Microsoft needs to understand that it will not be able to satisfy all the needs of its customers by delivering infinite Windows 7 flavors, or by releasing a single one-size-fits-all edition as Apple does with Mac OS X.

With Windows 7, Microsoft needs to simplify its SKU offerings. Melt Home Basic into Home Premium, or drop Home Basic altogether. Make a single SKU out of Business and Enterprise and figure out how to provide different activation architectures to small businesses and corporate customers. Ultimate is a good idea however you look at it, and it should survive. Starter does not! In fact, the entire concept of Windows Starter edition should be dropped altogether! I'll explain later on.

8. Aero Next
Microsoft will have to do with Windows 7 what it did with the graphical user interface of Office 2007, in comparison to Office 2003. Windows 7 needs its own Ribbon/Fluent UI, with plenty of eye candy and with multi-touch, gesture, object recognition, advanced tablet PC support, and so on and so forth. But what it doesn't need is that Aero Next to be the resource hog that it is in Windows Vista. This should keep Microsoft from advising customers with inferior hardware configurations to turn Aero off altogether because it makes their systems virtually unusable. Let me make this clear: if just the user interface of a platform makes it unusable, Microsoft might as well go back to the command line...

9. Security but No Security
In case the negative response to the User Account Control in Windows Vista failed to reach Microsoft, let me spell this out... Users want security but they don't want security. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that the company had sacrificed functionality for security. Please stop!

First off, users should be and feel secure without having to compromise on any other aspect, and certainly not on flexibility or functionality. Microsoft needs to get UAC right in Windows 7 from the get-go, because the feature doesn't look like it's going away. But it should be made to run in the background, and to be as non-intrusive and as less chatty as possible.

But, most importantly, security should be a given, not the focus of the marketing campaign. Microsoft doesn't need to sell Windows 7 because it's secure, or even to stress security. It should be a default association and nothing more. But certainly not the top selling pitch!

10. Think Ultra!
This is where scraping Windows Starter comes in. One of the largest opportunities of growth for Windows is on the market of Ultra-Low-Cost mobile and desktop computers. This means that Windows 7 will need to run on the same hardware that Windows XP does in order to become tailored for ULC machines. If Microsoft makes Windows play well with low system configurations, the trademark of all Ultra-Low-Cost computers, than Starter will be redundant. And there goes one extra and useless Windows SKU.

For the time being, the Redmond company cannot offer the resource-hog that is Vista for ULC machines and is still delivering Windows XP. This situation cannot perpetuate itself with Vista's successor. Microsoft has to make Windows 7 available for all machines, and not praise the much needed evolution of the Windows operating system while still shamelessly providing users with the "blast from the past" that is XP, eight years after it was launched.

11. DirectX Next – 10 + 1 – Make It for Vista Too
Microsoft needs to start acting like Windows is their number one gaming platform, and fast. One of the mistakes made with Windows Vista was to not to backport DirectX 10 to Windows XP. This has to change with Windows 7. Namely, the Redmond company needs to offer DirectX 11 not only with Windows 7, but also for Windows Vista. No more excuses this time!

12. Windows 7 Ultimate Extras
I don't have to tell Windows Vista Ultimate users what a disappointment (yes, I managed do dodge the term "monumental failure") the Ultimate Extras were and still are. Still, the Ultimate Extras is just the last aspect where Windows Vista disappointed its users next to application and hardware incompatibilities, poor performance, the UAC, RFM... But, as far as Vista users go, Ultimate Extras really failed because of Microsoft's evident mismanagement and defiant lack of interest. The Ultimate Extras in Windows 7 have to wash away the shame of what has not been delivered in Windows Vista.

13. Start Your Marketing Engines, but Please No More Wows!
Microsoft doesn't have to wait until Windows 7 hits the shelves in order to start marketing the operating system, as it did with Windows Vista. This time around, however, the company does need to ensure that no more Wows will accompany the Windows operating system on the market. If Windows 7 is only evolutionary compared to Vista, then Microsoft at least has to make sure that the Windows 7 marketing campaign is revolutionary.

