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If people don't like Vista what would make them think they would like whatever else Microsoft comes up with?

lolsonjr — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:46:15 GMT

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. I am curious what people are thinking of when it comes to Vista and whatever Microsoft replaces it with in the future. It appears that things like the Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, and many other things that Microsoft has added to their Flagship operating systems is going to be added to and continue to grow in the future. Obviously computers are getting bigger in ram, disk space, monitor sizes, video card capabilities and so on and that will obviously continue. Surely I can see why most people will not upgrade to Vista on a four or five year old plus computer system. And obviously the economy will dictate how far the consumer in general will go anyway but, it surely seems some of the arguments for switching from one Microsoft operating system to another are kinda of strange in some ways anyway.

Look at Apple's OSX, they change it ever year since OSX was introduced and frankly either you buy it and keep current or you don't and you stay where you are at. But, OSX users are rarely complainers or the type of people who do not swear by the products that they love and use on a daily basis. Yes, you can surely have troubles with OSX as much as or sometimes more than any Microsoft OS but, the point here is that Apple continuely updates and produces new OS's on a yearly or so schedule. And for better or for worse they both seem to be going in the same direction in the end, and I guess thats what many are complaining about. As they either do not have a need for the way operating systems in general are evolving or they have just decided that they use their computers for they use them for and thats as far as it goes.

My point in all this here, is that operating systems will only get bigger in the future as they get newer technology in the computers themselves. Plus there will likely be changes on constant basis as time goes on. If XP was Microsoft's best at the time it was their Flagship product, then Vista will most likely turn out that way also. Just Vista sucks in my opinion only would not help me come to a conclusion as to whether or not I wanted it. And the fact is that I always want to try new things and or use them every day that I am on my computer, and thats really the way it should be. Of course this presents the age old problem of when you have finally had enough. But, for right now I see computers and operating systems both still changing on a constant basis and if one wants to play the game (so to speak only), then one needs to go with what makes the latest and greatest run right.

The possible downfall of Microsoft - Google Vs. MS The overview

Jason — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:31:17 GMT

Microsoft is seeing a monumental, momentum shift. Never before has Microsoft seemed so vulnerable. It is being attacked on all fronts by huge, game-changers. Is this a repeat of computing history? Microsoft changed the scene when they licensed MS-DOS and later Windows to IBM — which was the dominant force, at the time. In those days, everything had to be IBM-compatible. Microsoft’s operating system powered IBM computers — and, as we know, software can be highly profitable. Thus, Microsoft quickly eclipsed IBM and went on to rule the world with an iron fist. Is this deja vu’?

Corporate Alliance

Google and Apple have joined forces against the Microsoft Empire. Google has grown at a phenomenal rate and has been releasing platform after Internet platform to make Microsoft’s offerings less relevant. Meanwhile, Apple has taken over the consumer market, dominating where Sony use to be. Both companies have left their respective competitors in the dust in technology, business strategy, and execution.

Google seems to not only beat Microsoft at technology, but also every business play. It’s like a giant game of chess or poker. Each one calling the other’s bluff. So far Google has trumped Microsoft at every turn. First, with the $1b AOL deal for a 5% stake, beating them to a $900m partnership with MySpace, acquiring the $1.65b YouTube sweepstakes, and winning the $3b DoubleClick bid — which forced Microsoft to pick up aQuantive for an enormous $6b sum. Google has also snapped up, game-changing companies like: Blogger, Keyhole which later became Google Earth, Where2 used in Google Maps, PeakStream, etc. before Microsoft recognized the value of these companies. This is all part of Google’s acquisition strategy.

Then, when Microsoft cozied up with Facebook, in a $240m deal for a 1.6% stake, everyone thought Microsoft had finally won a hand; instead, Google released OpenSocial to eliminate the threat. Google has a competitive advantage due to their incredibly, efficient infrastructure. No one can compete with them on cost or scalability at the moment. I’d give them a 3-5 year lead on that alone. In addition, they have at least 60% of the entire search market. They dominant online advertising. Their maps platform has led to mashups everywhere. Now they are making a heavy push into the enterprise with Google Apps and Search Appliances. In effect, this is beginnings of neutralizing the reliance and need for Microsoft Office.

Google has built many of their platforms on the Internet and their applications are Web browser-based. This neutralizes the need to use Microsoft Windows. Instead, users can use Apple Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, or whatever operating system to use Google’s applications, so long as they use a modern web browser. Being aware of this fact, Google has partnered with Mozilla Firefox and Webkit [used in Apple’s Safari], providing alternatives to Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Meanwhile, Google has built new offices in the Seattle, Redmond, Bellevue, and Kirkland areas and has been taking away some of Microsoft’s top executives and engineers. This ploy has worked so well that Yahoo recently starting building some offices in the area to try to win over some of Microsoft’s top talent, as well. Google treats their employees well. In fact, they downright spoil them. Meanwhile, Microsoft has been taking away some of their employee benefits. Not difficult to see why Google is winning Microsoft employees over.

In addition to partnering with AOL, the Mozilla Foundation, and MySpace, Google has chosen to partner with another dominant company, Apple. In fact, the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt has a seat as one of Apple’s board of directors.

Apple has come back from the brink of death. For its part, it has risen back to relevance because of its play in digital convergence. Apple has released superior products: Mac OS X, Safari, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iLife, iWork, and Final Cut software suites. They provide, for the most part, the most powerful user-experience available to consumers. They have partnerships with major music and movie studios. The CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, has a seat on Disney’s board of directors, after Disney acquired his other company, Pixar.

In fact, Apple’s latest incarnation of Mac OS X, called Leopard has thoroughly trumped Microsoft Windows Vista. It’s not even close. I think Apple has at least a 3 year lead over Microsoft on their operating system technology. However, as most consumers are still using Microsoft software it will take some time for platform switching. The momentum is quickly shifting, as high school and college students are beginning to switch in droves from Windows to Mac OS X. So this may make a big difference in the long-term.

Apple has, possibly, the most powerful man in media, Steve Jobs, at their helm. He is a visionary who controls the technology and media markets. He has fought many wars, over the last three decades, with Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He is an artist, by most measures, and a cunning business man. Google, meanwhile, has technology visionaries in Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who have equally powerful business acumen. Additionally, they have Eric Schmidt, who has fought many battles with Microsoft before — first at Sun Microsystems and later at Novell. He is the perfect man to exploit Microsoft’s weaknesses. He knows what works and doesn’t work. This merging of executive brilliance and brainpower is rarely seen.

Apple owns the best front-end, while Google owns the best back-end. These are two of the most innovate companies in technology. Their power of influence and their ability to sway the masses with their brand is enormous. Each of their moves are speculated, analyzed, and watched by innumerable consumers, analysts, and competitors. This partnership makes sense, and is seen as highly complementary. By forming this alliance, both companies have been able to combine their strengths to become much more dominant than they could on their own.

Open-Source Movement

Both Apple and Google have utilized open-source software (OSS) extensively. Both companies also contribute to the open-source movement.

Apple builds Mac OS X and OS X from open-source Darwin, and the Safari web browser from open-source WebKit. Some of Apple’s open-source contributions can be found here.

