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)

Microsoft's 'Mama' Dies at Age 72

Microsoft's 'Mama' Dies at Age 72 - Miriam Lubow is featured in the remake of the "Albuquerque Group" photo. Microsoft has lost one of its early employees one month after the original 11 members reunited to celebrate Bill Gates' retirement from his day-to-day role with the company he co-founded. Miriam Lubow (1935-2008) is known as Microsoft's 'Mama', a title she received shortly after starting to work as an office administrator for what was then a very small software company based in Albuquerque. Lubow is featured in the remake of the "Albuquerque Group" photo, but not in the original photography (both included in this article). Lubow missed the opportunity to be featured in the original image due to a snow storm.

"She was born in Milan, Italy on October 17th 1935. She came to America in May of 1940 where she boarded a ship sailing from the Port of Genoa, called the SS Conte di Savoia. Her family settled in Scarsdale, NY. After High School, she returned to Europe and attended an Interpreter's school in Switzerland where she learned five languages. She met her husband Milton in NY where they were married in 1960. They moved to Albuquerque, NM to raise a family where she is proud to have answered an ad in a newspaper looking for a 'Girl Friday'. She became the first office manger and employee number seven to Bill Gates, Jr. She later became known as "Mama" to her Microsoft friends," reads a fragment from Lubow's family message of her death.

Lubow is the second member of the software giant's first 12 employees to pass away following Bob Wallace, after she was diagnosed with liver cancer. The 'Mama' nickname was well earned by Lubow, who at least at the office, took on a much more intimate role, and started to take care of the aspects that the geeks overlooked with ease. By her own recalling of the early days of Microsoft, Lubow had put Bill Gates on a steady diet of hamburgers because he always skipped lunch.

The video embedded at the bottom of this article, put together to mark Gates' last day at Microsoft as a full-time Chairman, also features a brief appearance by Lubow. Microsoft's 'Mama' recalled her first encounter with Gates, and her utter disbelief that he was the president along with he conclusion that she was working for a bunch of kids.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Firefox 3.0.1 Is Available for Download

Mozilla assured as early as the past week that the first security and stability update for Firefox 3.0 would be available for download on July 16, and it looks like it lived up to its promise. Although official confirmation has yet to be made available, Firefox 3.0.1 is already up for grabs, one day following the release of Firefox 2.0.0.16, and almost one month since Firefox 3.0 went live and reached the 8 million downloads milestone in the first 24 hours. Version 3.0.1 is the step Mozilla takes toward focusing exclusively on Firefox 3.0.

The first issue deals with a "remote code execution by overflowing CSS reference counter". According to Mozilla, "The vulnerability was caused by an insufficiently sized variable being used as a reference counter for CSS objects. By creating a very large number of references to a common CSS object, this counter could be overflowed which could cause a crash when the browser attempts to free the CSS object while still in use. An attacker could use this crash to run arbitrary code on the victim's computer."

The second security hole plugged with the release of Firefox 3.0.1 involves "command-line URLs launch multiple tabs when Firefox not running". Mozilla revealed that despite the Critical rating, this vulnerability is mitigated by limited privileges. However, in combination with a script injecting flaw, the vulnerability can permit an attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.

Firefox 3.0.1 is designed to fix two security vulnerabilities, both labeled with a maximum severity rating of critical. Not through a coincidence, the pair of security flaws are the very same that Mozilla patched on July 15 in Firefox 2.0.0.16.Nothing is set in stone at this point in time, but with Mozilla' looking to phase out support for Firefox 2.0 by mid-December 2008, Firefox 3.0.1 is considered as a candidate for a major update rollout. In this context, Firefox 3.0.1 might be the version of the open source browser that will get pushed to all users of Firefox 2.0 automatically. "Firefox 2.0.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until mid-December, 2008. All users are encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3," said Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance Engineer at Mozilla.

Firefox 3.0.1 for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 3.0.1 for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Source: 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)

$60 Billion in Revenue for Bill Gates' Last Year at Microsoft

$60 Billion in Revenue for Bill Gates' Last Year at Microsoft - More precisely, $60.42 billion. June 30, 2008 marked the last day of Bill Gates as a full-time Chairman of Microsoft and, at the same time, the end of the company's 2008 fiscal year. On July 17, the Redmond giant announced revenue of over $60.42 billion, representing a jump of 18% from the past FY. In just the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008, the company accounted for total revenue of $15.84 billion and a growth of 18% over Q4 2007. Microsoft touted what it referred to as the fastest annual revenue growth in the past decade. In fact, with a 32% jump in earnings per share, the software company hasn't seen such good results since 1999.

"Delivering $60 billion in annual revenue is an outstanding accomplishment and a testament to the powerful combination of great technology solutions and strong execution by our partners and global sales and marketing teams," commented Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. The Redmond giant posted $22.49 billion in operating income for the whole past fiscal year and $5.68 billion for the last quarter. Diluted earnings per share for FY 2008 were $1.87 with $0.46 for Q4 2008.

"The outlook for fiscal year 2009 is positive given the breadth of our impressive technology portfolio and the expanding collection of online services we are bringing to market," Turner added. Microsoft is estimating total revenue of $67.3 billion to $68.1 billion for the fiscal year 2009, which has debuted on July 1, 2008 and will end on June 30, 2009. The forecast also reveals estimates of $26.3 billion to $26.9 billion for operating income and $2.12 to $2.18 in diluted earnings per share.