14. It's an OS X Eat Win, Linux Eat Win, Win Eat Win World
Microsoft has to play dirty! It needs to jump at the jugular of Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It needs to sacrifice all Windows operating systems on the altar of Windows 7, and it needs to bury its competitors. No more extended support, no more feature-rich Service Packs, no more availability, no more lifecycle extensions... just Windows 7!

And, as for Mac OS X and Linux, Microsoft needs to bury them both. I don't care if half of the Windows 7 team starts building malicious code for OS X and Linux and then release it in the wild, and shuts down very Mac computer and all the machines powered by Linux that are connected to a network (except lawn mowers, of course; see #3). With Windows 7, Microsoft has to be at least as cutthroat as Apple or the open source community.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Vista SP1 Installed System Memory (RAM)

One of the aspects that Service Pack 1 changes for Windows Vista is the way that the operating system reports the amount of installed system memory. The way that Vista SP1 now deals with the physical RAM impacts both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the platform and end users could experience an increase of the memory value reported. According to Microsoft, in the eventuality that physical memory was reserved for the graphics card, or if additional peripherals share the RAM via settings in the system BIOS, and also on computers with more than 3 GB of system memory, Vista SP1 will report the full resources available.

"This change occurs because Windows Vista with SP1 reports how much physical memory installed on your computer. All versions of Windows NT-based operating systems before Windows Vista Service SP1 report how much memory available to the operating system. This change in Windows Vista SP1 is a reporting change only," Microsoft informed.

Vista SP1 end users will be able to notice the increase in RAM reporting across various areas of the platform including the Welcome Center, in My Computer windows, System Properties windows as well as into the Performance Information and Tools item in Control Panel. RAM reporting evolved in Vista SP1 to include Installed Physical Memory (RAM), Total Physical Memory and Available Physical Memory in the System Information tool.

It is important to understand that not all the physical RAM is available to the operating system. Before SP1, Vista only took into account the system memory that it could use, and ignored the rest, even if it was installed. Because of BIOS and driver reservations of RAM, both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Vista RTM failed to report the full amount of memory on a system. Vista SP1 comes to resolve this problem, and will provide correct information of the hardware configuration even if the operating system has to share the RAM and can use only a portion of it.

"On computers that have a 32-bit operating system, more than 3 GB of system memory, and with a version of Windows that is earlier than Windows Vista SP1, users will see a larger difference in how much memory is reported as available to the operating system compared to how much physical memory is installed. This is because some physical address space must be reserved as I/O regions for memory mapped peripherals. These I/O regions are allocated between the 3 GB physical address and the 4 GB upper physical address limit," Microsoft added.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Vista SP1 and XP SP3 Have Failed to Break the Market's Windows Fatigue

Vista SP1 and XP SP3 Have Failed to Break the Market's Windows Fatigue - Windows is losing ground to OS X and Linux. Statistics for the operating system market come in different flavors and from a variety of sources but they all have one thing in common: indicating that Windows is losing ground to Mac OS X and Linux. As far as Microsoft is concerned, it reached the apex of the operating system market with the launch of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP back in 2004. Since then, it has been all down hill for the Redmond giant. Sure, the slope is by no means steep enough for a hard Windows fall, just sufficiently inclined through the erosion produced by Mac OS X and Linux that the ground is slipping from under Microsoft's proprietary platform, slowly but surely...

While Windows is not at risk from a landslide, it has been on a descendant trajectory for the past years, with consumers suffering from Windows fatigue, and increasingly looking for alternatives. Recent releases such as Windows Vista in 2007, and Vista Service Pack 1 as well as Windows XP Service Pack 3 have done little to impact the general trend. As of May 2008 Windows is credited with 91.13% of the operating system market according to Net Applications, with 91.11% by W3Counter and with 95.94% by OneState (but only as of April 2008).

In January 2007, when Windows Vista hit the shelves, Net Applications revealed a share of 93.33% for Windows, approximately two percent higher than in January 2008. Back in July 2007, OneStat gave Windows a share of 96.97%, also larger than the 95.94% from a couple of months ago. W3Counter seem to be on par with Net Applications indicating that Windows was at 93.6% of the market in May 2007, and as low as 91.11% in the past month.