Google uses open-source quite extensively. They use a lot of Apache and GNU tools, OpenBSD, OpenSSH, in addition to MySQL and other open-source projects. Google, as mentioned above, has a partnership with the Mozilla Foundation, in particular with their open-source Firefox web browser. Google uses the Linux operating system in their massive data centers to power all their web applications. Some of Google’s open-source contributions can be found here.

Linux has become a dominant operating system for Internet and Web servers. In fact, it was IBM that made a $1b bet on Linux that really gave the operating system wings a few years back. IBM switched the entire companies server division from Microsoft Windows to Linux. Talk about the past haunting you.

Microsoft has 3 main, money-making platforms: Windows, Office, and SQLServer. MySQL, the open-source database, is being used everywhere now. It is especially popular among startup companies. Since it is free, it has cut into the profit-margins of database leader Oracle as well as Microsoft SQLServer. It will continue to do so as it gains further adoption. Last I heard, Flickr, Friendster, Wikipedia, YouTube, among millions of others, were all powered by MySQL.

As noted earlier, the Internet is the most important platform. The Apache Foundation really made Microsoft’s Internet ambitions less dominant back during the dot-com when their released the Apache Web Server. Even today, the majority of websites are powered by Apache. Microsoft has its competing IIs server, but Apache has kept it in check. Firefox is the window to browsing the Web. MySQL catalogs the Web. Linux is the operating system that all of these other services run on. This is open-source software, started on the Internet, and built for the Internet platform. The reliance on Microsoft is diminishing.

Conclusion

For some time, Microsoft was able to successfully fight against and fend off everyone. In fact, their reign of supremacy has been pretty much unprecedented — well, maybe, there was IBM. In the last few years, Microsoft has denied that Linux, Google, and Apple have hurt them. A few years back, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer claimed that “Linux is a toy” — while it took over the Internet back-end. Then he vowed to kill Google by beating them — while Google’s lead continues to grow and Microsoft falls further behind.

Google’s move into Apps is the biggest, direct threat to Microsoft. Before this move, Google has never directly challenged Microsoft, it was always an indirect challenge via an advertising business model, while Microsoft sold software. Ballmer claims that Google Apps is no threat to Microsoft Office. However, Microsoft’s own lawyers are siting Google’s successes, as they try to sue them for antitrust.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Mahatma Gandhi.

To be fair, IBM never died, but they sort of lost their way for a time. They have remained a successful company and in recent years there has been somewhat of a resurgence. However, there is a big difference between being number one and number two. Microsoft has been number one for two decades. But things are changing now. They know the end is coming. The writing is on the wall. Can they stop the onslaught and remain relevant, or will they become has-beens?

Bill Gates steps down from being Chief Architect of Microsoft next year. Is it because he knows that Microsoft is finished and fighting it will be a losing battle, or is it because he really wants to focus more of his energy in the Bill and Melinda Foundation? Is it purely coincidence?

I suspect Microsoft is going the way of IBM, left-for-dead, still profitable, but no longer the dominant and most-feared player in the game. Microsoft is not going away, but the dynasty is over.

Vista SP 1 "promo" Video

WAW8 — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:48:46 GMT

If this doesn't make you run out and buy Vista, nothing will (Courtesy of NeoWin) !!

[b][url] http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/04/16/internal-vista-sp1-promo-rockin-our-sales [/url][/b]

Linux-XP Rips of off Vista

Jason — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:54:41 GMT

check it out: http://www.linux-xp.com/

Lots of new Microsoft updates today

lolsonjr — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:03:46 GMT

Turn on your Windows Updates today as Microsoft releases something like 8 of them total, and for those of you with Microsoft Office you will also get one. Most of them appear to be security updates.

What is improved in Vista SP1? Check Inside

Jason — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:12:52 GMT

Overview of Windows Vista Service Pack 1

When developing Windows Vista, Microsoft set out to provide higher levels of productivity, mobility, and security, with lower costs. After more than six months of broad availability and usage, it’s evident that these investments are improving the Windows computing experience. For example, in the first six months of use, Windows Vista had fewer security issues than Windows XP (Windows Vista had only 12 issues, and Windows XP had 36). According to the Windows Vista 6-Month Vulnerability Report by Jeffery R. Jones, Windows Vista had fewer security issues than all the popular operating systems he studied.

Although most companies are cautious when deploying a new operating system, many have already started testing and evaluating Windows Vista for deployment, and some have already deployed Windows Vista into their production environments and begun seeing the business benefits Windows Vista can provide.

Microsoft’s efforts to provide the best Windows experience ever in Windows Vista did not end with its launch. This white paper describes the ways Microsoft strives to continuously improve Windows Vista. It then introduces Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) and describes how the service pack will fit into the ongoing improvement process.

Organizations do not need to wait for SP1 to deploy Windows Vista; they are encouraged to begin their Windows Vista evaluation and deployment now:

•

Organizations currently evaluating and deploying Windows Vista should continue their evaluation, pilot programs, and deployment on the initial (“Gold”) Windows Vista release. Microsoft provides the tools and guidance needed to deploy Windows Vista today and will provide additional guidance, tools and support for moving to SP1 when the service pack is released.

•

Organizations just starting to evaluate Windows Vista should plan a pilot program, targeting the PCs that gain the most business value from Windows Vista (for example, many organizations will find that mobile PCs get the most benefits) and present the simplest upgrade from the gold release of Windows Vista to SP1 (How to Start a Windows Vista Pilot Deployment describes best practices for running a pilot).

Organizations waiting for Windows Vista SP1 should start their compatibility testing on the gold release of Windows Vista now, and then begin their evaluation and pilot programs on the release candidate of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released. Windows Vista includes architectural changes relative to Windows XP that improve security and reliability. These changes can cause some applications which work on Windows XP not to work on Windows Vista. However, these architectural changes are also part of Windows Vista SP1. For this reason, testing applications on Windows Vista today will be a very good proxy for compatibility with Windows Vista SP1.

Improving the Customer Experience

Microsoft uses Windows Vista instrumentation to learn what issues affect customers most and then address the issues. This instrumentation includes the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) and Online Crash Analysis (OCA), both of which are opt-in, anonymous services. Microsoft not only uses this information to fix Windows Vista issues, but it also shares this information with software and hardware vendors so they can fix application compatibility and device driver issues.

The traditional service packs with which most organizations are familiar are only one way that Microsoft improves the Windows experience. Continuous improvements to the Windows Vista experience come from numerous channels, including ongoing updates, application compatibility improvements, and device driver improvements. The following sections describe each of these channels in detail.

Ongoing Updates

Ongoing updates address some of the most important issues affecting Microsoft customers. For example, Microsoft recently released two performance and reliability updates that address issues reported by customers (see Microsoft Support articles 938194 and 938979 ). Microsoft already delivers these and many other Windows Vista updates through various channels, including:

•	Windows Update
•	Microsoft Download Center
•	Private updates for enterprise customers and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners

Organizations choose which updates they want to deploy and the methods for deploying them—using Windows Update, for example. Enterprises are more likely to deploy updates using Windows Server® Update Services (WSUS), Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007, or third-party tools.

