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April 20, 2009 (Computerworld) One of the most hated features of Windows Vista will be seen a third less often by users of the upcoming Windows 7, a Microsoft executive promised today.

“You’ll see a lot fewer UAC prompts in Windows 7,” said Paul Cooke, director of Windows 7 client enterprise security.

User Account Control, or UAC, the security feature that debuted in Vista, was designed to reduce the chance that malware could hijack a PC by forcing users to confirm that they really meant to do such things as install new software or modify key operating system settings.

Full Article – http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9131852&source=rss_topic125

Today, Microsoft announced updates to its “Smooth Streaming,” which is a set of technologies for IIS and Silverlight designed to allow consistent full-screen high definition streaming.

Among Web servers, Microsoft’s IIS enjoys about 33% market share (and slipping slightly) against market leader Apache, according to Netcraft analysis. Smooth Streaming leverages IIS Media Services (formerly known as IIS Media Pack) and Silverlight 3 to provide on-demand high-def media (720p to 1080p), or live adaptive streaming. The technology was first used with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Full Article – http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-promises-Webbased-1080p-with-Smooth-Streaming/1240252285

Today, Microsoft announced updates to its “Smooth Streaming,” which is a set of technologies for IIS and Silverlight designed to allow consistent full-screen high definition streaming.

Among Web servers, Microsoft’s IIS enjoys about 33% market share (and slipping slightly) against market leader Apache, according to Netcraft analysis. Smooth Streaming leverages IIS Media Services (formerly known as IIS Media Pack) and Silverlight 3 to provide on-demand high-def media (720p to 1080p), or live adaptive streaming. The technology was first used with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Full Article – http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-promises-Webbased-1080p-with-Smooth-Streaming/1240252285

The Microsoft Learning team has come out with a great series of bite-sized “Learning Snacks” to help introduce you to new features coming in Windows 7. They’ve just released a new series of Snacks this week, and we thought you might enjoy them!

Desktop Experience in Windows 7

Setting Up a Home Network in Windows 7

Implementing User Account Control in Windows 7

Introducing BitLocker and AppLocker in Windows 7

Introducing the Troubleshooting Platform in Windows 7

Using the Deployment Image Servicing and Management Tool for Servicing Windows 7 Images

Microsoft finally is adding integration with a wider variety of third-party social networks and content to Windows Live.

From Microsoft’s Web site, where there’s an April 21 interview with Brian Hall, General Manager of the Windows Live Buiness group:

“We’re releasing an important update to Windows Live that’s really about two things. First is that we’ve added 20 new third-party content partners that you can integrate with Windows Live, bringing the total number of third-party content partners to more than 30.”

Full Article – http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2566

Ok, so maybe I was wrong about Zack Whittaker’s sources concerning visual changes coming in Office 2010. Zack recently wrote an article displaying early screenshots of user experience aspects to Office 2010 such as Microsoft Word 2010 splash screen. Zack strengthens this with further screenshots of the new Outlook, About UI interface and possibly a new Office 2010 logo.

Full Article – http://adacosta.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8E5CC039D51E3DB!23088.entry

The Outlook team would like to congratulate our friends in Exchange for announcing the Beta 1 availability of Exchange 2010, which together with Office 2010 represents the next wave in the Microsoft Office product family!

This next wave of Office-related products will enable you to be more productive across the PC, phone, and browser. Outlook 2010, together with Exchange, will continue to improve productivity with the ultimate inbox experience, through innovative end-user technologies such as:

• MailTips – Warn users before they commit an e-mail faux pas such as sending mail to large distribution groups, to recipients who are out of the office or to recipients outside the organization, helping protect against information leaks and reducing unnecessary e-mail messages.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/04/20/outlook-and-exchange-2010-the-next-wave.aspx

The Outlook team would like to congratulate our friends in Exchange for announcing the Beta 1 availability of Exchange 2010, which together with Office 2010 represents the next wave in the Microsoft Office product family!

This next wave of Office-related products will enable you to be more productive across the PC, phone, and browser. Outlook 2010, together with Exchange, will continue to improve productivity with the ultimate inbox experience, through innovative end-user technologies such as:

• MailTips – Warn users before they commit an e-mail faux pas such as sending mail to large distribution groups, to recipients who are out of the office or to recipients outside the organization, helping protect against information leaks and reducing unnecessary e-mail messages.