Windows Saturation
The release of Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista and of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP has done little to help break what appears to be a generalized and accentuating case of Windows fatigue. Net Applications stated that SP3 for XP failed to impact the operating system's continuous market share lost for over a year. Even with SP3 available as of May 6, 2008, XP continued to lose audience and is down from 73.07% in April to 72.12% the past month. Vista continues to climb in statistics, but SP1 didn't deliver the kick needed to accelerate growth to the levels where focus will no longer shift to XP SP3, Windows 7 or rival products. Vista only climbed from 14.02% in March to 15.26% in May.

Statistics from W3Counter indicate a similar trend with XP dropping from 78.56% to 78.24% in the past two months while Vista jumped from 7.34% to 7.69%. It's not that Microsoft can't spare a few tens of millions of users, and it's not that a large proportion of the Windows audience is shifting toward Mac OS X and Linux, but the Redmond company is finding it harder and harder to boost its share on a market already saturated by its operating system. The software giant is indeed at the top, but the only way is not necessarily down, even if the general trend seems to contradict this perspective.

Windows Vista, the Default Growth
Windows Vista climbed up in the space occupied by Windows XP to claim the second most used operating system on the market since mid-2007. Since the January 2007 launch, Vista's growth has somewhat stabilized at around 10 million units per month. At the end of March 2008, Microsoft revealed that it had sold over 140 million Vista licenses worldwide. As of May, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer claimed that Vista had passed the 150 million mark.

W3Counter puts Vista at 7.69% in May 2008 compared to 1.91% the same month of the past year. In March 2008, OneStat indicated that in its statistics, Vista is at 13.76% up from July 2007 when it accounted only for 12.72%. Net Applications reveal the most consistent growth for the latest Windows client, from 0.93% in February 2007, to 15.26% in May 2008.

Without establishing the records Microsoft was aiming for it, Vista's adoption rate does not qualify the operating system for a failure by any measure. However, the biggest catch behind the uptake of Vista is the fact that it is almost entirely governed by the sales of new OEM computers. Original equipment manufacturers are responsible for over 80% of the revenues of the Windows Client Division, and concomitantly for the largest volumes of sales of the new Windows operating systems.

A very accurate prediction is that Windows Vista adoption will only accelerate after June 30, 2008, when XP is no longer available through retail and OEM channels. With only Vista preloaded on new machines, there is nowhere to go but up for the latest Windows client. Still, even at over 10 million new licenses a month, Vista will remain far from the dominant OS on the market, Windows XP.

Don't Expect Miracles from Windows 7
Even though Windows Vista has taken all the heavy hits, acting as a buffer release for Windows 7, the next iteration of Microsoft's proprietary operating system will drop in a market which has started to experience Windows fatigue for a number of years. But unlike Vista, Windows 7 will benefit from the get go from a mature ecosystem of software and hardware products. Microsoft is essentially promising a Windows 7 apple which will fall far tom the Vista tree, while at the same time featuring the same architecture as its predecessor, in terms of the kernel, and the graphics and audio subsystems, security and search functionality, etc.

In January 2007, data from Net Applications placed Mac OS X at 6.22% of the operating system market and Linux at 0.35%. In over a year, the market share of Windows' rivals went up to 7.83% and respectively 0.68%. OneStat claims that Mac OS X jumped from 1.79% in July 2007 to 2.18% in April 2008, and Linux to just 0.42% from 0.36%, while W3Counter gives OS X 4.73% in May 2008 up from 3.72% in the same month in 2007.

Both Mac OS X and Linux have been slowly converting the default audience of Windows now looking for additional solutions on top of what Microsoft has to offer. The most consistent growth is that of Apple, because of the winning hardware plus operating system combination. This is something that only the Cupertino-based hardware company can deliver, without Microsoft or a Linux distribution vendor being able to match it.

Microsoft is indeed working with its OEM partners harder than ever in order to produce bundles that will rival the Mac computers and OS X in terms of consumer appeal. This month, it has become clear that the Redmond company's main weapon against Apple will be the natural user interface. Delivering an entirely new interaction model as mainstream technology might seem like a big bet for Microsoft, with traditional Windows users experiencing instincts to resist such a move.