Application Compatibility Improvements REF _Ref173226201 \h

Microsoft is making steady progress toward resolving application compatibility issues by engaging with independent software vendors (ISVs) to get major applications—such as antivirus and virtual private networking (VPN) applications—working on Windows Vista. Since the launch, more than 100 major enterprise applications have moved to Windows Vista. These include applications from ISVs like Adobe, Citrix, Oracle, Sun, HP, LANDesk, and IBM. Hundreds more applications have been tested and remediated by ISVs that visited the Microsoft ISV application compatibility lab for weeklong engagements. As a result of these efforts, nearly 2,300 applications now have the Windows Vista logo, (see REF _Ref173226201 \hFigure 1). Applications that are Certified for Windows Vista are designed and tested to deliver a superior experience with PCs running the Windows Vista operating system so software is easy to install, better performing, and more secure, while products that have earned the Works with Windows Vista logo have been tested for baseline compatibility with PCs running the Windows Vista Operating System.

Figure 1. Applications with the Windows Vista logo

In addition to helping ISVs resolve application compatibility issues, Microsoft provided robust tools at the Windows Vista launch to help information technology (IT) professionals assess and mitigate problems with existing applications. The primary tool they use is the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 .. To help make migrating to Windows Vista easier, Microsoft has created the Application Compatibility Factory (ACF) that connects its enterprise customers with selected partners that deliver high volume, low cost application compatibility and remediation services.

Device Driver Improvements REF _Ref173226224 \h

Device compatibility is also important to Windows Vista customers. As shown in REF _Ref173226224 \hFigure 2, device driver coverage continues to grow for Windows Vista. Microsoft has added 700,000 new device types since the initial Windows Vista release in November 2006. Including device drivers in the box and those available from Windows Update, by July 2007 Windows Vista supported nearly 2.2 million devices. That covers the vast majority of devices in use. The number of Windows Vista logo devices exceeds 15,000, and the growth is outpacing Windows XP.

Figure 2. Thousands of Drivers Available in Windows Vista and on Windows Update

Introducing Windows Vista Service Pack 1

In addition to regular Windows Vista updates, application compatibility improvements, and device driver improvements, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is another way Microsoft will deliver improvements to the Windows Vista customer experience.

The goal of Windows Vista SP1 is to address key feedback Microsoft has received from its customers without regressing application compatibility. Windows Vista SP1 will deliver improvements and enhancements to existing features that significantly impact customers, but it does not deliver substantial new operating system features. For example, the service pack improves the performance of the desktop shell, but it does not provide a new search user interface or a new version of Windows® Media Center.

The updates in Windows Vista SP1 fall into three categories, which the following sections describe in detail:

•	Quality improvements, including all previously released updates, which address reliability, security, and performance.
•	Improvements to the administration experience, including BitLocker™ Drive Encryption (BDE).
•	Support for emerging hardware and standards, such as an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and an Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT).

A more comprehensive list of changes can be found in the whitepaper titled Notable Changes in Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate .

Quality Improvements

Quality improvements have the broadest impact on all customers. It is the foundation of Windows Vista SP1 and is about improving the overall Windows Vista experience.

First, Windows Vista SP1 will include all previously released updates for Windows Vista. It also will include security, reliability, and performance improvements. These improvements target some of the issues Microsoft has identified as the most common causes of operating system crashes and hangs, giving customers a more reliable experience. These updates also improve performance in key scenarios—for example, when copying files or shutting down the computer.

The following sections describe many of the security, reliability, and performance improvements that will be in Windows Vista SP1.

Security

Security improvements that will be in Windows Vista SP1 include:

•	Provides security software vendors a more secure way to communicate with Windows Security Center.
•	Includes application programming interfaces (APIs) by which third-party security and malicious software detection applications can work with kernel patch protection on x64 versions of Windows Vista. These APIs help ISVs develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on x64 computers without disabling or weakening the protection offered by kernel patch protection.
•	Improves the security of running RemoteApp programs and desktops by allowing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) files to be signed. Customers can differentiate user experiences based on publisher identity.
•	Adds an Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) to the list of available PRNGs in Windows Vista.
•	Enhances BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) to offer an additional multifactor authentication method that combines a key protected by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) with a Startup key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated personal identification number (PIN).

Reliability

Windows Vista SP1 will include improvements that target some of the most common causes of crashes and hangs, giving users a more consistent experience. Many of these improvements will specifically address issues identified from the Windows Error Reporting tool. The following list describes some of the reliability improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include:

•	Improved reliability and compatibility of Windows Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
•	Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
•	Improved Windows Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
•	Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
•	Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
•	Increased reliability and performance of Windows Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Performance

The following list describes some of the performance improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include:

•	Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
•	Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
•	Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
•	Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
•	Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
•	Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected.

Administration Experience

Many of the changes in Windows Vista SP1 will improve the deployment, management, and support experience for Windows Vista customers. The following list describes some of these enhancements:

•	BitLocker Drive Encryption encrypts extra local volumes. For example, instead of encrypting only drive C, customers can also encrypt drive D, E, and so on.
•	Addresses problems with printing to local printers from a Windows® Terminal Services session.
•	The Network Diagnostics tool will help customers solve the most common file sharing problems, in addition to the basic problems that it already diagnoses.
•	Administrators can control the volumes on which to run Disk Defragmenter.

In addition to these changes, Windows Vista SP1 will change the tools that customers use to manage Group Policy. Administrators requested features in Group Policy that simplify policy management. To do this, the service pack will uninstall the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and GPEdit.msc will edit local Group Policy by default. In the SP1 timeframe, administrators can download an out-of-band release that will give them the ability to add comments to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) or individual settings and search for specific settings.

Note: Users will find that after installing Windows Vista SP1, they no longer have access to GPMC, and that the new, enhanced version of GPMC has not yet been released. In this case, administrators can continue to edit Group Policy by opening a remote desktop session directly to the server or to a PC running the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of Windows Vista.

Emerging Hardware and Standards

The technology industry is fast-paced and constantly changing. Throughout the life cycle of any version of the Windows operating system, the industry creates new hardware innovations and defines new standards. Windows Vista SP1 will include support for some of these new hardware innovations and standards, because Microsoft expects them to become increasingly important in the near future. The following list describes some of the enhancements of Windows Vista SP1 that will support these emerging innovations and standards:

•	In the future, flash memory storage and consumer devices will use the exFAT file system. Windows Vista SP1 adds support for this file system to Windows Vista.
•	The service pack will include support for Secure Digital (SD) Advanced Direct Memory Access (DMA), which will be on compliant SD host controllers soon, to improve transfer performance and decrease CPU utilization.
•	x64 PCs can boot using the EFI. Windows Vista currently supports network boot by using Windows Deployment Services for x86, a PC’s basic input/output system (BIOS) for x64 PCs, and EFI for IA-64 PCs. Windows Vista SP1 will add support for network boot by using x64 EFI.
•	The service pack will add support for Direct3D 10.1, adding application programming interfaces (APIs) and features that enable 3-D applications, so game developers can better take advantage of a new generation of Direct3D graphics hardware.
•	The Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) is a remote access tunneling protocol that will be part of the Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) platform. This protocol helps provide full-network virtual private network (VPN) remote access connections without challenges that other protocols face when traversing NATs, Web proxies, and firewalls. Windows Vista SP1 will include support for SSTP.