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2009/04/20/outlook-and-exchange-2010-the-next-wave.aspx

Almost anyone who has been following the development of Windows 7 knows that it’s currently kernel version 6.1. But all that could be set to change, at least if an obscure MSDN page is to be believed.
In a page describing device installation with the Windows Driver Kit, the documentation shows “Msft.NT.7.0” being used as a label to specify drivers only for use with Windows 7.
Previously, Neowin reported that Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows Product Management, posted on on the Windows Vista Team Blog with the official explanation that Windows 7 would be kernel version 6.1.

Full Article – http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/20/windows-7-to-also-be-version-7-of-the-windows-kernel

Arrange your photos

Now you can arrange the photos in your albums in the order you want them to appear by clicking Sort by, and selecting Arrange photos.

If you have Silverlight, you can arrange your photos by simply dragging them into the order you want. You can also sort your photos and files by name, size, date, or type. Now you can arrange the photos in your albums and slide shows and tell stories the way you want to tell  them

View photos of yourself and your friends

Coming soon when you visit your friends’ profiles you can view photos they’re tagged in by selecting “Photos of ” from the menu under their profile picture.  You’ll see this entry point in a few days! ………………Full Story with screenshots at Source

Full Article – http://skydriveteam.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!977F793E846B3C96!18733.entry

Our friends over in the Office Sustained Engineering team asked us to post this info. You should be sure to check out their blog for updated information on service releases for our supported versions of Office.

Last October, we announced the upcoming release of the 2^nd service pack for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and the 2007 Microsoft Office. Today, we’re happy to provide both a formal release date, and more details on what you should expect to see in SP2.

A fair amount has been said about SP2 already, but there is a lot more to share. We’ll cover the highlights here, but please check back on April 28th when all of our documentation will be published. It is important to remember that the information provided today is by no means a comprehensive list. We worked with the individual teams in Office to come up with a list of changes that they were most proud of and felt would be most beneficial to you, our valued customers.

Full Article – http://blogs.technet.com/mu/archive/2009/04/14/service-pack-2-for-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-april-28th.aspx

Microsoft will release a beta of Exchange Server 2010 on Wednesday, the first product that enterprise customers will see from the next version of Office.

Microsoft is also going public with the official branding of its next productivity suite — Office 2010. Until now Microsoft had been referring to it as Office 14, but the new name had been widely expected.

Exchange Server should be in full release by the end of the year, but the rest of the products in the suite won’t be out until early 2010, said Julia White, director of the Exchange product management team.

Full Article – http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/163130/microsoft_brands_office_2010_releases_exchange_beta.html

n January we blogged about our plan to distribute IE8 via Automatic Update/Windows Update (for simplicity, we’ll refer to this as Automatic Update for the rest of this blog post). This post provides some additional information about how users and administrators are in control of browser upgrades.

Last week, we released IE8 via Automatic Update to users still running pre-release versions of IE8 (Beta 2 or Release Candidate 1). The goal was to make sure users who chose to install IE8 have the latest up-to-date version.

Starting on or about the third week of April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 will get will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over time to the entire user base. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the update will be High-Priority. On Windows Vista and Server 2008 it will be Important.

IE8 will not automatically install on machines. Users must opt-in to install IE8. Users will see a Welcome screen that offers choices: Ask later, install now, or don’t install

Full Article – http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/04/10/prepare-for-automatic-update-distribution-of-ie8.aspx

QL Server 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is now available. You can use these packages to upgrade any SQL Server 2008 edition.
Note:We remain committed to our plans to keep service packs contained, focusing on essential updates only, primarily a Roll-up of Cumulative Update 1 to 3, Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) updates, as well as fixes to issues reported through the SQL Server community. While keeping product changes contained, we have made significant investments to ease deployment and management of Service Packs:

• Slipstream – You are now able to integrate the base installation with service packs (or Hotfixes) and install in a single step.
• Service Pack Uninstall – You are now able to uninstall only the Service Pack (without removing the whole instance)
• Report Builder 2.0 Click Once capability

Download – http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=66ab3dbb-bf3e-4f46-9559-ccc6a4f9dc19&displaylang=en

Office 14, the successor of Office 2007 will be named Office 2010. Office 2010 is in limited beta at the moment a more broader beta is expected in the next few months. The final release is expected in Q1 2010.