"We had a strong finish in the fourth quarter, which capped off an impressive year for the company. We grew revenue 18% for the year with earnings per share significantly outpacing that. Looking forward, despite difficult economic conditions, we will build upon the momentum exiting fiscal year 2008 and expect to deliver another year of double-digit revenue and earnings growth in fiscal year 2009," indicated Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

5 Misunderstood Aspects of Windows 7

Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista, but also of Windows Server 2008, in the form of Windows 7 Server, had been under development over at Microsoft under the lead of Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group since 2007. At the end of 2007, the Redmond company made available Windows 7 Milestone 1 to a select group of partners. However, under Sinofsky, translucency is the new communications policy of the Windows team, and little details are indeed made public, or even leaked. This is why there are aspects of the next iteration of Windows which fail to be in conformity with the little transparency Microsoft did manage to offer on Windows 7.

1. The Windows 7 Kernel – After it played hide and seek with the MinWin kernel, Microsoft has managed to create a consistent level of confusion related to the core of Vista's successor. It seems to be unclear whether Windows 7 will feature MinWin, or a new kernel, or the same old kernel as Windows Vista. Well, it's rather simple. First off, there was never talk of a completely new, built from scratch kernel. And MinWin wasn't really the kernel, but the core of Windows 7. Which essentially means that Microsoft has taken the existing kernel plus a series of core components and worked to slim them down.

What the Redmond giant is doing is mainly to continue the evolution of Windows Server 2008, as far as the core of the operating system is concerned. The core of Vista's successor is an evolution of what is available today, and is a new major version of the kernel, hence the Windows 7 label. And yes, Windows Vista was the sixth version of Windows, but Microsoft is only counting from kernel version to kernel version and not from one Windows release to the other.

2. The Myth of the Complete Overhaul - Some want Windows 7 to be written from scratch, arguing that Microsoft needs to flush down Vista, Windows XP, and all past Windows versions, and start over. Such a scenario is argued to be the sole solution to save Microsoft. And at the same time this is impossible. Windows 7 will not be built from scratch because it simply can't be. Windows Vista had serious problems when it came down to application and hardware incompatibility and lack of driver support.

Now imagine a brand new and shiny Windows 7, with no connection to any previous versions of Windows. Nothing would work. Nothing! Not your programs, not your hardware, nothing. The truth is that neither Microsoft, nor the environment of hardware and software developers depending on the Windows as a platform, and not even end users can afford, or are ready to deal with a complete overhaul.

3. Windows Vista R2 - Because of the fact that Microsoft has indicated that Windows 7 would be using Vista as its foundation, critics have already started to emerge labeling it Windows Vista Release 2. No one, with the exception of Sinofsky of course and the Windows project, knows what Windows 7 will end up as. To jump the gun and start throwing dirt at it even before the first beta is on the horizon is simply an indication of people waiting for Microsoft to fail. And although the company did not disappoint them in the past, criticism should be postponed until a palpable build of Windows 7 hits.

4. One SKU to Rule Them All - There is increasing feedback pointing to the need for Microsoft to simplify the edition bonanza of Windows 7, and to avoid offering the same SKU richness as it did with Windows Vista. Windows Vista Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate are just the start of it. There are also N variants for Europe and upgrade packages. However, the Redmond company knows that a single SKU is not the way to go. While simplification is indeed necessary, copying the Mac OS X model is not the right solution to offer a balance to both home and business users. And even with Windows Vista, all SKUs ship on a single install media, but the actual installation is governed by the license key.

5. The Silence is Deafening - The latest misunderstood aspect is on the other side of the barricade, so to speak. The silence around Windows 7 is deafening. Sure enough, Microsoft did manage to offer a few details about the touch computing capabilities coming, and is bound to share more at PDC2008 - Professional Developers Conference between October 27-30, 2008. But Microsoft needs to understand that while saying too much about Windows Vista has hurt that release, saying nothing about Windows 7 will hurt this one. And after Vista, I'm not sure if the company can afford another slip...
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)

Microsoft to Increasingly Open up on Office 14 and Windows 7

Microsoft to Increasingly Open up on Office 14 and Windows 7 - In the next half year. There is a time for translucency, and there is also a time for transparency. The under promise and overachieve policy set in place at Microsoft for the Windows and Office projects by Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group has impacted both Windows 7 and Office 14. Microsoft is essentially ensuring that by promising nothing at all, Windows 7 will not be a repeat of Longhorn-Vista, but while, for the next iteration of Windows the silence is an item of novelty, for the Office platform, gagged details are nothing more than a tradition. Still, slowly, the company prepares to increasingly open up on both Office 14 and Windows 7.

"You'll see a range of announcements over the next six months about the directions we're taking with Microsoft Office," promised Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2008, on July 10. Office 14 is the next version of the Office productivity suite and the successor of the Office 2007 System.

Microsoft has pointed out that the Office 2007 was nothing short of a success but failed to reveal any figures related to sales or adoption. Still, the company is getting ready to catalyze the transformation of the Ribbon/Fluent UI of Office 2007 into a standard for the graphical user interface for applications tailored to the Windows 7 client.

"We need to make it click to run. We don't need to make it less full-featured, and less functional, and less capable, but we have to drive it down this path. And it will remain the center of people's productive side of people's lives. So the investment in training, and work that you're putting into products like Windows Vista, and Office 2007 move forward," Microsoft's CEO added.

Earlier this year, Microsoft gave a small taste of the touch computing capabilities of Windows 7. But the company is preparing much more at its Professional Developer Conference 2008 at the end of October in Los Angeles. Microsoft will discuss graphics advances, energy consumption optimizations, web services in native code, touch computing and much more.
By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor (http://news.softpedia.com)