Announcing the Windows Search 4.0 Preview

Jason — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:18:49 GMT

To search for files on my PCs, I use Windows Search - Windows Vista's desktop search feature. I use Windows Search specifically to find photos that I've tagged in Windows Live Photo Gallery or important emails and Word documents. I also rely on saving specific searches that I can go back to later on. Searching and being able to find important files quickly on my PC is very important to me. And Windows Search allows me to "find my stuff" whenever I need to. Today we get to see a little "preview" of the next step for Windows Search. The Windows Search Team is making available Windows Search 4.0 Preview - a preview of the next version of desktop search for Windows.

Windows Search 4.0 introduces several improvements I'd like to call out making search even better in Windows Vista:

* With Windows Search 4.0, the Windows Search Team has fixed most of the reported bugs causing a majority of distractions users have seen since Windows Vista RTM - many of those bugs were reported by you.
* Great improvements have been made with regards to performance.Even now as Preview, Windows Search 4.0 has query response time about 33%faster than search queries in Windows Vista RTM.
* The Windows Search Team has extended Remote Index Discovery for PC-to-PC search to work onevery supported version of Windows. This makes finding information on other PCs running Windows Search 4.0 quick and less resource-consuming. Now Windows Search can find information shared on a remote PC by accessing an index on that PC - and you will open files only when relevant to your search. This will also work if the user's profile is redirected.
* The Windows Search Team has implemented Rollback Recovery where your search index will roll back to the last known good state (this is good in handling disc write errors). If an error occurs, your index isn't rebuilt from scratch; only the newly changed files are added to the index, making recovery from system errors not as disruptive to the machine or the user

Being able to find files isn't just important to consumers - it is also important to IT Professionals managing enterprise environments. The Windows Search Team has made some improvements in Windows Search 4.0 that IT Professionals should take note of:

* We have improved performance when indexing Exchange in online mode, sending fewer packets and making less RPC calls. In this process we apply significantly less load on the Exchange server too.
* Support for Group Policy settings is extended and improved; per-user policy is supported now.
* We now support EFS - Windows Search 4.0 will index encrypted files, and user can search for them in the sane UI and through the same user experience as seen with regular, unencrypted files.

IT Professionals can expect a smooth deployment for Windows Search 4.0 and easier support.

With Windows Search 4.0, the Windows Search Team has taken the next step in improving the PC search experience in Windows. To download and check out the Windows Search 4.0 Preview yourself, [url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157]http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940157[/url]. I encourage folks to try out the Windows Search 4.0 Preview and let us know what you think!

NVIDIA drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes in 2007

Jason — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:49:06 GMT

That huge bundle of damning emails and documents Microsoft produced as part of the Vista-capable lawsuit is full of fascinating information about how the company developed, planned, and launched Vista, but the latest juicy nugget to come out if it suggests that a lot of problems faced by the troubled operating system are actually NVIDIA's fault -- nearly 30% of logged Vista crashes were due to NVIDIA driver problems, according to Microsoft data included in the bundle. That's some 479,326 hung systems, if you're keeping score at home, and it's in first place by a large margin -- Microsoft clocks in at number two at 17.9 percent, and ATI is fourth with 9.3 percent. Now, the chart doesn't contain a ton of additional information that would help put it in context -- a specific time period in 2007 would be nice, as would and driver and OS versions -- but we've been hearing about NVIDIA issues with Vista from the start, and this seems to confirm it. So that's pressure by Intel to support incompatible chipsets, outrage by Dell and Wal-Mart that the Vista Capable program was confusing customers, Microsoft executives saying they had been "personally burnt" by Vista, and now what looks like a huge NVIDIA driver problem -- who knows what else is going to come out of this lawsuit? At this point we're half expecting a photo of Gates signing a Save XP petition.

[img]http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2008/03/3-27-08-vista-crash.jpg[/img]

Service pack 1 now available

lolsonjr — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:56:28 GMT

Through Windows Update Service. Pretty painless at 66 plus meg's, though install takes a while. The 66 meg's is only if you are totally update current. If not the grand appeared to be something over 440 eg's or thereabouts.

Download IE8 Beta 1!

Jason — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:21:42 GMT

Microsoft's IE8 page is up with download links to boot.
[url=http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm]http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm[/url]

The Features of IE 8

Jason — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:35:18 GMT

Get the low down on IE8's features. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/internet_explorer_8_has_arrived.php

Microsoft cuts Windows Vista retail prices

Jason — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:24:06 GMT

Update: Price cuts detailed below seem to apply mostly to "Upgrade" versions. Because Microsoft will not cut prices in the same degree worldwide they seem to have refrained from specifying the exact pricing even for the U.S. in their press release. What is clear however, is that they intend to make price cuts effective at the same time as SP1 is (officially) released.

Microsoft announced today price reductions across the board for retail copies of Windows Vista. This an uncommon practice for the software giant, who has decided to lower prices of most boxed Vista editions by 20% only a year after the OS was released. Vista Ultimate version will get a discount from $299 to $219, while Home Premium edition falls to $129, previously it was $159.

Despite of the fact retail boxed copies of Vista only represent ~10% of its total sales, Microsoft hopes this will incentive users to upgrade now rather than waiting until they get a new PC, in which case the machine would most likely come pre-installed with the software. As part of the announcement, Microsoft also said they will lower prices in 70 countries later this year along with the SP1 release, and that in emerging markets they will stop selling "upgrade" versions of the OS completely. No further clarification has been made regarding OEM copies and if these will also receive the cut, too, but it's somewhat safe to assume this will be the case eventually.

Though it may be completely unrelated, the news came only days after some controversial email exchange between Microsoft execs about Vista was made public, making for a bit of a scandal, especially in online circles.

Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys - Vista's bitLocker

Jason — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:11:15 GMT

[quote]Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for seconds to minutes after power is lost, even at operating temperatures and even if removed from a motherboard. Although DRAMs become less reliable when they are not refreshed, they are not immediately erased, and their contents persist sufficiently for malicious (or forensic) acquisition of usable full-system memory images. We show that this phenomenon limits the ability of an operating system to protect cryptographic key material from an attacker with physical access. We use cold reboots to mount attacks on popular disk encryption systems — BitLocker, FileVault, dm-crypt, and TrueCrypt — using no special devices or materials. We experimentally characterize the extent and predictability of memory remanence and report that remanence times can be increased dramatically with simple techniques. We offer new algorithms for finding cryptographic keys in memory images and for correcting errors caused by bit decay. Though we discuss several strategies for partially mitigating these risks, we know of no simple remedy that would eliminate them.[/quote]

More Info & Video here: [url=http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/]http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/[/url]

"Vista Capable" Class Action Lawsuit

Jason — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:12:28 GMT

Personally I think MS may have a shot at defending this because of the way they worded what "Vista Capable" really means. They say it will be able to "run it at a minimum", they don't guarantee any performance level.