However, touch, gestures, voice commands, object and motion recognition will become a standard model of interaction in the future, and Windows 7 has the largest potential to bring this niche technology to the masses and get it adopted fast. At the same time Apple is not exactly standing still, as touch-based interfaces are already widely available in products such as the iPhone and the latest Mac models. At this point in time, it seems that Linux will be the last comment at the natural user interface feast, unless the major developers of Linux distribution take matters into their own hands and convince OEMs to to for the open source operating system what they are doing for Windows 7.

Good, Old XP
Innovation is a mandatory item in the recipe for Windows 7 if the next iteration of Windows attempts to stop its install base from migrating to Mac OS X and Linux. But Windows 7 is planned to drop at the end of 2009, and for the time being Windows Vista proved incapable of not letting the Windows momentum from slowing down. But don't count XP out just yet. Vista's predecessor will continue to have a consistent impact even after Windows 7 will be made available. This because Windows XP is no less than Microsoft's way of reaching the next five billion users.

The Redmond company has already committed to offering Windows XP Home Edition until 2010 or one year after the release of Windows 7, whichever comes first, on ultra-low-cost mobile and desktop computers. While ultra-low-cost machines will be sold in developed countries, the focus falls on first time users in emerging markets, where Microsoft has identified the next five billion potential customers. But, here, the company has to first fend off Linux, whose biggest advantage is the fact that it is free.

Source: news.softpedia.com

Windows 7 - Between Vista SP2 and Windows 8, Close to What SP2 Was to XP

Undoubtedly, the recent events focused on the next iteration of the Windows platform qualify these past days as the week of Windows 7. Make no mistake about it, even though the Redmond company started communicating Windows 7, it failed to diverge in any way from its official policy of keeping the world in the dark when it comes down to the successor of Windows Vista. Arguments that the communication strategy imposed by Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group is building frustration among both consumers and partners, have fallen on deaf ears. The Redmond giant did the exact opposite with Windows Vista, and the resulting experience did not justify the transparent tactics of Jim Allchin, (Former) Co-President, Platforms & Services Division. "Former" since his no. 1 software pet, Vista, hit the shelves on January 30, 2008.

"Yes, We Are Working on a New Version of Windows - It's Called Windows 7"
"Yes, we are working on a new version of Windows. As you likely know, it's called Windows 7," explained Christopher Flores, Director Windows Communications admitting that it was traditional of Microsoft to start talking Windows Next immediately after a new release of the operating system. However, almost a year and a half since the launch of Windows Vista, and 150 million licenses later, Microsoft has barely said a few words about what's coming next in the platform. And this is valid not only for the Windows 7 client. Things are even worse for Windows 7 Server, as Windows Server 2008 shipped just three months ago, at the end of February.

"We are always looking for new ways to deliver great experiences for our customers," Flores added. "This is especially true of Windows - where we're constantly examining trends in hardware, software and services to ensure that we continue to drive the innovation that has both made Windows the world's most popular operating system and has provided a foundation on which our partners built great products and businesses. When we shipped Windows 2000, we were already working on Windows XP and we started working on Windows Vista even before we released Windows XP. So naturally, we've been thinking about the investments we made in Windows Vista and how we can build on these for the next version of Windows."

Neither Sinofsky, nor Flores, and not even Chairman Bill Gates, or Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer offered anything specific on Windows 7. Microsoft's official position regarding the next version of Windows is that it's not yet ready to talk features, functionality, capabilities, Betas or a final delivery deadline. While Windows Vista was still in development, and referred to as Longhorn, the Redmond company was little shy of chattering of its plans for the platform. Windows Vista ended up a defaced Longhorn, de-featured, and stripped down of the vast majority of items Microsoft had promised in order to make an early 2007 launch.

"With Windows 7, we're trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners. This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience. For instance, several months ago we began privately sharing our preliminary plans for Windows 7 with software and hardware partners who build on the Windows platform. This gave them an opportunity to give us feedback and gave us the opportunity to incorporate their input into our plans. As the product becomes more complete, we will have the opportunity to share our plans more broadly," Flores explained.