[b]The Suit Reached Class Action Level[/b]

An anonymous reader notes an update in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporting that the lawsuit against Microsoft's "Windows Vista Capable" marketing campaign has been granted class-action status. We discussed the company's internal misgivings with this campaign a while back. The suit alleges that "...Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as 'Windows Vista Capable' even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called 'Vista Home Basic.'" In the 2006 pre-holiday season, Microsoft had placed "Windows Vista Capable" stickers on machines to keep the sale of Windows XP machines going after Vista was delayed. Microsoft didn't lose out totally in the recent ruling — the article notes that the judge "narrowed the basis on which plaintiffs could move forward with their claims."

[b]More Info about the lawsuit[/b]

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that the consumers may go ahead with a class action lawsuit against the software company Microsoft over “Vista Capable” advertising program, the Associated Press informs.

Introduced in 2006, Vista Capable program was initiated by Microsoft and its hardware partners in order to help the customers to make informed decision when buying a new PC and to maintain the sales of Windows XP systems during the 2006 holiday season. Windows Vista for consumers was launched in January 2007.

However, the lawsuit claims that the labeling system was “misleading” because many of those computers were not powerful enough to run all of Vista's features and they could run only the Home Basic version of Windows Vista.

According to SeattlePi.com, Pechman narrowed the basis on which plaintiffs could move forward with their claims. She ruled that the plaintiffs could not pursue a class-action lawsuit on the basis that consumers had been deceived because "an individualized analysis is necessary to determine what role Microsoft's 'Windows Vista Capable' marketing program played in each class members' purchasing decision."

According to Microsoft’s Get Ready website, a PC carrying a Vista Capable sticker is “a new PC running Windows XP that carries the Windows Vista Capable PC logo can run Windows Vista. All editions of Windows Vista will deliver core experiences such as innovations in organizing and finding information, security, and reliability. All Windows Vista Capable PCs will run these core experiences at a minimum. Some features available in the premium editions of Windows Vista—like the new Windows Aero user experience—may require advanced or additional hardware.”

In order to qualify as a Vista Capable PC, a PC should include at least: a modern processor (at least 800MHz), 512 MB of system memory, and a graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.

As a part of the same program, Microsoft also introduced Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs stickers.

According to Microsoft, a Premium Ready PC is capable of running the Windows Aero user experience. It should include 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor, 1 GB of system memory, support for DirectX 9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum), Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel, 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space, DVD-ROM Drive, audio output capability and Internet access capability.

A Microsoft spokesperson said in statement quoted SeattlePi.com that the company is currently reviewing the ruling.

Slashdot.com

Microsoft will provide SP1 to technical users early

Jason — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:36:09 GMT

Since the original post on the Windows Vista Blog by Mike Nash announcing the RTM of Windows Vista SP1 there has been a lot of complaints about why Microsoft is not releasing the SP1 RTM bits to technical users earlier. I agree that it was a great idea to hold onto the SP1 bits until the driver issues were fixed for the average Windows user, but to hold SP1 from technical users was a mistake. Like many of you I complained to Microsoft about the decision warning about the backlash it would cause. Fortunately, Microsoft has listened to all of us and will be releasing SP1 for technical users much earlier.

According to the new post by Mike Nash earlier today:

We've heard the feedback and I want to update you on our plans and progress for making SP1 available to our beta participants, our Volume Licensing customers, and our MSDN/TechNet Plus subscribers:

* Late Friday we made SP1 RTM available to individuals and companies who participated in the SP1 beta program
* At the end of this week we will be making the English version of Windows Vista SP1 available to Volume Licensing customers. Other languages will follow soon after
* Later this month, SP1 will be available to MSDN and TechNet Plus subscribers

For broad availability, we are still planning to release in mid-March, since we want to be sure that everyone has the smoothest experience possible.

Tweaks.com

Vista SP1 kills the WGA kill switch

Jason — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:01:04 GMT

Microsoft's anti-piracy system known (and loathed) as Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is set to lose its bite. When Vista SP1 launches in early 2008, WGA will still identify -- ad-nauseam -- what it thinks to be non-legal copies of Vista. However, it will lose its ability to disable said systems. The change was announced in a presentation by WGA senior product manger, Alex Kochis, who said, "Based on customer feedback, we will not reduce user functionality on systems determined to be non-genuine." That should bring a swift end to WGA customer complaints related to false-positives, spyware concerns, or server glitches. Score one point for law-abiding citizens everywhere.

0wning Vista from the boot

Jason — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:37:28 GMT

A rootkit I've never seen before....Pretty scarry.

Federico Biancuzzi interviews Nitin and Vipin Kumar, authors of VBootkit, a rootkit that is able to load from Windows Vista boot-sectors. They discuss the "features" of their code, the support of the various versions of Vista, the possibility to place it inside the BIOS (it needs around 1500 bytes), and the chance to use it to bypass Vista's product activation or avoid DRM.

[b]Could you introduce yourself?[/b]

[b]Nitin Kumar:[/b] I am a 23 years old graduate from India. I am passionate about computers. The best part about me is that I never give up something till I give a try to it. I like coding in C and asm. I like Reverse Engineering. In free time I usually pick up something and try to understand that. Vista is new and have many new security features, so we thought of creating something for Vista.

[b]Vipin Kumar:[/b] I am a 22 year old graduate from India. I like analysing OSes (mainly the internals , kernel stuff etc) and testing OS and network security. Our coding stuff includes development of bootkit, vbootkit and numerous shell-codes and lots of Windows stuff.

For money, we also go for vulnerability assesments, security audits, etc. Life is not easy for us, so we struggle/work a lot to have some hardware like many other guys out there. Feel free to contact us if you need us.

[b]What is Vbootkit?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin: [/b]Vbootkit is much like a door or a shortcut to access vista's kernel.

A bootkit is a rootkit that is able to load from a boot-sectors (master boot record, CD , PXE , floppies etc) and persist in memory all the way through the transition to protected mode and the startup of the OS. It's a very interesting type of rootkit. All rootkits install when the OS is running because they use the OS' features to load (and also they use the Administrator privileges to install), but bootkits are different, they use the boot media to attack the OS , and thus survive. Vbootkit is a bootkit specific for Windows Vista.

It's a total in-Ram concept. So, it doesn't touch the hard-disk under any condition and thus leaves no proofs. Just give a reboot to a vbootkit running system, and it vanishes just as it was never here.
[b]
What "features" does it provide to Windows users?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin: [/b]At the moment, it doesn't really provide features to the users. It's just a Proof-of-Concept, that such an attack vector exists which can be used to circumvent the full security of the OS, without being easily traceable.

At the moment it can do a few things which are:

* It periodically raises cmd.exe's privilege to SYSTEM after every few seconds.
* Modify Registry so as to start the telnet server automatically
* Create a user mode thread and deliver the user mode payloads in context of a system(protected) process (LSASS.EXE, Winlogon.exe etc)

Basically, it can do ANYTHING what the user programs it to do, since vbootkit becomes part of the kernel, it can do anything that Vista's kernel can do.

[b]Does it work on all the versions of Windows Vista?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] Yes, It should work with almost all Vista releases, even localised ones, but it will need a little bit of fine tuning. Most probably, it will support Vista Pack 1, but hey this is only a guess.

[b]Have you released your code online?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] No, we haven't released the code for vbootkit, but we have provided binaries to a few antivirus vendors.

However, you can download previous versions of bootkit (which runs on Windows 2000/XP/2003) from the our site. Even source code is provided.

As far as demos are concerned, readers might be interested in the white paper [PDF], slides from our presentation [PPT], videos showing vbootkit in action [AVI1 - AVI2].
[b]
What was the antivirus vendors response?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin: [/b]Nowadays, many antivirus solutions don't scan for boot stuff. We got no official response. Whether they are gonna implement it once again or not! But they are interested in our binaries...
[b]
How can an attacker deploy it?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] An attacker doesn't need to install, that's the way it has been designed. Just boot the system by placing the vbootkit media (containing vbootkit in bootsectors) in the drive, and start booting. After Vista boots, you can verify that you are running vbootkit, by checking the privilege of any running cmd.exe, the sample converts all low-privileged cmd.exe process to SYSTEM privileges. It also supports system compromise via PXE booting.

It doesn't need any privileges only physical access to the machine. It can also be installed to a remote system under some conditions (without physical access).

[b]Have you developed a persistent version too?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] It was basically designed to run from CD, Flash drives and portable HDD. However, such versions were not persistent, so if the system rebooted, they were gone. So, during development we also worked on a persistent version, meaning it would attach to MBR of the hard-disk. Attaching means we will copy the original MBR to some-other location, and thus replace the MBR. So, when the System starts now, vbootkit awakes from MBR, it bootstraps itself (since it is larger than 446 bytes), then loads the original MBR and thus normal booting continues.

As far as someone using other boot managers, it has no effect on almost 99% of such systems, because it doesn't replace the original boot process, it only inserts itself into it.

Is it small enough to fit inside BIOS flash memory?

[b]Nitin & Vipin: [/b]Definitely, It's just about 1500 bytes in size. It can be reduced further. Todays BIOSes are big in size, therefore, it can easily hide in there.

[b]How does vbootkit work?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] A small summary: BIOS --> Vbootkit code(from CD,PXE etc.) --> MBR --> NT Boot sector --> Windows Boot manager --> Windows Loader --> Vista Kernel.

Just after vbootkit takes control, it hijacks the interrupt 13, then searches for Signature for Vista OS. After detecting Vista, it starts patching Vista, meanwhile hiding itself (in smaller chunks at different memory locations). The patches includes bypassing several protections such as checksum, digital signature verification etc, and takes steps to keep itself in control, while boot process continues to phase 2.

Phase 2 includes patching vista kernel, so as vbootkit maintains control over the system till the system reboots. Several protection schemes of Vista were analyzed such as the famous PE header checksum (every Windows EXE contains it), the Digital Signature of files.

So, you have vbootkit loaded in Vista's Kernel.

[b]Can your vbootkit be used to avoid the DRM ?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin: [/b]Yes, the vbootkit can be modified to bypass the DRM stuff. Since the DRM has been implemented in such a way, so as if unsigned drivers are loaded, then DRM will not let you play the content. What vbootkit does is let you load code without the OS knowing that it has been compromised, and thus the vbootkit can be misused to bypass DRM.
[b]
What other things can vbootkit be used to do...[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] vbootkit can be used to to create the long dead boot sector virus. Even some anti-virus vendors have stopped detecting boot sector viruses. It can revive the viruses.

Just imagine the following scenarios.

Suppose vbootkit is running on a computer and someone plugs-in a USB storage device (vbootkit will copy itself to the boot sector of the new device), now whenever mistakenly the USB devices boots up, it gonna attach to the boot process of new system and thus, it can flow from system to system and the legend continues

Now, just take another interesting scenario. vbootkit is running on a system in a company, it captures all MAC address, and at 00:00, in the silence of the midnight, the vbootkit system starts remote booting, and delivers the vbootkit code as boot code though PXE, so slowly and steadily, the whole organization gets going on vbootkit...

It can also be used to implement backdoors (both local and remote), just an idea. Basically, it can do anything you can imagine (that vista could do).

[b]How can vbootkit be spotted once it is running in a system?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] In the current versions, it shows our signature at OS selection time (Boot menu). Secondly, we have added vbootkit signature into the kernel memory, so a physical dump, or a kernel scan will be able to find it.

[b]How would you modify it if you wanted to make it as "invisible" as possible?[/b]

[b]Nitin & Vipin:[/b] Removing all the signatures from boot menu and memory locations. Invisibility and detection in rootkits/bootkits is a continuous game of modifying your tools to defeat the other.

How was vbootkit developed?

Nitin & Vipin: Last year during pentesting a client, we needed something that could load our code in kernel, without touching hard-disk.

This started bootkit development. We developed a bootkit for the complete family of Windows NT (including 2000 /XP/ 2003 except Windows NT itself). Then Vista RC1 arrived, since it contained a brand new OS loading mechanism (the boot process is completely different from previous versions), we started analyzing Vista. The process included studying Vista's MBR, NT Boot sector, Boot manager (Bootmgr.exe), Windows Loader (Winload.exe) and Vista's Kernel (NTOSKRNL.EXE). Several kernel-land shell codes were developed to be used as a payload in different scenarios.

Why haven't you released the source code yet?

Nitin & Vipin: We don't want someone to misuse it.We want to show that an attack vector like vbootkit can be used to circumvent whole kernel protections.

Do you need any particular hardware feature?

Nitin & Vipin: No, it doesn't need any particular hardware or cpu capable of virtualization.

What does it patch exactly?

Nitin & Vipin: Mainly we patch the windows boot manager, the windows loader, and the vista kernel.

In the reboot persistent version of vbootkit we also patch MBR. It patches few security checks such as PE security patch, digital signature patch and other patches to maintain control of the boot process. If we miss any patch system won't boot at all.

Please tell us more about the code you had to modify, the shellcodes you developed, and the code that runs when the system is loaded.

Nitin & Vipin: The code modifications are done for the security checks. For example, the PE checksum, since we modify files in memory, they should pass through checks, so, we calculate the new checksum and put it in place.

We have to modify the Vista kernel to keep ourselves in control. The modification lets us stay in spare parts of the kernel, and then we dispatch our payload, which is a shellcode which keeps on escalating commands to System privileges. We also have other kernel land shellcodes such as registry modifications to start the telnet server.

The POC video shows a privilege escalation shellcode. It is just another thread which finds cmd's, escalates them and then sleeps for another 30 secs, so that no noticeable performance loss occurs. The shellcode has negligible affect on system performance.

How much does Vbootkit affect the performance of the system?

Nitin & Vipin: vbootkit has a very little affect on the performance (less than .01%). This is because it doesn't execute at all times, it works, sleeps, awakes, completes work, sleeps and so on (by the way, sleeping doesn't take much CPU cycles).

In the proof of concept videos, Vista is running in vmware on our 4 years old Pentium-IV 2.00Ghz, 512 Ram, 40 Gb hard-disk, Geforce2 MX 400 graphics card. That is why it seems slow :)

Are you taking advantage of a bug in Vista to launch your attack?