In the end, Microsoft managed to confirm three things for Windows 7 the past week. The integration of new multi-touch and gesture technology, an availability date ahead of the end of 2009, and the lack of a new kernel. Touch computing is the only sure thing about Windows 7 at this point in time. More details, including specifics, will be shared at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference in October 2008. But until then, Flores noted that "we know that this is a change in our approach, but we are confident that it will help us not only to build even better products, but also to be more predictable in the delivery of our products. We also know that this change has led to some confusion, so we would like to share information today that will hopefully clear up some of this."

Windows Vista R2/Windows Vista SP2
If Windows Vista is the ash, than Windows 7 is it's Phoenix bird. That much is clear. Expect Windows 7 to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. One thing it's not is a rewrite of Windows. Sinofsky pointed to Vista as the Foundation for 7. The graphics, audio and storage subsystems will be the same, so will the hardware requirements, all of Vista's applications, devices and drivers will be compatible with Windows 7. In this regard, the next version of Windows seems nothing more than a Windows Vista R2, or a Windows Vista SP2.

Microsoft however is insisting that Windows 7 is a major, mammoth, monolithic release of the Windows client operating system just as Vista. But the new development strategy is evident with the release of Windows Server 2008. Sinofsky pointed out that Windows Server 2008 is also an evolution of Vista, and on par with Vista SP1, at least in terms of the code base and the service pack label. Windows 7 will also build on top of what Vista and Windows Server 2008 brought to the table. And the Redmond company had already indicated that Windows 7 would contain features which will act as the foundation for Windows 8.

Still, Windows 7 is bound not to be an equivalent of Windows Vista Service Pack 2. In this regard, if Vista SP1 provides any clues, SP2 for Vista will also be nothing more than a standard service pack. SP1, with insignificant exceptions, did not add any new features to Windows Vista RTM. Such a scenario successfully dismisses any connections between Vista SP2 and Windows 7. Even if Windows Vista will act as the foundation, Windows 7 will deliver a plethora of new features that are not available, and will not be available in Vista, SP2 or no SP2.

But what about Windows 7 being a second version of Windows Vista? This possibility is supported by the close proximity of the 2007 and 2009 release dates, which seems unusual compared to the five year gap which separated Windows XP and Vista; but also by the lack of a new kernel. In all fairness, Microsoft never stated that Windows 7 will sport a new kernel. MinWin is actually related to the company's efforts to carve out the core of the operating system as a standalone Windows version, and not to overhaul the kernel. MinWin is by no means a new kernel, as it is not even a kernel per se. It's the actual core of Windows 7, which contains the kernel. The continuous play with speculation related to the MinWin anorexic kernel had a strong potential to hurt Microsoft, as the entire ecosystem of software and hardware solutions would be impacted by such a move.

Get Ready for XP SP2 Part II
Microsoft's official position, expressed by top executives such as Jim Allchin, is that Windows XP SP2, which was built by diverging resources away from Longhorn, should have been considered a new Windows client and not just a service pack. But in this context SP2 for XP provides a precedent, which in its turn gives an indication to where Microsoft is actually heading with Windows 7. By offering an evolution from what Vista is today, the Redmond company is essentially looking to repeat Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, but this time around marketing the new version as a fresh major release.

SP2 more than anything else put XP on the map, and ensured its continuous dominance over the operating system market. Still, it did this not from the perspective of a service pack, because SP3 for XP failed to even come close, but from that of a major overhaul, or a major evolution, specifically what Windows 7 will be to Windows Vista. Of course with the level of details provided by Microsoft, this is nothing more than speculation at this point in time.

Chances are that as SP2 was a stepping stone between XP and Vista, one treated as a service pack, Windows 7 will be a similar release on the road to Windows 8. From 2010 onward, provided that the plans for Windows 8 are at least in embryonic phase, Microsoft has a very good chance to put the Windows 7 evolution behind it, and actually provide something truly revolutionary. For the time being underpromising Windows 7 is Mcrosoft's new strategy with a focus on overachieving the next iteration of Windows. Rather easy to do as the company continues to really promise nothing at all.

Source: news.softpedia.com