Nitin & Vipin: We can't say that we exploited a bug in Vista's kernel (at least related to this scenario). We just created a tunnel to Vista's kernel which doesn't have any protection barriers. Therefore restores full control of the machine to the user.

Could you use vbootkit to bypass Vista's product activation?

Nitin & Vipin: Yes, It can be programmed to bypass Vista's product activation.

Have you had any contact with Microsoft about this?

Nitin & Vipin: We don't have any official contact. But we have discussed this with several Microsoft guys.

What is your suggestion to fight bootkits?

Nitin & Vipin: Software only protections are not enough to protect from bootkits. The only protection available is from hardware (Trusted Platform Module).

Microsoft can just raise the barrier for bootkits by changing algorithms, but there can be no real protection from bootkits using only software methods. Use Secure Boot (TPM).

Would you like to add something?

Nitin & Vipin: The beauty of VBootkit lies in the fact that it isn't about someone else controlling your machine. It's about you controlling your own machine, so you can run software of your choosing. Vbootkit gives control back to the user.

Windows Vista successor scheduled for 2009 release

Jason — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:19:37 GMT

Chicago (IL) - Several industry sources have confirmed to TG Daily that a very early version of Windows 7, previously code-named Blackcomb Vienna, already has been shipped to “key partners” as a “Milestone 1” (M1) code drop for validation purposes. A roadmap received by TG Daily indicates that the new operating system will be introduced in the second half of 2009.

While it has generally been believed that Windows 7 was scheduled for a 2010 debut, Microsoft has revised the roadmap and apparently moved up the release date by a few months: A recently distributed roadmap of the OS lists a release to manufacturing in H2 2009. Microsoft declined to comment on this date.

The current M1 drop is available to Microsoft partners in English only and has shipped in x86 and x64 versions. An interesting feature that has been highlighted by Microsoft is the ability of the M1 software to handle a heterogeneous graphics system consisting of multiple graphics cards from different vendors. A new version of the Media center is already integrated in this software, but supports PC speakers only at this time.

If Microsoft will be able to keep the H2 2009 RTM (and most likely) release date in place, the company will have two busy. The M2 code drop is currently scheduled for April/May 2008, M3 will follow in the third quarter. The dates for the first Beta and the release candidate are still listed as “To be determined” but it doesn’t take much to see that the first beta versions could become available a year from now.

We will have more clarity on when we could see Windows 7 going into production will when Microsoft announces Windows Logo Program Changes for Windows 7. According to the policy of the firm, these changes will be announced 18 months prior to the scheduled RTM.

There are very few pieces of information about Windows 7 and the features it will bring available at this time. So far, we have heard only about new touchscreen features as well as – and probably most interesting – MinWin, a much smaller kernel of the operating system that takes up only 40 MB of memory

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Refresh Public Download

Jason — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:17:31 GMT

Get it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=529d992a-d69e-4c73-9213-7a7f3852c0ca&displaylang=en

Windows live Software

Jaycub990 — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:37:02 GMT

Microsoft are releasing beta versions of a new generation of Windows Live software designed for your Windows PC that makes it easier than ever to get connected to Windows Live or other services. This suite of software includes e-mail (Windows Live Mail), photo sharing (Windows Live Photo Gallery), a great publishing tool that lets you post directly to your blog (Windows Live Writer), parental controls (Windows Live OneCare Family Safety), a new version of Windows Live Messenger (8.5), and more. yesterday i installed this in windows Vista Ultimate and so far this is running smoothly and im quite happy with the results thus far

for the mods if this is posted elsewhere please delete this post

regards

http://get.live.com/wl/all

Download Vista SP1 Now!

Jason — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:36:30 GMT

In order to download SP1 RC you must go here and download the .bat file which will enable your systems Automatic Update to download the necessary prerequisites and finally SP1. It takes about 3 days for all the updates to propagate to your system but eventually you will have SP1.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9de6260e-4275-482d-9524-de850c4dd91c&displaylang=en

Enjoy! There is also a .doc included in the Microsoft download which further explains the process.

Bill Gate's last day CES Clip

Jason — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 09:02:14 GMT

[url=http://www.tweakvista.com/Article39218.aspx]http://www.tweakvista.com/Article39218.aspx[/url]

Crime really does pay

cyclic — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:12:53 GMT

How many have taken the time to read fully what MS is doing in removing the kill switch for Vista ?

It works like this, everytime you boot and at least once an hour you get a message reminding you it's not a genuine copy and a link to allow you to easily get a proper key for it...........here's the reward if you do click through and buy a key it will be at half the price of the retail upgrade version at $119 dollars............I believe they are sending out exactly the wrong message to people here, if you bought a retail copy legally and value the software enough to buy it you have paid double the amount that someone who is willing to steal it and later when caught, their punishment for which is a half price version .

So peeps like us who value their work and are willing to pay what was never a really good price and have supported their system from it's outset don't get so much as a thank you, our money is gonna be used to let acknowledged thieves the opportunity to get what we have at half the price. I wonder what we are supposed to advise people who are just thinking of buying Vista from their local retailer.......I can barely bring myself to type it, but I sure know what I would do.

Option 1. Buy a genuine copy from a retailer at lets call it world wide currency (whatever) unit of 200 whatever

Option 2. Obtain pirated copy, fail to activate, get caught, make it genuine by paying just 100 whatever

Now tell me crime doesn't pay and will Microsoft expect anyone to buy their next OS from retail ?

Windows Vista Suicide, Courtesy of McAfee

Jason — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:56:14 GMT

Windows Vista, Microsoft's extensively applauded most secure Windows platform to date can be taken down by nothing more than a mere animated cursor. I have seen this piece of news spreading, following a security advisory posted by the Microsoft Security Response Center. But what is the real deal behind this information?

Microsoft has warned that it is aware of limited and targeted attacks impacting a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Animated cursor handling. At the basis of the zero-day vulnerability is insufficient format validation, before cursors, animated cursors, and icon rendering. Security company Symantec informed that in the eventuality of a successful exploit, the attacker will be able to perform remote arbitrary code execution on the victim's machine. There are two vectors for this kind of attack, one is the Internet browser and the other is the desktop email client.

"In order for this attack to be carried out, a user must either visit a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit the vulnerability or view a specially crafted e-mail message or email attachment sent to them by an attacker," according to Microsoft Security Advisory (935423).

The zero-day Windows Animated Cursor Handling vulnerability affects a set of Windows editions including Windows Vista. Because it allows for remote code execution, the .ani files vulnerability will automatically receive the highest severity rating from Microsoft, namely Critical. The Redmond Company will not downgrade the severity level of this vulnerability for Windows Vista, although the operating system has a few mitigations in place that do not expose users as much as other editions of Windows.

"Customers who are using Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista are protected from currently known web based attacks due to Internet Explorer 7.0 protected mode. If you are reading Outlook 2007 you are protected regardless of if you are reading the mail as plain text or not. If you are reading email using Windows Mail on Vista you are protected as long are not forwarding or replying to the attackers email," Microsoft informed.

However, despite these mitigations, Windows Vista is very much vulnerable to attacks. In the video embedded at the bottom, you will be able to see Craig Schmugar, virus research manager with McAfee, send Windows Vista into a perpetual "crash-restart" loop by simply dragging a malformed .ani file to the operating system's desktop.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-Vista-Suicide-Courtesy-of-McAfee-50761.shtml

Vista sp1 rc

faust1200 — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:18:58 GMT

sp1 rc is supposed to be available to the public this week from the Microsoft download center. I don't see it yet...grrrr. If someone sees it posted somewhere please let us know. Thanks.

Microsoft Releases Updated Live Search Engine

Jason — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:56:25 GMT

[b]REDMOND, Wash. [/b]— Sept. 26, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. is releasing an update to Live Search (http://www.live.com) centered on improvements to core search technology and deeper advancements in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health. Collectively, these improvements mark a quality milestone based on the company’s focus on delivering a better search experience for consumers and advertisers.

“With this update to Live Search, our engineering focus is on the areas that matter most to our 185 million consumers who use our service every month. We have made dramatic progress in delivering a better search experience to our customers,” said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the Search and Advertising Platform Group at Microsoft. “We know what kinds of things consumers are searching for, and we have
invested in those key high-interest verticals, including entertainment, shopping, health and local search. With the core platform in place we intend to win customers and earn their loyalty one query at a time.”The majority of Live Search customer feedback has focused on improving overall search relevance to deliver richer and deeper results and investing in differentiated experiences in high-interest consumer areas such as entertainment, shopping, health and local search.

Over fourfold increase in index size. Nearly 20 percent of customer challenges came from the long tail of the Web, indicating a need for broader coverage to help ensure that the right results can be returned for the highest percentage of queries. The new Live Search has exceeded the goal of quadrupling its range of coverage, setting a foundation that will enable it continue to keep pace with the growth of the Web.
• Substantial improvements in understanding queryintent. The new Live Search does a much better job in predicting the intent of the query to return the best results possible. New investments improve the search service’s ability to read and understand queries in a way that more accurately determines intent despite common problems such as spelling errors, stop words, punctuation and synonyms.
• Significant enhancements to core algorithms.The new Live Search has incorporated more user click-stream data to inform ranking and relevancy processes, yielding more relevant results across queries.
• Increased focus on query refinement. Intelligence in the back end designed to help customers arrive at improved query suggestions helps Live Search deliver the best results, even making proactive changes to the query in cases where the engine is confident of the customer’s intent.
• New Web data extraction model. Core search innovation enables Microsoft to build rich vertical experiences that update on the fly. This technology extracts information from across the Web on products (including ratings and reviews); businesses (including locations, contact information, photos, hours of operation, ratings and reviews); celebrities (including buzz, images and videos); and more.
• Expansion of Rich Answers. Based on user feedback that sometimes people are just looking for a specific fact or answer, Live Search’s improved Answers platform provides specialized responses to queries about specific areas such as weather, images, celebrities and entertainment, sports, stocks, Yellow Pages, maps or quick facts from Encarta®. This specialized content has been more deeply integrated into the main search experience to add to custom searches such as images and mapping.

Vista's Purple Screen of Death

Jason — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:35:16 GMT

We've all heard of (and, quite unfortunately, experienced) the infamous Blue Screen of Death. Some of us who tested the earlier Windows Vista beta builds had the unique experience of trying out the Red of Screen Death, which occurred when the bootloader experienced an un-handled exception (we experienced more than our fair share of these during the early days of EasyBCD development!). And then there's Vista's Purple Screen of Death, which few have seen.

OK, perhaps its not a stereotypical "____ Screen of Death" in that its not a fatal error, it doesn't make your computer restart, and it's not as scary. But it's still caused by a low-level problem in the kernel, and it does make you want to restart your PC.

When it happens: if your WDDM drivers partially crash, and DWM doesn't properly deactivate. It's very rare smile.gif

Basically, when a window attempts to "gray out" because its unresponsive, the graphics drivers screw-up and paint it purple. Afterwards, all newly-opened windows will show the same purple tinting. We've seen this behavior on both ATi and nVidia machines, it's something to do with the way the Windows Vista kernel handles a certain exception in the graphics driver subsystem.
Pics:
[url=http://neosmart.net/gallery/v/os/Vista/RTM/Purple+Screen+of+Death_.jpg]http://neosmart.net/gallery/v/os/Vista/RTM/Purple+Screen+of+Death_.jpg[/url]

Leopard looks like … Vista

Jason — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:19:22 GMT

[b]Jobs told WWDC keynoters that he would show ten of the best of the 300 new features coming in Leopard when it ships in October this year. Here’s what Jobs’ hit list looked like to this Windows user:[/b]

1. New Leopard Desktop: Not a whole lot different from Vista’s Aero and Sidebar.

2. New Finder: Many of the same capabilities as the integrated “Instant Search” in Vista (the subsystem that Google is trying to get the Department of Justice to rule as being anti-competitive). The new Leopard Coverflow viewing capability looked almost identical to Vista’s Flip 3D to me.

3. QuickLook: Live file previews — just like the thumbnail preview capability available in Vista.

4. 64-bitness: Leopard is the first 64-bit only version of a desktop client. Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit varieties. And most expect Windows Seven will still be available in 32-bit flavors. Until 32-bit machines go away, it seems like a good idea to offer 32-bit operating systems.

5. Core animation: Not sure what the Vista comparison is here. The demo reminded me of Microsoft Max photo-sharing application. The WWDC developers attending the Jobs keynote didn’t seem wowed with this functionality.

6. Boot Camp. You can run Vista on your Mac. Apple showed Vista running Solitaire in its WWDC demo. But I bet those downloading the 2.5 million copies of Boot Camp available since last year are running a lot of other Windows business apps and games.

7. Spaces: A feature allowing users to group applications into separate spaces. I haven’t seen anything like in in Vista, but the audience didn’t seem overly impressed by it.

8. Dashboard with widgets. Isn’t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?

9. iChat gets a bunch of fun add-ons (photo-booth effects, backrops, etc.) to make it a more fully-featured videoconferencing product. The “iChat Theater” capability Jobs showed off reminded me of Vista’s Meeting Space and/or the new Microsoft “Shared View” (code-named “Tahiti”) document-sharing/conferencing subsystems.

10. Time Machine automatic backup. Vista has built-in automatic backup (Volume Shadow Copy). It doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as Time Machine. But it seems to provide a lot of the same functionality.

Granted, I am not an Apple user. So I’m sure I’m glossing over some subtleties regarding what’s new and cool in Leopard. But given how often I hear the “Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers” message, I was thinking that Leopard would be light years ahead of Vista.

So, Apple folks: What am I missing? I’m not trying to pull a Dvorak here and use this blog post for click bait. Why is Leopard so superior to Vista — other than the non-trivial fact that there will be just one version of Leopard that will be priced at $129 (as opposed to six-plus versions of Vista at a variety of price points well in excess of that amount)?

Update: And before you flame me for saying Apple copied Microsoft (which I didn’t, if you go back and reread this post), you might want to check up my second attempt to get Mac users to submit some features in Leopard that you believe will leapfrog those found in Vista.